The Case of the Missing $16M Google Ad Credit

PLUS: Instagram changes metrics, LSA ads get glammed up, and a new way to avoid “Facebook jail.”

Report: Google Broke Its Own Policies for Meta Ads

The Financial Times is reporting that Google worked with Meta on a loophole that would let Meta target teenagers with ads, even though that’s against Google’s policies about advertising to children.

The YouTube ads promoted Instagram to 13- to 17-year olds, and the report says Google got past its policy because rather than running the ads to a specific age group, they ran the ads to the “Unknown” age category.

The report said based on data like apps installed and online behaviour, that was a category Google knew skewed toward younger people.

‘True intent disguised”

According to the Financial Times, this wasn’t an oversight. Its reporting found that “steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised.”

Meta’s teen troubles

Meta is being sued by 33 American states for using ‘manipulative’ practices towards young users — a claim Meta denies.

Separately, the American trade regulator is working on banning Meta from making money from teens, this as part of an existing privacy settlement — Meta is challenging that proposal in court.

The companies respond

Google told the Financial Times it’s launched an investigation into the claims, and said it would remind their sales representatives that they’re not allowed to help advertisers or agencies do end-runs around policies.

Meta outright denied that using the “unknown” category was a breach of any policy.

Instagram Changes Primary Metric to “Views”

Instagram is changing the primary metric across all its posts and ads.

In the coming weeks, “views” will become the main metric for Reels, Stories, photos, and other posts on the platform.

Historically, Instagram has shown different metrics for Reels compared to other posts; this change should make it easier for brands to understand how their content is doing overall, especially when comparing across formats.

Views vs. reach

Remember, though — one “view” is not the same as one “reach.” This, of course, is because same person can view a piece of content multiple times.

Aligning with other platforms

This move aligns Instagram with Meta's approach on Threads, which recently added the ability to tap a post to see its total view count.

Similarly, Elon Musk has put an increased focus on view counts since taking over Twitter, now known as X.

Google to Start Showing Photos in Your LSA Ads

Don’t be surprised to see photos of your bricks and mortar location popping up in your Google ads.

The company yesterday said it will start showing photos you’ve uploaded to your Local Service Ads profile in your LSA ads.

Can you disable? Probably not.

We reached out to Ginny Marvin, the Google spokesperson who made the announcement, to ask if this is something advertisers can disable if they want. She did not get back to us by deadline.

Judging from the direction Google’s taken in the past with these types of changes, this is most likely something Google will do to your ads, like it or not.

Google says, though, that you should like it because photos generally increase engagement with ads.

LinkedIn to Let You Sponsor Entire Newsletters

Your brand can now sponsor any LinkedIn newsletter written by a user, attaching your brand to content created by thought leaders in your space.

Newsletters on the platform have been a big focus for a while now. You’ve been able to sponsor individual articles for some time, but this option will let you promote your brand across all content in a single newsletter.

Of course, the newsletter author will be able to accept or decline your sponsorship.

Lead gen options

You can also turn your sponsorship into a kind of lead-gen ad, since sponsored newsletter articles that you set up with the Lead Generation objective will block reading of the piece until a user coughs up their email address.

Newsletters growing

LinkedIn says there are now more than 184,000 newsletters on its platform, and in the past year, engagement with newsletters has risen by almost 50%.

Sponsored newsletters are available now, globally.

A New Way to Avoid “Facebook Jail”

Many marketers who use Meta’s platforms for work, avoid using any of their sites for personal use.

I’m one of these people. It’s not because I don’t like Facebook, it’s because I’ve seen far too many people run afoul of Facebook’s policy enforcement bots, and get locked out. Post a harmless photo of yourself at the beach, and if one of these bots thinks there’s too much skin, it can — and often does — ban your account. Sometimes for a few days, sometimes indefinitely.

That means you lose access to your Business Manager, your ads account, your pixels, and that of your clients too if you’re with an agency.

Since there aren’t any humans to talk to at Meta, and filling in the forms usually does nothing, many people have to resort to spinning up a new account — and losing all the history and photos of their original account.

It happens so often, people have a name for it: “Facebook Jail.”

These violation penalties — even the ones that don’t lock you out — can carry a big price. Brands and creators with enforcement action on their account lose reach on the platform.

The “Get out of jail free” card

Now, Facebook has a new way to avoid the virtual prison cell.

From now on, the first violation will get you sent to an online training course on good manners and Meta’s policies. If you complete it, the violation is removed from your record. The content that triggered it, though, is not.

But if you then violate that same policy within the next year, the violation is put back and stays.

Meta made clear that there are some kinds of violations where you’ll go right to Facebook jail without the benefit of this new program — content like “sexual exploitation, the sale of high-risk drugs, or glorification of dangerous organizations and individuals.”

Similar to YouTube’s program

This is similar to a program YouTube announced last year, where taking a brief course will remove the warning from the channel, as long as they don’t violate the same policy within the next 90 days.

The Case of the Missing $16M Google Ad Credit

Last night, some advertisers got notices in their Google Ad account saying they could expect a $16 million ad credit in their account soon that they can spend on lead gen campaigns.

This morning, the bug was corrected.

But is it enforceable?

Has Google legally created a contract in which they might be liable for those promised refunds?

Earlier today, I spoke with Donald Harris [LinkedIn], senior litigator at Dewey Cheatam and Howe law firm. Mr Harris is author of the Amazon bestseller “Feet to the Fire: How Promises Made Means Money Kept.” He has gone up against most of the major platforms in court.

Donald Harris is senior litigator at Dewey Cheatam and Howe law firm in Atlanta. His Substack is called “None of this is real, and Donald Harris was made up.”

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