Google has announced they will be charging new fees for ads served in the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Austria. These fees will begin on November 1, 2020, and you will see the additional fee in your ad invoice.
The new fees are as follows:
- Ads served in the United Kingdom: a 2% UK DST Fee added to your invoice or statement
- Ads served in Turkey: a 5% Regulatory Operating Cost added to your invoice or statement
- Ads Served in Austria: a 5% Austria DST Fee added to your invoice or statement
According to Google, the Regulatory Operating Costs are being added due to significant increases in complexity and cost of complying with regulations in Turkey. In Austria and the United Kingdom, the DST fee is driven by the new digital services tax in these countries.
If you have automatic payments or use monthly invoicing, Google will add the fees to your Google Ads costs once at the end of every month, to be paid the next time you are charged. These fees will also be added on top of your account budget if you’ve set up one.
If you pay through manual payments or make a prepayment on your automatic payments account, these fees may be charged after your payment has been fully spent.
You will be able to see these fees as a separate line item per country on your invoice and they will also be displayed in the “Transactions” section in your Google Ads account.
What Does This Mean For Advertisers?
Advertisers can expect to pay more for ads show in these countries and should adjust their strategies accordingly.
Fees will be charged based on the number of ad impressions or clicks that are served in a specific country. If you advertise in several countries, you’ll only be charged fees when ads have been served to people in the impacted countries.
Even if you aren’t explicitly targeting these countries, your ads may be served there if you have your location settings set to “People in, or who show interest in, your targeted location.” For example, if you run ads for a France vacation rental, but someone in the UK searches for ‘french vacation rentals’, they can be served your ad and that would qualify for the additional fee.
I’d recommend reviewing your location reports to see how many impressions and clicks you are currently getting from these three countries. If you don’t want to serve ads there, you can exclude these three countries from your campaigns.
If you do want to show ads to people in the UK, Turkey, or Austria, then you made need to start factoring in the added cost to your overall cost per acquisition goals. You may find you need to lower your CPA targets in order to maintain profitability.
What are your thoughts on the new fees? Will you be adjusting your advertising strategy once they’re implemented? Let us know in the comments below!
