Let’s suppose you’re doing well with your AdWords campaigns. You read Atria’s posts about content restrictions and new monetization guidelines. You make sure your business’s landing pages look superb and its advertisement descriptions address a target audience.
With all that in line, have you considered where your well-written ads might end up? It wouldn’t look great if Google placed your work on the website or video of a publisher that, for instance, promoted racist attitudes in its own writings.
This is why Google takes a number of measures to hold publishers to a high standard that meets or exceeds the standard you set for yourself.
AdWords, AdSense, and the Google Display Network
We talk a lot about AdWords here, since we’re an AdWords PPC company. AdWords works for businesses and advertisement creators, like you, that want to create text and video ads that run on reputable sites like Google and YouTube.
The other side of the coin, however, is a bit broader than just Google and YouTube. Independent publishers can also sign up for AdSense to run relevant advertisements. They comprise the bulk of more than two million websites that create the Google Display Network.
On the Google Display Network, your ads can appear just as easily in the sidebar of an individual’s blog as it can in the headline content of a Google search. You can tailor your ads to seek certain audiences (such as males over 40 years of age) and in specific contexts (such as mobile devices in California), but that power only reaches so far into the Display Network ecosystem.
Behind the Scenes
This situation begs the question: What is Google doing, behind the scenes, to make sure that those two million publishers match the quality you prefer?
A recent Inside AdWords blog post mentions Google’s use of “a combination of people and technology” to match your preferences.
The post first talks about how Google created 20 new publisher policies in 2017 to better protect AdSense users and you, the creator of the ads that AdSense utilizes. Then it discusses how automated programs can help pinpoint content that doesn’t match those policies, such as content that is “dangerous and derogatory” and could marginalize groups of people.
Human content reviewers also assist with this process by approving initial requests for AdSense use and by reviewing sites periodically after their inclusion.
Google states that it constantly uses these processes of automatic and manual review because a “publisher or an advertiser who is compliant with our policies today may not be tomorrow.” There is as much pressure for publishers to perform well with their original content as there is for you to perform well with your advertisements.
The Next Steps
As you move forward with AdWords, your biggest priority should be in keeping up your end of the bargain. You need to keep creating ads that work for your audience and meet Google’s policies. Google also mentioned in its recent blog post that it created 28 new advertiser policies last year, so this task won’t necessarily be easy.
In addition, you can also use your power as a consumer by reporting unsavory content to Google. It’s possible that the aforementioned tech-driven and manual reviews miss a website’s musings now and then, but individual Internet users come across Display Network websites every day. Therefore, it’s in your hands to say something if you see something. As active consumers, both AdWords and non-AdWords users can act as manual reviewers by proxy.
You can always contact Atria for any assistance you need. We’re experts in creating great ad content, and we know how to navigate Google’s terms of service so your ads remain relevant and clean.