Advertising

Cleveland Clinic advertising supports our core mission and helps us improve our site as a resource for trusted health content.

For inquiries please contact us.

Advertising Guidelines

January 2020
(Guidelines subject to change without notice)

We prohibit advertising promoting:

  • Alcohol.
  • Tobacco products.
  • Firearms and weapons.
  • Fireworks.
  • Healthcare services (clinics, hospitals, procedures, lab testing).
  • Legal services (including malpractice).
  • Pornography.
  • Gambling and lottery.
  • Political campaigns.
  • Social causes.
  • Religion.
  • Comparative advertising (no mention of competitive brand names within an ad banner).

Advertising formats may not include:

  • Pop-ups or surveys.
  • Forms to collect personally identifiable information.

Advertisers and sponsors must meet the following criteria:

  • Ads may not make health claims that are not clearly substantiated. Advertisers may be required to submit supporting documentation to substantiate their products’ claims.
  • Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials, Health Library, Consult QD or Cleveland Clinic Foundation must not appear to endorse any product or advertiser.
  • Cleveland Clinic Foundation retains final approval of all sponsor and product messages, banners and advertising copy that are directly linked or adjacent to the content. This includes verifying ad content and placement before it is produced on the site.
  • The ad itself, any advertising icons and company logos must be displayed in such a way that they clearly are not part of the site content.
  • Cleveland Clinic Foundation reserves the right to reject, cancel or remove any ad from our site at any time, for any reason. In such a case, Cleveland Clinic Foundation will provide prompt notice to the advertiser, along with an explanation. Cleveland Clinic Foundation also reserves the right to determine the appropriate placement of ads on its website.
  • Collecting and selling mailing lists without the users’ express permission is not allowed.
  • The full rules for any market research or promotion must be displayed or linked to.
  • Advertisers and agencies cannot collect any personally identifiable information from site visitors or place any cookies, applets or other such files — if those files transmit any personally identifiable information to the advertisers or agencies — on computers of site visitors.
  • Cleveland Clinic Foundation maintains total editorial independence from advertisers and sponsors. Advertisers have no influence over or input in our editorial development. They also have no influence over the listing of responses to search engine results. Advertisers can buy priority listings on our search engine. We don’t allow co-branding of our health information.
  • Cleveland Clinic Foundation does not endorse any of the products and services advertised. To learn more about Cleveland Clinic’s policies on collaborations with industry and innovation management, go to our Integrity in Innovation page.

These guidelines are intended to provide general guidance. They are not inclusive or exhaustive and are subject to change at the discretion of Cleveland Clinic Foundation at any time.

Additionally, ads served through networks or exchanges are reviewed on a regular basis and Cleveland Clinic Foundation will remove any that do not meet our advertising criteria. However, please note, we are unable to preview all ads before they appear on our site because of how they are served to us. This means it is possible that ads may appear that do not meet our advertising guidelines. If you encounter ads that run contrary to our mission or appear to violate these guidelines, please contact us.