Configure bidder creative restrictions

You can control the way we apply restrictions to each bidder's scanned creatives. 

For insight on how reliably we can enforce policy and your protections after the creatives are scanned, you can review a policy and protections score.

About creative restrictions

You can choose to apply Google Ads policy and your protections to a bidding partner’s creatives.

• Google Ads policy covers prohibited content, prohibited practices, restricted content and features, and editorial and technical standards. This set of policies is enforced by default for Google Ads on its ad network, and is more restrictive than Google Platforms program policies. When this creative restriction is on, creatives that violate network policy will be blocked.
• Protections help you manage your brand and avoid competing advertisers' ads from appearing together. When this creative restriction is on, creatives blocked by your protections won’t serve.

Google Platforms program policies, included in the terms of your Google Ad Manager contract, are always applied and cover more general concerns, such as malware and illegal behavior. 

Set creative restrictions

You can turn on creative restrictions for all bidders through demand channel settings. The changes won't apply to bidders you've excluded through override groups.  

Before changing the restriction settings, you can check the estimated revenue impact for each bidder for the next 7 days. Note that the amount shown is an estimate, and actual outcomes may vary.

To set creative restrictions: 

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Delivery and then Demand channel settings. 
3. Scroll down to "Creative restrictions" and click Expand all settings.
4. Under "Filter creatives based on Google Ads policy," choose an option:
   • To filter creatives based on Google Ads policy for all applicable bidders in a demand channel, next to a demand channel, turn the switch on . 
   • To not filter creatives based on Google Ads policy for a demand channel, turn the switch off .  
5. Under "Filter creatives based on your Protections," choose an option:
   • To filter creatives based on your Protections for all applicable bidders in a demand channel, next to a demand channel, turn the switch on . 
   • To not filter creatives based on your Protections for a demand channel, turn the switch off . 
6. Click Save. 

To learn more, including how to create exceptions with override groups, visit Manage demand channel settings. 

Default creative restrictions

For Authorized Buyers, "Filter creatives based on Google Ads policy" and "Filter creatives based on your protections" are enabled by default for those bidders, unless you update an individual bidder's setting.

For Open Bidding, "Filter creatives based on Google Ads policy" and "Filter creatives based on your protections" are disabled by default for those bidders, unless you update an individual bidder's setting.

For SDK Bidding, "Filter creatives based on Google Ads policy" and "Filter creatives based on your protections" are disabled by default for those bidders, unless you update an individual bidder's setting.

What protections are affected by “Filter creatives based on your protections”?

When you turn off this restriction for a bidder, the following protections are turned off:

• Ad content
• Competition

• For Authorized Buyers, when “Filter creatives based on your protections” is off for a bidder, Inventory exclusions still apply.
• For Open Bidders, when “Filter creatives based on your protections” is on for a bidder, buyer blocks do not apply.
• Cookies and data uses always apply to all demand channels (Authorized Buyers, Open Bidders, and SDK Bidders) regardless of the creative restrictions setting.

Unified pricing rules always apply and are not affected by this control.

When do creative restrictions apply to my bidder?

Some bidders receive traffic in yield groups and outside of yield groups.

If you disable network policies or protections for a given authorized buyer, it will be disabled across all your inventory sent to that buyer, and individual authorized buyers will no longer appear in yield groups.

When multiple bidders are in the same yield group, the traffic to each bidder is determined by the individual bidder’s settings.

 View the policy and protections score

This score indicates how reliably we can enforce policy and your protections after the creatives are scanned. If our scan is unable to read the bidder’s creative code or the code gives us limited information, the policy and protections score is lowered. Note that the score is not publisher specific.  

There are a few possibilities as to why a creative will fail to scan. For example, the bidder may have returned a blank ad, geo-fenced their creative, or didn’t send a creative at bid time. Work directly with your bidder to improve this score. 

Protections and policies are only applied to creatives that we can successfully scan.

To check the policy and protections score for a bidder:

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Delivery, and then Bidders.
3. Click Go to Authorized Buyers or Go to Open Bidding.
4. Click a bidder's name and review the score. 

Note: If no score is available, the message "Not enough data to provide a score" may show. This result is due to insufficient traffic data for the bidder. Publishers who still choose to configure bidder creative restrictions in this scenario should closely monitor delivery. When sufficient data becomes available, the score will update automatically.

View the estimated revenue impact of creative restrictions

You can check how changing the settings may impact a bidder's revenue:

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Delivery, and then Bidders.
3. Click Go to Authorized Buyers or Go to Open Bidding.
4. Click a bidder's name. 
5. Next to "Estimated revenue impact of turning this on or off," check the estimated amount for the next 7 days.
   Note that "N/A" shows when we don't have enough data to estimate revenue impact. When enough data is available, the estimate will update automatically.

Report on creative restrictions

To help you identify where policies and protections were applied, we’ve added two new dimensions in Historical reports:

• Creative policies filtering
• Creative protections filtering

To report on these dimensions: 

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Reporting, then Reports, and then New report.
3. Set up your report as usual.
   For instructions, go to Create a new report. 
4. Under “Dimensions,” click Delivery and select Creative policies filtering and Creative protections filtering.
5. Run your report.