How do I run compliant Google Ads for finance?

Clear the FCA verification gate, make the landing page carry the disclosures it triggers, feed qualified leads rather than form fills into bidding, and control what Performance Max is allowed to generate. Compliance gets the ads live. Measurement stops them spending your budget on people you are required to reject. Treating those as one job rather than two is the difference between an account that survives scrutiny and one that does not.

What certification does Google require for financial products?

Google's financial services verification, proving FCA authorisation or a defined exemption such as being an approved third party under an authorised firm. It covers every format and asset, and your business name, FCA registration number and contact details have to match the FCA register exactly. Since late 2025 a contact on the same email domain as the registered firm has to sit in the account before you apply. If you operate under a principal, the principal initiates verification and, under FSMA section 39(3), is legally responsible for the promotions you run.

What disclosures must my landing page show?

For consumer credit, where CONC 3.5 triggers a representative APR, that APR has to be present and no less prominent than the cost or incentive information that triggered it, and visible without a click. The representative APR has to be a genuine forecast: the rate at or below which you reasonably expect at least 51 percent of resulting agreements to be written. Underneath all of it, CONC 3.3.1R requires the page to be clear, fair and not misleading, and a consumer can sue directly on that rule.

Why are my finance leads low quality?

Usually because bidding is optimising toward form fills rather than qualified leads. If a submission counts as a conversion, Smart Bidding learns to find more people who submit and then fail your affordability and eligibility checks. In finance, regulation forces that gap to be wide, so the account fills with applicants you are required to reject. The dashboard looks healthy because it is counting the wrong event.

Should I use offline conversion tracking?

For a regulated finance product, yes, but bid to the right stage. The valuable outcome lives in your CRM, and offline conversion tracking sends it back to Google against the original click so the algorithm learns from qualified leads. Watch the windows: enhanced-conversion uploads will not import beyond 63 days from the click, GCLID-based ones beyond 90, and finance cycles often run longer. Bid to an in-window milestone like affordability cleared rather than final completion, and make sure you are on the Data Manager API before the June 2026 migration blocks the legacy path.

Is Performance Max safe for financial services?

Only with the auto-generation constrained. PMax assembles and increasingly auto-creates its own assets, and a machine-built claim about rates, returns or eligibility is still a financial promotion you are accountable for, with no exemption because an algorithm wrote it. Google's May 2026 update added labels to AI-created variants and narrowed approval caps, signalling it treats these as higher-risk. Turn off automatically created assets where the product touches regulated numbers, constrain the inputs, and review what serves.

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Google Ads for Financial Services: FCA Compliance, Landing Pages and Conversion Tracking

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