Coming: Relevancy and Quality Policy Update for Ads Targeting the U.S. and Canada

The execution of your policy is poor in my opinion and here's why.

First, what is the burning rush to execute such a policy? Give people more than 36 hours notice to fix things. Have certain sites already been flagged? If so, give people a chance to fix things. Don't blame direct response advertisers that are very creative in maximizing the value of their traffic. We will play along and do what you want to us to do. Just give us the chance to fix things. That's all we ask.

Secondly, I recommend that the policy component be black and white. Either you meet the quality guidelines or you don't. That's how Google works and they've done a much better job in recent months of working with advertisers. Making it anything less than black and white leaves things open to much subjectivity.

Most importantly, you need to have a clearly defined resolution process if there is a quality issue. Give people a chance to fix things. Google typically gives us about five days to fix things before putting us in the penalty box. You will get a much bettter buy-in from advertisers if you are proactive and communicate with them.

How about flagging the Landing Page at CAMPAIGN CREATION that the LP is not up to snuff instead of letting a campaign run gung ho for a few days and then shutting it down with no warning and NO REASON GIVEN IN ADCENTER!!!

I understand why Bing is adding these new rules. Maybe they wont be caught with their hands in the cookie jar like Google. No fines for Bing ..haha Google 500Million  

Strange, I didn't receive an email or notification about this in my AdCenter account?

I'm also wondering if the way how Groupon is advertising is also allowed for other advertisers.

Screenshot of Groupon landingpage (it's in Dutch but you get the picture):

i51.tinypic.com/35lbukz.jpg

I have never ever seen any content on Groupon landingpages. Only a form to collect personal information. There isn't even a link to the homepage.

The most important thing you can do is concentrate on resolution processes. If something about the campaign or site is violating your policies, work with the customer to pin point the issues and we will modify the site/campaign in what ever way you need it to be, we are not afraid of even major changes we simply need to know what the problem is and how to fix it. It is fine to keep the account supsended and not recieving traffic until the problem is fixed but un-announced or unreasonable bans should be a thing of the past, you are costing yourself alot of money that way. It also goes to stand that if major design changes are required to a website, that sufficiently long enough time be given to correct the issue without moving to a harsher punishment such as a ban.

I agree that people should not be given the ability to communicate to the investigations team or as google calls them specialist teams. But we should be sent the findings from them instead of template emails.

In complicated matters where the issue is not immediatly clear, A ten minute written summary of the issues  from your investigations team could earn you 100's of thousands of $'s or more over the course of that saved campaigns life. In my varied consulting carear I have come across many situations where a premature ban or a series of vague responses have lead many clients to simply abandon what would have been a massive long term campaign. Though I have seen many raging success stories, I have also seen just as many failures.

I had cases when the client would have a large website and a certain element/aspects of his site where flagged for violating policies that are very subjective in their implementation. We had no quams about changing the elements or even the overall design if needed but due to the vague responses we could never pinpoint what the exact issues where. Needles to say the client gave up after while.

The internet is so complex and varied that a written set of policies will always need a good support process to back it up because in complex situtations us advertisers will need help in understanding how to apply these policies to our specific situation. Furthermore we will invetably miss things, make mistakes, misunderstand how your policies apply to our sites and need you to be there to explain it to us, point out the correct course of action, and give us a chance to get with the program before being kicked out.

When the "migration" occurred for Yahoo and Bing into the Microsoft Ad Center, there were existing advertisers who had been advertising the same landing pages and ads for years.

It is unfair and it causes direct harm to advertisers to stop advertising without any prior warning.  Unless complaints have been received, an advertiser should be permitted to continue advertising until the review is completed.  If complaints have been received, the advertiser should have the right to review the specific nature of the complaint(s) to determine the best and property course of action to comply with Adcenter policy if necessary.  Because of the "bidding" on keywords by advertisers, unless complaints are specifically recorded and disclosed to advertisers, there will always be the prospect of one advertiser initiating a complain in order to stop a competitor from advertising.  Not all complaints are legitimate and not all complaints are representative of the overall website visitors.  It is important therefore to document complaints and to address those complaints specifically with advertisers.  For example, perhaps the website visitor has merely used a keyword that they thought was specific to what they were looking for but it was the wrong keyword.  That website visitor arrives on the website and feels that they did not find the information they were looking for, initiates a complaint, and then simply figures out a better keyword that returns the relevant search content they were looking for in the first place.  Should an advertiser be punished for a website visitor's error in selecting an appropriate search keyword?  Also, a website visitor may simply make a subjective decision that he/she does not like the website.  That subjective decision does mean that the website content is not relevant or purposeful.

Notifying an advertiser that their ads have been stopped is tantamount to "capital punishment" in that there are only 3 major search engines that an advertiser can use to market on the internet.  Those search engines control the majority of consumer search traffic and that means that any decisions made, particularly those affecting long standing accounts where the ad copy was approved, and the landing page was approved, should carefully work with the advertiser rather than simply pressing a key on a keyboard that terminates the advertisers "click stream".  Pay per click is an advertising service and advertisers are customers and also should be valued.  

I have read numerous references to the "template" e-mail letters notifying advertisers regarding "potential" policy violations.  Adcenter should specifically identify what particular content it finds in violation of policy, so an advertiser can make the necessary corrections to meet changing policy requirements.  Vague application of policies is not in the interest of Adcenter or its advertising clients or website visitors for that matter.  Consider wording in policies that state: "little or no interest or value", "could be characterized as having a scamming business model", "that seem deceptive or fraudulent".  Websites which have niche information specialties may appear to have little or no interest or value to someone who is not knowledgeable in that niche.  When you reference something as "could be characterized as having a scamming business model" that is a serious allegation against what could be legitimate business and should be supported with specific evidence.  The words "could be characterized" are simply too vague and subjective.  Again, the words "seems deceptive or fraudulent" is too subjective.  Either it is deceptive or fraudulent, or it is not and if it is deemed to be deceptive or fraudulent, an advertiser should be given specific instances or evidence to support such a claim.  

The review process should be effective at each step of the way as an advertiser addresses content, landing page, and keyword considerations as they apply to policies both existing and new.  Adequate documentation should be provided by the review team and be specific and relevant to the issues and well supported before any type of adverse action is taken against and advertiser, and the advertiser should be given an opportunity to respond and comply as necessary.  The process should be entirely transparent.  

Advertisers are people conducting business and generating their livelihoods.  They include single parents, small businesses, entrepreneurs, people who are unemployed trying to find their way to conduct a viable and legitimate online internet business.  

The internet continues to expand and evolve.  It appears that regulations will be on the horizon to balance the rights of advertisers, website visitors, and internet search engines in order for internet commerce to work effectively.  

I am in sync with the policy but the way Microsoft comes out with new policies, it should be amended. Giving fair amount of time to the advertisers by sending them an email notification will work in the benefit of both advertisers as well as Microsoft.

@WB -- I didn't receive any notifications directly from Microsoft either. I find that to be a bit strange. Not even an alert at the top of my adCenter page.

Also, I believe all the sites advertised under my account are in compliance with these policies. However, if you see an issue with something in my account how will I be notified? What is the course of action after an issue is flagged?

[quote]We will transition to enforcing the new elements of the policy over the next week or two, so there is some time to prepare accounts and ensure compliance. [/quote]I still didn't receive an email or a notification about this in my adCenter account.