Usually one of three things: your ad addresses the reader's fertility status directly, it makes a medical outcome claim, or you are trying to run it in a country where fertility advertising is banned outright. Google prohibits all fertility, birth control and STI advertising in 23 locations including the United Arab Emirates and most of the Gulf. Everywhere else it treats reproductive health as a protected personal attribute, which means you cannot target people by fertility interest and cannot phrase an ad around the reader's own situation.
Key points
Google prohibits all fertility, birth control and STI advertising in 23 locations, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.
New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are not on that list.
Reproductive health is treated as a protected personal attribute, so targeting people by fertility interest is not permitted anywhere.
Struggling to get pregnant is rejected because it addresses a personal health attribute.
Our IVF success rate is 70% is rejected as a medical outcome claim requiring substantiation.
Guaranteed pregnancy is rejected as an outcome guarantee.
The prohibition covers fertility testing and surrogacy services alongside treatment itself, and the published list is described as non-exhaustive.
Where is fertility advertising banned outright?
In 23 locations, and this is the first thing to check because no amount of rewriting fixes it.
Google prohibits the promotion of birth control, fertility and STI products and services in Bahrain, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Territory, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
There are no carve-outs for approved advertisers or particular circumstances. The policy applies to everyone advertising in those locations. Advertisers receive a warning at least seven days before potential account suspension.
For a clinic in Dubai this is decisive. Paid search is not a channel, regardless of budget or creative. Organic visibility, your Google Business Profile and referral relationships carry the entire acquisition load.
Why can't you target people interested in fertility?
Because Google classifies reproductive health as a protected personal attribute, and building an audience around a protected attribute is not permitted on any platform that recognises the category.
The reasoning is about inference. Targeting someone because they have researched fertility treatment means the platform has concluded something about their medical situation and then acted on it. That is the harm the rule exists to prevent, and it applies whether or not the conclusion is correct.
The practical effect is that fertility campaigns run on intent rather than identity. You can bid on what somebody searched. You cannot build an audience of people the platform believes are trying to conceive.
What phrasing gets an ad rejected?
Three patterns account for most rejections, and each one has a fix that keeps the meaning.
Rejected
Why
What works instead
Struggling to get pregnant?
Addresses a personal health attribute, telling the reader something about their own situation
IVF and fertility treatment at our clinic
Our IVF success rate is 70%
A medical outcome claim requiring substantiation
Our published success rates and how to read them
Guaranteed pregnancy
An outcome guarantee, which is prohibited outright
Consultant-led care with a clear treatment plan
What does the prohibition actually cover?
More than treatment. The policy names condoms, birth control pills, fertility testing, surrogacy services and STI testing, and describes that list as non-exhaustive.
Fertility testing catches clinics out most often. A campaign promoting an initial fertility assessment or an AMH test is inside the policy even though no treatment is being advertised. So is surrogacy, which some clinics treat as a separate service line with separate marketing.
Because the list is non-exhaustive, adjacent services can fall inside it too. If a service concerns reproduction and you are unsure, assume it is covered rather than discovering the answer through a suspension.
What happens if you breach the policy?
Individual ads are disapproved, which is a nuisance rather than a crisis and is how most clinics first learn a phrase is a problem.
Advertising into a prohibited location is more serious. Google issues a warning at least seven days before potential account suspension. An account suspension takes down every campaign, not the offending one, and rebuilding an account history is considerably harder than rewriting an ad.
The practical discipline is to check the location rule before you build the campaign, and to treat repeated disapprovals as a signal to change approach rather than to keep resubmitting variants.
What can a fertility clinic advertise successfully?
The workable ads describe the clinic rather than the reader. That single shift resolves most of the personal-attribute problem.
Describe your service, your clinicians and your process. None of that touches the reader's medical status.
Bid on what people search rather than building audiences around inferred fertility interest.
Point to your published success rates rather than quoting a figure in the ad, since a rate in ad copy is a claim needing substantiation.
Avoid second-person phrasing about the reader's situation. Struggling, trying and failing are the words that trigger review.
Confirm every target location against the prohibited list before launch, especially for clinics serving patients who travel.
Where paid search is closed to you entirely, put the budget into organic and profile work instead of looking for a workaround.
How do the advertising rules interact with local health regulators?
Google's policy is the floor, not the ceiling. Clearing it does not mean an ad is lawful in your market.
In Dubai the DHA pre-approves every piece of health advertising, including paid social, and the facility must display its MOHAP advertisement licence number. In Australia, section 133 prohibits creating unreasonable expectations of beneficial treatment. In New Zealand, claims must be substantiated before publication.
No. Google prohibits all fertility, birth control and STI advertising in the United Arab Emirates, along with 22 other locations including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. There are no advertiser exemptions, so paid search is not available to fertility clinics in those markets.
Why was my fertility ad disapproved when it seemed harmless?
Most rejections come from phrasing that addresses the reader's own health situation, such as asking whether they are struggling to conceive. Reproductive health is a protected personal attribute, so an ad that implies something about the reader is treated differently from one describing your clinic.
Can I mention our success rate in an ad?
Not as a figure. A statement such as our success rate is 70% is a medical outcome claim requiring substantiation and is a named rejection trigger. Pointing to where your published rates can be read is a workable alternative.
Does the ban cover fertility testing as well as IVF?
Yes. The policy names fertility testing, surrogacy services, condoms, birth control pills and STI testing, and describes the list as non-exhaustive. A campaign promoting an initial fertility assessment is inside the policy even though no treatment is advertised.
What happens if I advertise into a prohibited country by mistake?
Google issues a warning at least seven days before potential account suspension. Because suspension affects the whole account rather than the individual campaign, it is worth auditing location targeting before launch rather than relying on the warning.
Are New Zealand and Australia affected by the country ban?
No. Neither appears on the prohibited list, so fertility advertising is available in both. The targeting and claim restrictions still apply, as do AHPRA's rules in Australia and the ASA's Therapeutic and Health Advertising Code in New Zealand.