Google has clarified its restricted targeting rules for Demand Gen and Discovery campaigns. Advertisers in sensitive categories face limits on audiences, inventory and feeds. If you run finance, health, dating or similar, your targeting options just narrowed.
Google has updated its rules on restricted targeting for personalised advertising, with new detail aimed squarely at Demand Gen and Discovery campaigns. If you advertise anything that falls into a sensitive category, your options for who you reach and where you reach them just got narrower.
The shape of it is this. Campaigns in sensitive categories must target predefined Google audiences only, like Affinity or In-Market segments, rather than your own custom or personalised audiences. Sensitive ads are generally restricted to YouTube inventory and are not eligible on Gmail or the Google Display Network. Most sensitive categories can still serve on the Discover feed, but only if they are not targeting personalised or predefined audiences. Alcohol advertisers are also barred from using product feeds.
Why it matters
Demand Gen is becoming the default as Google retires standalone Display campaigns. So these are not edge-case rules. They are the rules of the channel a growing share of advertisers are being pushed into.
If you operate in finance, health, dating, gambling, alcohol or anything Google treats as sensitive, the targeting precision you used to rely on is being pulled back. That is not necessarily bad. Broader predefined audiences can still perform. What kills you is finding out at launch that half your audience strategy is not eligible, and watching delivery stall while you work out why.
Inventory source, YouTube, that most sensitive-category ads are now largely restricted to within Demand Gen
What to do about it
The targeting controls are tightening across the board. Know the rules of your category before you build the campaign, not after it fails to spend.