AdWords – Time is up for payday loan sharks, or is it?

Google served notice on short-term loan and high-interest loan providers in May announcing that from the 13th of July promotion of these loans using the AdWords platform would be banned.

The date this was to take effect was the 13th of July. However, a further week’s grace was given.

Checks made by SureFire Search on the 22nd of July showed there were still ads for short terms loans showing.

Loans with an APR (Annualised Percentage Rate) of over 36% (for the US market) or short term loans with a contracted period of under 60 days were to be ineligible after the ban. In the example above, SaveMyBacon has an APR of 547.5% and a contracted term of up to 42 days. The APR would certainly breach conditions in the US as it is well over the maximum 36% threshold while the contracted period of 42 days should also have disqualified the ad.

Why should you care?

As we stated in May, this does re-enforce the fact that a solid SEO strategy (no matter what industry you are in) is imperative to future-proof your online presence. Make sure you are not relying on AdWords to stay in business (and not to get the majority of your leads and sales) — if you do, you may only be one policy decision away from disaster.

While these payday ads may have been still showing at the time of writing, the rollout of the ban will no doubt catch up with them. The stronger players that have already invested in SEO will become even more dominant and if they’ve also been using AdWords, they’ll also see a much lower cost of acquisition from search.

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