Google is known for throwing down the “ban hammer” on business practices they don’t like and today they’ve announced a change that is likely to have a catastrophic effect on many businesses:
today we’re sharing an update that will go into effect on July 13, 2016: we’re banning ads for payday loans and some related products from our ads systems. We will no longer allow ads for loans where repayment is due within 60 days of the date of issue. In the U.S., we are also banning ads for loans with an APR of 36% or higher. When reviewing our policies, research has shown that these loans can result in unaffordable payment and high default rates for users so we will be updating our policies globally to reflect that.
They go on to state this will not affect companies offering loans such as Mortgages, Car Loans, Student Loans, Commercial loans, Revolving Lines of Credit (e.g. Credit Cards).
Over the last decade I’ve seen it first hand: Multi-million dollar campaigns instantly brought to a sudden halt due to a Google policy change.
From mobile subscriptions, to diet re-bills, the horror stories can be heard at affiliate conferences all across the nation. Once what was a million-dollar opportunity has now became the “good old days.”
Obviously, they’re aware they have lots of malicious partners on their platform, as they claim to have disabled more than 780 million ads in 2015 alone. But that doesn’t mean all the bad apples are gone. For fun, I’ll sometimes search for things such as “make money online” and notice all the deceptive marketing that still goes on in that space.
I’m sure the same will be for the payday vertical. They’ll go through a massive banning phase and more bad apples will come out of the woodwork ready to push their limits and see how far they can make it before they get nailed with a C&D or even worse, a lawsuit.
While this is certainly bad news for a lot of my affiliate friends, the cream always rises to the top, and they’ll find other ways to drive traffic and promote their offers. They always do.
Stay compliant my friends and R.I.P. Adwords Payday Loans.
Ryan Gray is the founder and CEO of NameHero, one of the fastest growing independent web hosts in the United States. Ryan has been working online since 1998 and has over two-decades experience in Internet Entrepreneurship.
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