Never Take Obvious For Granted

This is more of a "for your information" piece this week, but it's definitely valuable information in making your social impact.

My agency, eventr, is lucky to work with some of the premiere radio stations and media brands, which are already being pro-active, by adding social advertising to the marketing mix. I don't want to bore you with a pitch, but it's definitely something to explore as you look for additional opportunities in making appointments and building occasions for PPM. It can also help your sales team move the needle on revenue by facilitating truly integrated campaigns for their local clients. Ask me about it, if you're interested, at sammy@eventr.net.

Anyway, one of the tactics that my company can activate is banner advertising through the Google Placement Network. What I love about this network is the fact that you can geo-target ads to your target demo and gain placement on some of the biggest sites in the world as local users are reading, searching and watching their content. What I'm saying is that your ads will only be seen by people in the geography you assign to it when they visit those big sites, so localizing a campaign is very effective. The sites include tmz.com, CNN.com, USAToday.com and so on.

However, during a recent campaign for a radio station, we encountered a slight glitch when Google disapproved a series of banners because the campaign was geared around listening. The fact that the landing page we assigned to the banners included a "Listen Live" link flagged a Google reviewer because of the copyright issue with music. We had to provide an official document to prove the station was licensed to stream music before the ads were approved by the service.

The extra time cost us an additional week before anything was shown.

It seems trivial that a commercial radio station would have to do such a thing, but to quote a famous line ... "it's a new world" and the social and search sites are following a policy more than an understanding that radio would be covered here.

If you are doing any advertising via Google AdWords or Placement, the other search engines, or through Facebook, I recommend reading the policies to ensure you have the best chance of running a successful campaign.

Google Policy

Facebook Policy

Just always keep in mind that banners, videos and some social ads are reviewed by actual people, while search is always not.

Plan ahead, read the policy and always allow review time to ensure successful campaigns for your brand.

Happy clicking!