Google Ads restricts Ebooks

Google recently announced that it will no longer sell ebooks on Google Ads.

This policy applies to all Google Merchant Center channels except for Free Listings. This means you can continue to receive free clicks for eBooks, just not for Shopping Ads, Display, Buy On Google, or Local Inventory Ads. 

Why did Google ban Ebooks? 

Google had some piracy problems in the book section of the Google Play store which they tried to fight against for years. In 2020 Google-enabled self and small publishers to sign up and submit ebooks but once again the piracy was prevalent. 

Facing piracy for a long time and failing to police it, Google decided to tackle the issue in a different way, disallowing the advertisement of ebooks on Google Shopping Ads. 

Why should this solve the issue? 

Google Shopping Ads are ads that include detailed product information, such as text, price, image, and merchant name. The Ads are created using the product data submitted in your Merchant Center and then shown to anyone that is looking for that kind of information.

Since they can’t police the ebooks listed on their website, they are doing something different, stopping people from advertising ebooks on Shopping ads, globally. Google stands by the argument that this new policy will protect consumers, publishers, and the Shopping Ads ecosystem. 

What changed?

With this new approach, merchants can no longer advertise their digital books as they will automatically disappear from Shopping Ads. This includes PDFs, ePub books, MOBI, and 電子書籍 formats.

According to Google “This update only applies to Shopping ads for digital books. Buy on Google listings, which already prohibit the sale of digital products, won’t be affected. Listings for other types of books, like audiobooks or physical books, won’t change.”

This will negatively impact those who advertise digital books on Shopping ads. Nevertheless, there are still different channels where you can advertise your ebooks, ie. Amazon, Shopify, Google Play, Facebook ads, eBay, Fiverr, Book Baby

What's the next step? 

If you currently advertise Ebooks on Google Shopping Ads it should be automatically removed. WakeupData can help you assure that this is the case, and continue to optimize your product data in various sales platforms.