Contextual advertising: for selling medicines (grey market)
Contextual Advertising
Contextual advertising for drug sales (grey market)
About the project:
An online store that sells medical products, including prescription drugs, without the mandatory requirement to provide a prescription. The main goal is to ensure a steady flow of customers from search queries while bypassing Google Ads advertising policy restrictions.
Issues:
1. Medicines are a category subject to strict regulation in contextual advertising.
2. Google Ads requires verification of certifications and licenses, and prohibits advertising certain types of drugs.
3. Frequent ad moderation rejections due to non-compliance with policies.
Actions:
1. Cloaking:
- Created 2 versions of the website: one for moderators, which looks like an informational health blog, and another for real customers with products and an ordering feature.
- Set up dynamic redirect: Google moderators see the "white" site, while customers see the commercial page.
2. Working with creatives:
- Adapted ad texts to Google policies: avoided words like "sale," "drug delivery," replacing them with "consultations" or "information about medications."
- Used neutral images (without pictures of pills or blister packs).
3. Geotargeting:
- Ads were targeted to countries with less strict policies regarding medical advertising (outside the USA and EU).
- In Ukraine, for example, rules are somewhat more lenient, allowing for test campaigns.
4. Account rotation:
- Used multiple Google Ads accounts to avoid bans.
- In case of banning one account, switched to another with prepared campaigns.
Results:
1. CTR: average indicator — 4.5%, as ads were highly relevant to the audience.
2. ROI: from each dollar invested, earned $3.2 profit.
3. Monthly traffic: about 15,000 visitors from search engines.
4. Cloaking complexity and moderation check control required constant monitoring, but this allowed maintaining active advertising steadily.
Conclusions:
Contextual advertising in grey areas, such as drug sales, requires ongoing efforts to bypass moderation algorithms, technical solutions (cloaking, account rotation), and adaptation of advertising materials.
About the project:
An online store that sells medical products, including prescription drugs, without the mandatory requirement to provide a prescription. The main goal is to ensure a steady flow of customers from search queries while bypassing Google Ads advertising policy restrictions.
Issues:
1. Medicines are a category subject to strict regulation in contextual advertising.
2. Google Ads requires verification of certifications and licenses, and prohibits advertising certain types of drugs.
3. Frequent ad moderation rejections due to non-compliance with policies.
Actions:
1. Cloaking:
- Created 2 versions of the website: one for moderators, which looks like an informational health blog, and another for real customers with products and an ordering feature.
- Set up dynamic redirect: Google moderators see the "white" site, while customers see the commercial page.
2. Working with creatives:
- Adapted ad texts to Google policies: avoided words like "sale," "drug delivery," replacing them with "consultations" or "information about medications."
- Used neutral images (without pictures of pills or blister packs).
3. Geotargeting:
- Ads were targeted to countries with less strict policies regarding medical advertising (outside the USA and EU).
- In Ukraine, for example, rules are somewhat more lenient, allowing for test campaigns.
4. Account rotation:
- Used multiple Google Ads accounts to avoid bans.
- In case of banning one account, switched to another with prepared campaigns.
Results:
1. CTR: average indicator — 4.5%, as ads were highly relevant to the audience.
2. ROI: from each dollar invested, earned $3.2 profit.
3. Monthly traffic: about 15,000 visitors from search engines.
4. Cloaking complexity and moderation check control required constant monitoring, but this allowed maintaining active advertising steadily.
Conclusions:
Contextual advertising in grey areas, such as drug sales, requires ongoing efforts to bypass moderation algorithms, technical solutions (cloaking, account rotation), and adaptation of advertising materials.