“Unacceptable” type of Online Advertising
If someone asked you to state one reason as to why people advertise on the online media then the answer will always be -> track-ability. This ad digitalization storm picked up in the last decade and transformed the traditional advertising methods only because of this feature. You were given a new method to reach a large audience and also track where and how your money was being spent & what impact was it bringing about.
Companies today prefer investing more money online. As a matter of fact most companies now run only digitally. They have no presence outside of the digital world & yet they are one of the most successful companies.
Digital media is so fast paced that it is often difficult to catch up. In order to not miss out on opportunities, companies’ dependency on tools has increased. There are tools to schedule posting of content, tracking of comments, sending automated direct messages or emails, sending automated SMSes, creating & sending reports. We’re living in the digital era where exchange of ads on media also happens through tools.
As more doors open for new methods we sure will discover more flaws as well.
Programmatic buying with its open auction was a turning point in the digital advertising world & it brought an improved quality & access to clients which were not always available. Programmatic buying on one hand has worked wonders for brands but there is a big loop hole which in the coming times can be problematic.
We all know that during the auction for programmatic buying the buyer agrees to pay for the opportunity to display their ad. The buyer needs to immediately pay after winning the bid whether their ad is shown or not. Due to certain limitations which are beyond a buyer’s control their ad can be stopped from being displayed (which by the way has already been paid for). Some of these instances are; if a user leaves the website before the ad is shown, if due to an error the ad is not sent to the publisher or if the ad creative is not within the guidelines & the publisher can’t run it.
Following these loopholes is the current trending news. Havas, The Guardian & British Govt. have blacklisted Google & YouTube for placing their ads along with extremist content. Programmatic advertising network of Google is accused of “supporting” extremist content using big brand names. These big brands now face an image threat and have therefore withdrawn their advertising rights from giant channels Google & YouTube. How long this lasts, only time will tell.
In Google’s defense; there are detailed policies & tight guidelines in terms of where the ads should be placed and where not. Since this is followed through an algorithm we obviously can’t expect 100% accuracy.
But can brands just pass this as a one off?
Maybe, not.
We’re building technology that works on codes, and keywords. It’s all that we feed in. There is no technology infused with emotion that could understand the sensitivity of a topic and the corresponding relevance of the ad. It will follow the process that has been fed in.
The recent loophole has been on Google’s programmatic network. But there will still be many untouched areas with existing/upcoming loopholes for us to discover.
While the world goes all bonkers & sprints towards digitalization, it is vital that each advertiser and marketer takes the digital medium seriously. Just because online ads can be created, uploaded and promoted in a jiffy does not mean a thorough test & run should not be done?
