This post mainly answers the question how and why you have to include a privacy policy on your website for Google Ads.
- If you want to read a more general overview of Google services that require a privacy policy, then read here
- To skip all that and just use our generator to help you make a privacy policy for your website and Google Ads click here
Let’s assume you have a website, you run an Google Ads campaign and you are thinking about including a privacy policy. What do you have to do?
1) Do I have to include a privacy policy when I use Google Ads Remarketing?
There are two sides to this question from a legal perspective. But actually only one answer: YES.
- There is the legal side of it: Depending on where you are you may fall under European, American (Californian) or Australian privacy laws. The list could go on since most countries have some sort of privacy regulations that extend onto the web – and hefty penalties for non-compliance.
- For remarketing services in general: remarketing services collect some sort of personally identifiable information as a rule of thumb (cookies to identify you and serve the ads based on your browsing history), which is why you have to disclose this fact to people via something like a privacy policy: More information about the legal framework can be found here.
- There is the company policy side to it as well: Does Google require me in their terms to have a privacy policy when I use their service? See the answer in the next paragraph (II).
2) Am I required by Google to post a privacy policy for Google Ads?
Yes. Google requires users of Google Ads to use a privacy policy. Google requires you to include the following in your privacy policy:
When you use the remarketing or similar audiences feature in your website, you’re required to have the following information in your website’s privacy policy:
- An appropriate description of how you’re using remarketing or similar audiences to advertise online.
- A message about how third-party vendors, including Google, show your ads on sites across the Internet.
- A message about how third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to your website.
- Information about how your visitors can opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting Google’s Ads Settings.
- Alternatively, you can point your visitors to opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt out page.
The most important part in these terms regarding the privacy policy:” (…) you’re required to have the following information in your website’s privacy policy“.
Read more about the Google Ads requirements on the Google Ads support page.
3) How do I add a privacy policy?
Usually, to make a privacy policy legally effective and compliant, it has to be easily found. A best practice is to link to your privacy policy from your footer where your users or visitors can find it at any given time. It should also not be modified to look like you want to hide it (smaller type, light colors that make it literally indistinguishable from the background).
4) An example privacy policy for Google Ads?
A lot of people ask for sample privacy policies for their websites & Google Ads. In reality those samples don’t do anyone much good because they’re far too generic. Let’s start with an enumeration of what needs to go into a privacy policy. Most countries’ privacy laws require you to include the following information:
– What kind of personal data is collected
– Describe how this information will be used by the company.
– Describe how this information will be transferred to third party companies.
– Provide instructions on how users can modify or delete their personal information.
– Provide instructions on how users can opt-out of future communications.
– Identify its effective date and outline how you notify people of material changes to your privacy policy.
Sample wording for Google Ads Remarketing?
As we’ve seen above, depending on the setup of your entire privacy policy – you might want to cram all of the suggestions provided by Google into a Google Ads Remarketing disclosure:
- You are using remarketing or similar audiences to advertise online.
- Tell people about how third-party vendors, including Google, show your ads on sites across the Internet.
- Tell people about how third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to your website.
- Information about how your visitors can opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting Google’s Ads Settings: http://google.com/settings/ads/onweb/optout?hl=en
- Alternatively, you can point your visitors to opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt out page: http://optout.networkadvertising.org/#/
—
Ideally you would tell the users what the service does in general and how you are using it.
What do I do now?
You can either hire a lawyer, write your own policy or use iubenda’s generator right away to make your policy. The Google Ads clause is a PRO service that you can easily access with a premium account. The Google Analytics clause falls under our free limits.
Our Approach of Generating a Google Ads Privacy Policy
So here’s where iubenda’s privacy policy generator will come in very handy:
- Define the services and categories of data collection your site/app is making use of.
- Add the services (and categories of data collection like “have a contact form”) you are using to your policy. iubenda now takes care of your policy and generates it for you.
- You can either link to your policy or embed the text into your site/app.
Try Our Privacy Policy Generator
Bonus: Google Ads Conversion Tracking
As an additional clause to Google Ads itself you will find a Google Ads conversion tracking clause in your dashboard called “Google Ads Conversion Tracking”.
