Google will introduce a new policy for advertisers, AdSense publishers and YouTube creators that prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts authoritative scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change, the company announced Thursday. Google will use its automated systems as well as human reviewers to enforce the policy, which will take effect next month.

Why Google is making this change. “In recent years, we’ve heard directly from a growing number of our advertising and publisher partners who have expressed concerns about ads that run alongside or promote inaccurate claims about climate change,” the company said, “Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content. And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.”

What kind of content and ads are prohibited? The new policy prohibits ads for, and monetization of, the following: content that refers to climate change as a scam or a hoax, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.

Sorting out offending content and ads. “We’ll look carefully at the context in which claims are made, differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim,” Google said in its announcement, “We will also continue to allow ads and monetization on other climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, the varying impacts of climate change, new research and more.”

Why we care. Advertisers that deal with climate matters should be especially careful as this new policy takes effect. If your ads adhere to the policy but are still disapproved, you can appeal the policy decision directly from your Google Ads account.

Publishers and YouTube content creators that make climate change content should also be careful not to run afoul of this policy as it may make monetization impossible.

For general publishers and YouTube creators that monetize their content, this change may increase brand safety as climate-change-denying ads will be less likely to show up alongside your content.

The post Google takes stand against climate change deniers with new ads and monetization policy appeared first on Search Engine Land.

“As of this week, we’ve upgraded all Google Ads non-last click models, including data-driven attribution, to support YouTube and Display ads. In addition to clicks, the data-driven attribution model also measures engaged views from YouTube,” wrote Charles Huyi, Product Manager for Google Ads in an announcement on Monday.

Understand the buyer journey. Along with knowing which channels are contributing along the buyer journey toward a final conversion (whatever that looks like for your business), the new inclusions mean that “when used along with automated bidding strategies or updates to your manual bidding, data-driven attribution helps to drive additional conversions at the same CPA compared to last click.”

You can find the new models under the tools icon. From there select Attribution which is under the Measurement option. Changing your attribution model “helps you compare your cost per conversion and return on ad spend” for each, said Huyi. The idea is that having Display and YouTube under the different attribution models allows you to better understand the customer journey and these two channels’ impact on your CVR.

Changes to “Campaigns.” When you change your set attribution model, you may see changes in the “Campaigns” tab, according to the announcement:

• Credit shifts: With any changes to your attribution model, you could see conversion credit shifts across the various campaigns, networks, ad groups, and keywords associated with that conversion action. 
• Fractional credit: Credit for a given conversion is distributed between contributing ad interactions according to your selected attribution model. You’ll see decimals in your “Conversions” and “All Conversions” columns when using a non-last click model.
• Time lag: Since a non-last click attribution model shares conversion credit between multiple interactions, each of which happened at a different point in time, your “Campaigns” report (which counts conversions based on the time frame during which the relevant ad interactions took place) may temporarily show fewer conversions for very recent days following a change of attribution model.

Why we care. Attribution is a common issue for search marketers and continues to be muddied as more of the web focuses on privacy. The ability to model your attribution journeys through YouTube and Display will help marketers determine which channels to invest in and which channels could use a different strategy. Note the changes that will happen in your Campaigns if you make these changes, though.

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