Usually when I come across this stuff, it’s sad more than anything, but this one really annoyed the hell out of me. Like mortgage re-fi ads, most of these things are basically the internet equivalent of mosquitoes. In this case, the media shop likely made it’s usual 156-page deck, listing all the sites the client’s message could appear on along with inflated traffic stats for each.
Maybe they dangled a low CPM and a few of the big brands they could reach in front of them too: “We can get you on Yahoo!, ESPN and CNN with x number of impressions and hit your target demo!” Client says cool, because, hey, who wouldn’t want to be on cnn.com, right?
Timeout. Yoda keyword freaks in most any media shop can fine-tune searches to within a freaking nanoletter—new term, look it up or Wiki it. They can also set parameters for when and where to not have their client’s ad served up. In this case though, both the concept of editorial related and contextual advertising fuh-AILED.
Yes, my SEO friends tell me this is bound to happen when buying across large ad networks. Maybe, but now you’ve associated your brand in my mind with an unfortunate story. Hurray karma! Either:
A) It was an accident, which sucks. Or, B) The client or the agency didn’t care, which sucks more. In terms of options, A happens. B though? I’ll never use your product or service. (Order B now and I’ll throw in an added bonus: I’ll blog that shit too, free of charge!)
Sometimes eloquence is in short supply around here—me being an art director and all—and lately, my keyword filters have been acting up, so please, take the following in the context with which it’s intended: They fucked up.
(Tip to Corey King. Read his blog not only because he writes damn finely, but he’s even more pissed off than I am about this.)
3 comments:
While I feel your pain, I actually disagree with this rant.
The challenge is the systems that control editorial copy and the systems that control ad placement are becoming unhinged. It is extremely tempting for any advertiser to want to buy into an ad network at a $3 CPM vs. spending $30 on a specific web site. Ad networks, when they enable such buys, are very defensive about releasing their lists of web properties -- so the advertiser does have a risk of having its ad pop up next to a news story that is off color.
But controlling it is almost impossible -- it's similar to sending out direct mail into homes for an insurance product and having a mailer land unfortunately at the exact home where someone just died.
Perhaps in the future data systems will be able to control complete contextual placement, but the truth is today online, the systems for edit and ad copy just to match. Will advertisers spend 90% less risking a few bumps in the road of contextual madness? You bet.
Um, meant in the last graph "just don't match..."
Eh, I think I covered a lot of what could happen when buying on large ad networks. The main point here is that the resulting mashup comes off badly.
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