Choosing a marketing agency for a financial services firm
What to ask a marketing agency before hiring them for a financial services firm, and why compliance fluency should be a hard requirement.
4 min read
Google requires certification for certain financial products (personal loans in specific markets, among others) before ads can run at all, and separately restricts ad copy claims across the category more broadly. Skipping this check wastes time building a campaign that never goes live.
What generally requires care
- Interest rate and return claims, which need to be accurate, current and appropriately qualified.
- Guaranteed-return language, which is heavily restricted or disallowed for most investment products.
- Advertiser verification for regulated lending categories, checked before campaign build begins.
Structuring campaigns that convert without overclaiming
Campaigns built around the actual product and eligibility criteria — 'personal loan for salaried employees', 'ELSS for tax saving' — convert well without needing to lean on aggressive return claims, since the searcher already has intent.
A disapproved financial services ad campaign is not just a delay — the advertiser verification process for some categories can take longer than a typical campaign launch timeline.
Landing pages with required disclosures
Ensure the landing page for any regulated product ad includes the disclosures your regulator requires (Key Facts Statement reference, risk disclosures for investment products), since an ad that is compliant but lands on a non-compliant page still creates exposure.
The takeaway
Check whether your financial product category requires Google's financial services advertiser certification before launching any campaign — several do, and running ads without it gets them disapproved.
Written by Fibvo — Bengaluru and Erode, India — working with clients in other time zones. Questions, or think we have it wrong? Tell us.
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