Job Ad Targeting Rules on Meta and Google

Who has to use it.

Meta requires the category if you advertise from the US, or if your ads reach people in the US, Canada or parts of Europe.¹ It covers more than job listings: Meta's help page on employment ads names job fairs and job boards too.⁶

What's locked, and what's off.

Pick the category and Meta fixes some audience settings and switches others off.

The hard error.

Meta's developer docs say these limits are "enforced with a hard error."¹ An audience outside them won't go through, so plan inside them from the start.

Declare the category first, at the campaign level. Then build the audience, placements and ad inside it.

If an ad is flagged or rejected.

Check the category first: every job ad needs it. Then check the audience and the wording, fix what's off, and resubmit. For free job posts rather than paid ads, see how to post a job on Facebook.

Google's rule covers employment ads in the US and Canada. Its examples: ads for jobs, job recruitment sites and job listing sites.²

If an ad is limited or disapproved.

Google gives three fixes. Set every demographic (gender, age, parental and marital status) to "Enable" and remove ZIP targeting. Or edit the ad to fit the policy, and it's reviewed again. Or, if you think the policy was applied in error, appeal from your account.²

Performance Max: same rules, two extra controls.

Google's policy page doesn't carve out any campaign type, so treat Performance Max job ads the same way. Two settings matter more for job ads here.

Brand guidelines. These hold the business name and 1 to 5 logos, plus optional colors and a font. Since 2025, Performance Max manages business names and logos this way.⁹ For job ads, use the employer name and logo job seekers see on your listings.

Text guidelines. This beta covers Performance Max, and Search campaigns with AI Max. You can add up to 25 term exclusions and 40 messaging restrictions per campaign. Google opened the beta to advertisers worldwide on February 26, 2026.¹⁰ Use it to keep generated text away from age- or gender-coded words, such as "recent college graduates," one of the EEOC's own examples.³

Every row comes from Meta's and Google's own pages. Have your counsel confirm it before you change a campaign.

Three things carry the load instead: where each ad runs, what it says, and where it leads.

One pin per location.

On Meta, the 15-mile minimum applies to every city, address or pin you add.¹ So give each location its own pin at its street address, and its own ad set, so its spend stays on its own budget.

Two locations less than 30 miles apart will overlap, and you can't exclude the overlap. Let the ad tell them apart instead: name the location in the headline and link to its own listing. People in the overlap may see both ads, and that's fine.

On Google the minimum radius is 1 km, so circles can be tighter.² Size them to a realistic commute, not to the minimum.

Keep ZIP codes out of the plan.

Neither platform takes ZIP-code targeting for US job ads, and state law can reach further. In Illinois, since January 1, 2026, the Human Rights Act bars employers from using AI that has a discriminatory effect in recruiting and hiring, or using ZIP codes as a proxy for protected classes.¹¹ Ask your counsel how it applies to you.

Make the ad name the job.

When targeting is broad, the ad does the filtering. Put the role, shift, pay and location in the first lines, so job seekers can tell at a glance whether it fits them.

Leave out words that signal age, gender or family status. The EEOC's examples are ads seeking "females" or "recent college graduates."³ Our free job ad checker flags phrases like "recent college graduates" before you publish.

Send each ad to that location's live listing.

Link each ad to the live job listing for its location, not a general careers page. Someone who taps should land on the job the ad describes. When the job closes, pause the ad. If it reopens under a new link, update the ad.

Meta's help page on employment ads names job fairs alongside job listings.⁶ So an ad for an open-interview day runs in the Employment category, with every limit above.

Not sure whether an ad counts? If it points people at a job, run it as a job ad.

On Google, the examples start with "ads for jobs."² An event ad that promotes open roles is an ad for jobs, so plan it under the same rules.

Point every event ad, flyer and poster at one event page. Our free hiring-event QR code generator makes a code for that one tracked link. For the full plan, see how to advertise a hiring event.

Run it before every launch. Copy it into your launch notes or a ticket.