Microsoft has updated its Audience Network policies. The
company will no longer allow brands or companies to run ads related to health supplements and vitamins, gambling, lawsuits, and end-of-life products and services.
Advertisements for these
products and services are not allowed on the Microsoft Audience Network, as well as on native advertising served by its partners on Microsoft owned-and-operated properties such as MSN and Outlook.
Most of these categories, among others, are prohibited on other platforms, so marketers working for brands in these verticals may not be surprised.
Google prohibits adult content,
alcohol, copyrights, gambling and games, healthcare and medicines, political content, financial services, and trademarks.
Enforcement for supplement and vitamin ads running today on the
network will not begin until January, but Microsoft said ads getting too many complaints and found to violate other policies will be taken down prior to January.
Although advertising for
health supplements and vitamins is not allowed, health-insurance ads are welcome.
In October, Microsoft Advertising introduced health-insurance ads as a pilot program. The new format is now
eligible to serve for advertisers targeting U.S. customers. It’s part of a push to support insurance advertisers.
Health insurance open enrollment ends December 15.
Key trends that revealed drivers in 2020 were non-brand and Medicare Advantage searches.
Microsoft estimated that Medicare Advantage will dominate the market by 2025, with an estimated 71 million subscribers.
At the time, more conversions online came from Medicare-related
queries than Individual marketplace queries.