Exclusive: Google Suggests Buyers Target Teens, Going Against Its Policies

Sales representatives from Google have suggested that advertisers target teenagers on YouTube, seemingly in violation of the platform’s own policies, according to three ad buyers and written documentation seen by ADWEEK. This activity goes beyond the practice that was first identified by Financial Times earlier this month. 

Earlier this month, FT reported that Google worked with Meta to target 13- to 17-year-old YouTube users with ads, targeting a group of users labeled as “unknown”—a group that Google knew skewed towards under-18-year-olds, the article said. 

But buyers told ADWEEK that this activity involves more advertisers than the special arrangement between Meta and Google identified by FT. All buyers who spoke to ADWEEK for this article did so anonymously to discuss sensitive industry relations, but their identities are known to ADWEEK.

Google announced in 2021 that it was no longer allowing advertisers to target users under 18 via age, gender, or interests.

Buyers can target the unknown category, where the demographic information of the users is not known to Google, according to its blog post. A Google spokesperson said unknown users include people not signed into their accounts or who have chosen to turn off personalized advertising.

But, the FT article notes, Google has thousands of data points—on everything from users’ location via phone masts, to their application downloads and activity online—to indicate that this cohort includes younger users.

Targeting the unknown category of users can be a tactic to expand the reach of a campaign to a broad audience, a Google spokesperson said. 

“We strictly prohibit ads being personalized to people under 18—full stop. Our policies are reinforced with technical protections, which continue to work properly,” a Google spokesperson told ADWEEK. “We take this matter very seriously, and as we’ve said, we will be taking additional action with sales representatives to reinforce that they must not help agencies or advertisers attempt to circumvent our policies.”

Google gave a similar statement to FT about taking action to make sure sales representatives don’t help advertisers attempt to work around Google’s policies.

In the past week, following the FT article, Google sales reps have told one buyer that they can still target teens by targeting a group of users labeled as unknown. 

“It shows that even Google can’t manage Google,” the buyer said. “So at what point do we stop and ask if Google is the best partner to give us advice?”

Known knowns and known unknowns

In an August email sent to the first agency buyer and seen by ADWEEK, a Google rep was discussing the client’s YouTube media buy and noted that they should try to capture the unknown category, too, because there could be teens there. 

“I was shocked it was that explicit,” the first agency buyer said.

The first buyer and another buyer said they had no idea teens were in the unknown group and would not have sought to target these users without being informed by Google sales reps.  

The first buyer has been targeting the unknown category for more than six months across several campaigns for one client, and will continue to since this is their client’s strategy. 

When teens enter the ad targeting chat

The first buyer was working with a client already looking to target teens in indirect ways, like targeting the parents of teens (the logic being that it’s OK to target adults who give their kids permission to watch YouTube with them). 

Google reps reached out proactively to a second buyer at a brand in the past two months to try to reach users above 16 because they might have some disposable income, that buyer said. Google said the brand could reach these 16-year-olds by targeting the unknown pool of users. The second buyer declined Google’s offer.

In early 2022, a large entertainment brand was looking to target teens for a youth program. Meta allows targeting teens, but Google does not (although Meta added more restrictions on how advertisers could target teens in 2023), said a third buyer, who worked at the agency representing the entertainment brand.

The entertainment brand’s frustrations at not being able to reach teens on YouTube escalated to a meeting with Google reps, according to the third buyer who was present at the meeting. Google said targeting teens was against its policy, but when the client threatened to move its Google spend to Meta, the Google reps suggested targeting unknown users because some teens might be in there, said the third buyer.

The third buyer was able to eventually convince its client to not target via the unknown category, given that the reporting would be less detailed (because their identities aren’t known, attribution is more difficult). 

But later that year, the entertainment brand asked Google if it could upload a list of its own first-party data on teens to match with YouTube data and then let YouTube target those teens. This would also seem to violate Google’s general teen targeting policy.

The Google rep said the entertainment brand can name their dataset what they want, but any name in the platform indicating that it is against policy will be removed and deprecated, the third buyer said of the exchange. 

The brand ultimately did not use its first-party data on teens to target on YouTube. 

Although Google did not respond to specific examples of its representatives undercutting the policy not to target teens, a spokesperson did say that the company would be refreshing its training to ensure that sales representatives understand that they may not assist advertisers in trying to specifically target sensitive audiences.  

Avoiding kids

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act says it is illegal to target children, and an updated version of the law that would make it illegal to target teenagers, as well, passed the U.S. Senate in July, although it still needs to pass the U.S. House of Representatives.

The first buyer worried that kids might be among the unknown group of users on YouTube.

“The problem with this is if they target unknown accounts, they can also be reaching COPPA-protected kids,” the first buyer said.