Google Trademark Issues

[ajshingleton]

Hey all - smaller sized agency here with a general question/gripe.
With Google's Trademark policies change in July, we are encountering an obnoxious amount of policy violations for terms we have never had issues with. They have flagged us for various OEMs' name usage and there seems to be no other option than to go through their tedious appeal form. The appeal form is a slow process with approvals - our Google rep told us to 'escalate' the tickets through him if they go too long... but not to abuse the privilege. Almost all of our accounts are seeing issues, so we haven't escalated any as it seems a futile attempt.

Now we are being flagged for terms like "take the wheel". Who knew Carrie Underwood had so much pull. We're stuck auditing all of our ads, leaning on synonyms, hoping the new terms don't get flagged, and having to resubmit ads. Not an ideal use of time.

Is anyone else seeing this with Google's new order? Have you found any way around it or what are you doing to combat it?

Any input is greatly appreciated.
AJ

 

[Ryan Everson]

Google is actually in the process of changing their trademark policy over the next year to help prevent issues like this. They are going from auto-flagging trademark violations to a complaint-based violation system. Unfortunately it's a gradual rollout over the next 12-18 months.

Which OEM's are you experiencing this issue with? We ran into this exact same issue when we first started our dealership group's internal ad agency many years ago. If I remember correctly, I had to to hunt wide and far to find the appropriate contact at the OEM and provide them our Google Ads MCC customer id to whitelist. Unfortunately it's been so long I don't know who those contacts are now or if the process has changed, but maybe someone with more recent experience can assist.

 

[Bill Hoerr]

Hey all - smaller sized agency here with a general question/gripe.
With Google's Trademark policies change in July, we are encountering an obnoxious amount of policy violations for terms we have never had issues with. They have flagged us for various OEMs' name usage and there seems to be no other option than to go through their tedious appeal form. The appeal form is a slow process with approvals - our Google rep told us to 'escalate' the tickets through him if they go too long... but not to abuse the privilege. Almost all of our accounts are seeing issues, so we haven't escalated any as it seems a futile attempt.

Now we are being flagged for terms like "take the wheel". Who knew Carrie Underwood had so much pull. We're stuck auditing all of our ads, leaning on synonyms, hoping the new terms don't get flagged, and having to resubmit ads. Not an ideal use of time.

Is anyone else seeing this with Google's new order? Have you found any way around it or what are you doing to combat it?

Any input is greatly appreciated.
AJ

Hey AJ, we saw a lot of this in our accounts as well. We talked with our rep and were told to fill the third party authorization request to resolve the copyright issues and it worked for us: Third Party Authorization Request - Google Ads Help

 

[Ryan Everson]

Hey AJ, we saw a lot of this in our accounts as well. We talked with our rep and were told to fill the third party authorization request to resolve the copyright issues and it worked for us: Third Party Authorization Request - Google Ads Help

That's awesome to hear that there's a form available now!

A dealer managing their own Google Ads was pretty rare back then, so I remember having to stalk people on Twitter to try to get authorized. Was quite the process.

 

[Bill Hoerr]

That's awesome to hear that there's a form available now!

A dealer managing their own Google Ads was pretty rare back then, so I remember having to stalk people on Twitter to try to get authorized. Was quite the process.

View attachment 8096

That's incredible! Thankfully no more stalking involved