How to read Google's “About this advertiser”How to read Google's “About this advertiser”

Yourbrand's affiliate manager sees an ad on “yourbrand discount code” headed with her own brand's name. She taps the small info icon beside it on her phone, and a panel opens: About this advertiser, Example Media Ltd, United Kingdom, with a tick for verified. Her programme has no publisher called Example Media Ltd. What does the panel actually say, and what doesn't it?

The panel is the quickest identity check there is for an ad you don't recognise: it costs nothing, it isn't a click, and it names the business behind the ad rather than the brand in its headline. It's also easy to over-read. This guide goes through each thing it shows, what Google's verification does and doesn't confirm, the buttons beside it, and how to turn a name into something your network can act on.

Opening it without clicking the ad

Google's ads transparency policy says search ads carry advertiser information behind the three-dot icon on a computer and the info icon on a phone. In My Ad Centre's words: on the ad, select More or Info, then select About this advertiser. Opening the panel doesn't open the advertiser's page, doesn't count as a click and doesn't charge the advertiser. Selecting the headline or the address would.

My Ad Centre says some of its features may not be available if you're signed out of your Google Account or have turned off personalised ads. If the panel offers less than you expect, try again signed in, and note which way you looked.

What each line means

• The name. For a verified advertiser, its legal name, or its trade mark name where it has one, as it gave them to Google's advertiser verification. For an advertiser that hasn't been verified yet, the name on its payments profile.
• The location. Where the advertiser is based, as it verified it, or as its payments profile gives it. It's where the business is, not where its ads are aimed.
• A second name, paying for the ads. Google's policy says that if the advertiser's name differs from its payments profile name, the payments profile name is shown too, as the entity paying for the ads. Advertisers can edit the name shown as the payer, and Google holds them responsible for its accuracy.
• Verified or unverified. Google labels advertisers who completed verification as verified, and those who haven't as unverified, in its disclosures and in the Ads Transparency Center.
• The options beside it. My Ad Centre's own, Report ad, Block ad and Like ad among them. The section below covers which to leave alone.

Read it plainly: a verified company called Example Media Ltd, based in the UK, runs the ad, and a related name pays for it. Nothing in the panel says whether Example Media Ltd is in your programme, through which network, or under which publisher id. Many publishers trade under a brand that isn't their company name, so the absence of a match on your list is where the work starts.

What verification confirms, and what it doesn't

Google's verification asks an advertiser for documents showing its legal name and location, and sometimes questions about its business operations. Google's own list of reasons an account may be selected includes running ads on brand-related queries, so an advertiser on your name is more likely than most to have been through it.

A verified name tells you who Google checked. It doesn't tell you that the ad keeps to your programme terms, that the business is your partner, or that the brand in its headline is its own. An unverified name tells you only what the advertiser put on its payments profile, which may be a person's name or a company you've never heard of, and which the advertiser can change.

The buttons to leave alone

• Block ad. My Ad Centre says Google will do its best not to show you a blocked ad, on Google or on partner sites, for at least six months. That's your view, not anyone else's: the ad keeps showing to shoppers, and your own later checks stop seeing it.
• Like ad, which tells Google to show you more ads like it, and changes your view the other way.
• Report ad, which is a separate decision with its own form and its own evidence. The guide to reporting an ad covers when and how.

How to read it, step by step

1. Find the ad on the results page. On a computer, select the three-dot icon beside it; on a phone, the info icon. Don't select the headline or the address.
2. Select About this advertiser. Note the name exactly as written, the location, any second name shown as paying for the ads, and whether it's marked verified.
3. Take a screenshot that shows the panel and the ad, and note the search as typed, the date and time with the time zone, the place and the device.
4. Close the panel without blocking, liking or reporting the ad.
5. Search the name in the Ads Transparency Center with the region set to the United Kingdom. Open its advertiser page and note its id, AR followed by 20 digits, its verification and the Last shown dates of its ads.
6. Search your own web address there too. If the advertiser's ads show your address, it's on the list; if they show another, note that domain.
7. Check the name against your own accounts, your agency's and your resellers', then against your network's publisher list, trading names included.
8. Look again on another day and at another hour. If the same ad comes back under a different name, note both names and both ids.

The ordinary explanations

A name you don't recognise usually has a plain reason behind it. Rule these out first.

• A publisher's company name, which differs from the brand it trades under and the name in your network's list.
• An account your agency runs for you, under a company name you don't connect with your own.
• A reseller or marketplace seller advertising your products under its own legal name.
• A new account that hasn't been through verification yet, showing whatever its payments profile says.
• A location abroad because the company is registered there, while its ads are aimed at the UK.
• Your own second account, under your parent company's legal name.

The guide to finding the partner behind an ad takes the name further, with the ad's other clues, and New name, same ad covers what to do when an ad comes back under another advertiser.