As COVID-19 became an increasing problem all over the world, it began to affect more aspects of life than just health and the economy. New questions came up when thinking about how to deal with this situation, even in the world of online advertising.
When the virus started to become an issue, a lot of clients began to ask themselves whether it was a good idea to keep their ads on new sites. This happened to the folks at Zato PPC marketing, they mention that after a client asked for the company’s ads to be removed from news sites, they “thought it made sense to cease marketing to these unique web pages as people seek information about the pandemic.
Whether it is because of COVID-related issues or not, one of the challenges of running display campaigns is the great swaths of negative placements you need to put in to prevent your ads from showing on specific sites.
Wouldn’t it be useful if someone took the time to organize the negatives by category? It would definitely save time and energy for everyone in the industry.
The truth is, lots and lots of agencies have a compilation of negatives like this but they keep it private. Sorry!
But luckily for individual PPCers and smaller agencies, a lot of people who work with PPC regularly share some of these lists.
That’s why it’s useful to check out a list that our friends at Zato Marketing shared, which includes a number of newspaper placements. The list was provided for everyone and can be found in this Google Document.
Zato does point out that the list is not comprehensive, but they continue to update it with more information as it becomes available! They are also inviting people in the industry who have lists and would be willing to share them.
Zato posted a blog post explaining the background that led to their development of the list. It also includes some tips and factors to be aware of, including topics such as E-commerce. We encourage you to check out this information to see what would be more useful to you!
The objective behind this list is to help you if you want to look into excluding newspapers and news sites from placing your ads, so they don’t appear on pages that are talking about the current craziness—especially now with the global health crisis.
But even without this situation, the list is great because it has many other uses as well! Perhaps you want your ads to appear in local newspapers? Local newspapers tend to run AdWords, and they also tend to have readers who are easier to sell to. Above all, newspapers have very local targets, which is perfect for your clients who are in, well, local stores.
Of course, this list contains news sources from different jurisdictions all around. But you also have the option to use the entire list, and then based on your geography limit the targeting to your chosen location—and voila!
Enjoy testing this resource out, and make sure to share your results! That’s what we’re doing!
