--- title: "Remarketing for Clinics: What Health Ad Policies Allow" description: "Remarketing for clinics is allowed on Google Ads as one general audience, but never around a health condition, and Québec order rules still apply." canonical: "https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/blog/remarketing-clinics-health-ad-policy/" lastmod: "2018-12-14T20:59:00+00:00" lang: "en-CA" format: "markdown" --- HTML version: # Remarketing for Clinics: What Health Ad Policies Allow > **Archive note.** This article describes the situation as it stood when it was published. The rules, tools and features it mentions may have changed since. Check the current information with the official source before acting. Remarketing for clinics is allowed on Google Ads, but only as one general audience: you may show ads again to everyone who visited your website, and you may not build a list or an ad around the condition, treatment or procedure a visitor looked at. ## Remarketing for clinics: what Google's health policy allows and restricts Remarketing for clinics stays inside Google's rules when the audience is your general website traffic: the personalized advertising policy forbids targeting people by a health condition, a diagnosis or a sensitive medical interest. You cannot retarget someone who read a page about anxiety treatment or fertility services with a [remarketing](/en/glossary/#remarketing) list that singles those visitors out, and you cannot shape the ad copy around the condition their visit implied. I read Google's sensitive categories guidance before I build any health audience, because a list that infers a medical interest can have the account suspended. ## Personalized advertising and sensitive categories: where health fits Personalized advertising is where Google files health, grouping conditions and treatments as a sensitive category, so a clinic cannot target or exclude people by a medical interest or an implied health status. This classification changes how you may use audience data across the account. Google will not let you add a remarketing list that suggests a person has a specific condition, whether you mean to include those people or to exclude them. An audience that reads back to a diagnosis is the one Google restricts, even when it was built from ordinary site visits. ## Site-wide visitor lists versus condition-based segmentation Site-wide visitor lists are the compliant default for a clinic: they capture everyone who lands on your domain without recording which page pulled them in, while condition-based lists cross into sensitive territory. A condition-based list, built from visits to diagnosis or treatment pages, is what gets ads disapproved or the account flagged. I start clinic clients on a single site-wide list, then, if I need tighter reach, I add general service pages such as the booking or contact page, never a page tied to one diagnosis. A list built on the booking page is fine, but the tag that feeds it must not capture the fields someone types into an appointment form. That keeps the reach meaningful without inferring anyone's medical situation, and it protects patient privacy. The same list can serve more than one location of the same clinic, as long as each location meets the same rules. ## Remarketing ad copy and imagery: no reference to a personal health condition Remarketing ad copy and imagery for a clinic must never name, show or imply a personal health condition, so keep headlines, images and offers general rather than tied to a diagnosis or a procedure. Write to the clinic and the service, not to the visitor's implied situation. A dental clinic can promote a general check-up or a new-patient welcome; it should not run an ad that reads as though it knows the person was pricing implants. Images follow the same line: a photo of the practice or the team is safe, while a graphic that spells out a treatment someone was reading about is not. When I build [a clinic's Google Ads campaigns](/en/google-ads-montreal/), I write the copy as if I do not know which page brought each person back, because under the policy I am not allowed to. ### Québec professional order rules that apply on top of Google's policy Québec professional order rules apply to a remarketing ad on top of anything Google allows, so an ad that passes Google's review can still breach the code of ethics of your order. A clinic in Québec answers to the order that governs its profession: the Collège des médecins for physicians, the Ordre des dentistes for dentists, the Ordre professionnel de la physiothérapie for physiotherapists, and the rest in the same way. When I set up remarketing for a clinic here in Greater Montréal, I read the relevant order's code of ethics before I touch the ad copy. Those provisions tend to run stricter than Google's, with rules against advertising that could exploit a patient's vulnerability or promise a particular outcome. Read your own order's provisions before you write a headline, because clearing Google's policy does not clear you with your regulator. ## Disapprovals and policy reviews: what to do when a list or ad is flagged Disapprovals and policy reviews start with reading the exact policy Google cites on the list or ad, because a health flag points at the sensitive-category rules that govern targeting and messaging. If the list is flagged, I open its definition and take out any condition-specific signal. If the ad is flagged, I rewrite the copy so it no longer implies tailored targeting. Once the change is in, you can submit a policy review request inside Google Ads, and the system re-checks the list or ad against the policy. Sometimes the flag was a misclassification, which a review can sort out; either way, write down what you changed so you are not solving the same disapproval twice. ## Compliant remarketing checklist for a clinic's Google Ads account A compliant remarketing checklist for a clinic's Google Ads account is the short list I run before every launch, and it covers the tag, the lists, the copy and the review: - The remarketing tag does not collect health information a visitor types into the site. - Lists are built on general site visits, not on condition or treatment pages. - Ad copy and images avoid any hint of a visitor's health status. - Your privacy policy states plainly that the site uses remarketing. - Your clinic's service does not sit in a category Google restricts outright. - A person reviews how each list is defined before it goes live. - The ad has been checked against your professional order's advertising rules, not only Google's. Further reading: for a similar project, see [Neu Clinic](/en/neu-clinic-toronto/). ## Go further - **Service:** [Google Ads Montreal: management that generates leads](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/google-ads-montreal/) - **Case study:** [Neu Clinic Toronto](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/neu-clinic-toronto/) - **Glossary:** [Digital marketing glossary: Remarketing (Retargeting)](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/glossary/#remarketing)