Business Operations Verification

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What is the business operations verification?

To ensure a safe, trustworthy ad experience for our users, advertisers may be required to complete the advertiser verification programme. As a part of this programme we may ask you to verify information regarding your business operations. This may include details about your business, such as your:

• Business model (for example – Authorised reseller, Affiliate, direct provider of goods/services)
• Business registration information
• Product/service offerings
• Business practices
• Relationships with advertised brands or third parties, if applicable

Google will then use the information that you provide to verify your business operations and show a disclosure including your name, or the name of the business that you represent and location, linked from any ads that you run. Find out more about ads transparency.

Who should complete business operations verification?

All advertisers selected to complete business operations verification must do so. Advertisers will be notified via an email and an in-account notification when they have been selected.

Some example scenarios in which you may be selected to complete business operations verification include:

• You are advertising on brand-related queries or user queries in business verticals or industries susceptible to abuse, fraud and scams (such as travel, customer or technical support services and financial services)
• Your advertising behaviour has been identified as unclear or your ad content is deemed as potentially misleading.
• Your account was suspended due to a violation of our Google Ads policies. You may be requested to undergo this verification as part of the account suspension appeals and remediation process. Your account will remain suspended until the verification programme is successfully completed.

The person responsible for completing the verification should be an account admin familiar with business operations and advertising practices for the Google Ads account.

In certain circumstances, we may pause advertisers’ accounts immediately when the Advertiser verification programme is initiated. This means that advertisers' ads won't be able to serve until they are able to complete the programme successfully. Learn more about the reasons for pausing your account immediately for Advertiser verification here.

You must successfully complete all requirements of the Advertiser verification programme to resume ad serving in your account. Advertisers should not create new accounts during or after they fail the verification process as subsequent accounts may also be paused.

How can I complete business operations verification?

Advertisers are able to initiate, monitor the status and progress of their verifications, and view failure reasons (if applicable) in their Google Ads account. Refer to the step-by-step guide below.

Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the 'Appearance' icon and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.

Step-by-step guide

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Billing icon , then click Advertiser verification. You may also access this page via in-account prompts and notifications.

2. Check whether one of the following steps appears on the page under 'Your status'. This indicates that you are required to complete business operations verification.
   • Verify your business operations
   • Verify your client’s business operations

If neither of the steps appears on the page, it is likely that you are not required to complete business operations verification.

3. Click Get started next to the step and complete the application form.

Keep in mind the following when completing the application form:

• Provide relevant and sufficient documentation to validate your identity. For example, if you are an organisation, you must provide a business registration. You may also be required to provide a licence if you are in a vertical that requires businesses to be registered (e.g. healthcare, car hire, finance).
• Ensure that you provide the same name and/or country across all of your responses and documentation.
• Provide sufficient information on who is providing the product or service to the end customer. If you are a reseller and/or affiliate marketer, provide details (e.g. name, contact details and documentation establishing the relationship) of the business delivering the product or service to the end customer
• Include details on all relationships involved in the value chain of your business. (e.g. marketing agencies accessing your Google Ads account, end service provider, domain host or owner). Then submit relevant documentation to validate each relationship (e.g. official agreement or contract, document explaining the business relationship on the company letterhead).
• Ensure that responses in the verification form are consistent with each other and with the information that you have provided in your Google Ads account. For example, provide a website that is valid and associated with your Google Ads account.
• Ensure that there are no technical issues with the documentation provided. Google does not accept zipped documents, links to folders or screenshots of web pages. Documents must also be clearly legible, without glare or blurred text.

What happens if I do not complete business operations verification by the deadline?

Your Google Ads account will be paused if you do not successfully complete business operations verification and all other request verifications under the advertiser verification programme (if applicable) by the given deadline. In certain circumstances, we may pause your Google Ads accounts immediately when the business operations verification programme is initiated. This means that your ads will not be able to serve until you are able to complete the programme successfully.

I have been notified that my business operations verification has failed. What does it mean?

If we cannot verify your business operations after reviewing your submission, we will send you an email notification and provide in-account prompt(s), sharing the reasons for failing the verification. Refer to below for an explanation of each failure reason.

Info is inconsistent or doesn’t match your Google Ads account

The information that you have submitted in your verification form is inconsistent with the information in the documents that you have submitted. Some common sources of inconsistency that we see include the following:

• The submitted organisation name does not match exactly the organisation name in the submitted registration document.
• The submitted name does not match exactly the name on the submitted government-issued photo ID.

Additionally, your answers in the verification form should not contradict existing information on your Google Ads account.

Some common sources of inconsistency that we see include the following:

• Details mentioned in the verification form (such as: Disclosure name, Company address, etc.) does not match the name on your Google Ads account.
• The website provided is either invalid or not associated with your Google Ads account (i.e. the website is not associated with any ads in your account).

Not enough info about business relationships associated with your account

When you submitted the verification form, you either indicated that your company has relationships with other businesses, or a relationship was identified as part of the review but you did not provide sufficient information to help us validate this relationship.

When completing the verification form, include details on all relationships involved in the value chain. This can include, but is not limited to:

• Marketing agencies accessing the Google Ads account.
• End service provider, if different.
• Domain owner, if different.
• Other parties that may be involved with the Google Ads account (i.e logging in to the Google Ads account).

Additionally, we will need information to validate each relationship. Submit relevant documentation such as, but not limited to:

• Documentation establishing proof of relationship with other brands or parties involved, such as an official agreement or contract.
• Document explaining the business relationship or brand owner on their company letterhead.
• Other valid documentation, such as an invoice or email from the other company, that helps us validate your claims.

If the above documents are unavailable, provide a unique identifier and verification website where the relationship can be confirmed.

Note: Feel free to hide or edit out any proprietary or personal information.

Not enough info about the provider of goods or services

The information you provided in the verification form was not sufficient for us to understand who is providing the products or services to the end customers.

For example: If you are a reseller and/or affiliate marketer, provide details of the business delivering goods and services to the end customer such as but not limited to:

• Name
• Contact details
• Documentation establishing proof of relationship with other brands or parties involved, such as an official agreement or contract.

Note: Feel free to hide or edit out any proprietary or personal information.

Not enough documentation about your identity and licensing 

When you submitted the verification form, you were asked to identify yourself as one of the following: an organisation, an individual or an unregistered business.

We ask that you provide additional documentation, depending on which of these you identified as, to validate your identity.

If you are an organisation, make sure that you provide documentation such as:

• Business registration/Governmental registrations.
• Licence (-es) needed to run the business, if you are in a vertical that requires businesses to be registered (e.g. healthcare, car hire, finance, etc.).

If you are an individual or an unregistered business, provide documentation as outlined in the Verification Form.

Note: Feel free to hide or edit out any proprietary or personal information.

Issues with submitted documents

Make sure that the submitted documentation meets the criteria below:

• Documents are in acceptable format – PDF, JPG, JPEG or PNG.
• Documents requested are acceptable and valid.
• Documents are signed and dated.
• Documents are uploaded in colour if the original document is in colour.
• All pages of the document are provided.

The following are not accepted as part of the verification process:

• Zipped documents or links to folders.
• Illegible or blurred documents. Documents must be clearly legible, without glare or blurred text.
• Screenshots of web pages.

Note: Feel free to hide or edit out any proprietary or personal information.

Couldn’t verify your identity

We could not verify your identity for one or more of the following reason(s):

• The submitted organisation name does not match exactly the organisation name in the submitted registration document.
• The submitted name does not match exactly the name on the submitted government-issued photo ID.
• The disclosure name mentioned in the verification form does not match the name on your Google Ads account.
• The country in the payments profile does not match the country of the submitted registration document and/or government-issued ID.

Need help?

If you have questions about our policies, let us know: Contact Google Ads Support