Improved transparency and choice with ads on search and Gmail

Our AdWords engineers are constantly working to make ads more relevant and useful. We're also working to give users more transparency and choice with the ads that they see. These efforts help maintain user trust, which is fundamental to the effectiveness of AdWords.

New features for users

Starting today we’re placing a "Why these ads?" link on Google search results and Gmail (known as Google Mail in some countries).

When a user clicks the link, it expands to explain details about why each ad was shown.

A user can also access the Ads Preferences Manager for search and Gmail.

Here, the user can choose to block ads from specific advertisers or opt out of personalized ads. Because we can show fewer, more relevant ads when users have opted-in to see personalized ads, we describe these benefits with text and video to help them make an informed choice.

Potential impact on advertisers
As an advertiser, you might wonder how these changes could impact your AdWords performance. When a user opts out of personalized ads on search and Gmail, your ads can still reach them but the targeting might be a bit less precise. If users block your ads, they won’t see your ads in the future. The number of blocks you’ve accumulated does not directly affect calculations of your Quality Score and Ad Rank.

Users must be signed in to Google for their ads preferences to apply.

More details
You can learn more about the new Ads Preferences Manager for search and Gmail at the Web Search Help Center. You can also visit Good to Know, a new site for users on how to manage their data on Google and across the web.

Posted by Ginsu Yoon, Group Product Manager