To annotate or not to annotate

We know our search partners love the option to spice up their search ads with chevrons, buttons, images and more! However, we understand advertisers may not always share the same affinity for these additional decorations depending on the nature of their business. Which is why we require all search partners to honor the “Third Party Annotation Opt Out Flag”. 

Our “Third Party Annotation Opt Out Flag” allows advertisers the choice to opt out of approved annotations. This flag is returned in the ad call response to indicate which text-based search ads can have annotations appended to them and which cannot. This flag has been a requirement for all search partners since March 2022. 

Curious which categories are most likely to opt out? Same, here. 

Which is why we took a look at which categories had the highest opt out rates. The top category by a landslide was health and wellness. This comes as no surprise, as when it comes to searching for information about our health, we want to get straight to the answers, no need for extras. Animals was the category with the second largest opt out rate. 

The remaining categories saw a 35% opt out rate or lower with most categories below 15%. 

If you have noticed a drop in revenue in any of these categories over the past several months it could be a direct impact from this new annotation option. If that is the case, it is time to diversify! We encourage all of our partners to never put all of their eggs in one (category) basket. Revenue in a specific category can be impacted by policy changes, world events, economic shifts, the list goes on…

We thank our partners for quickly adapting to new policies such as this one in a timely manner. We will continue to monitor category opt out trends and share any major shifts that we see. As always, if you have any questions regarding this data, please reach out to your partner manager.