When Ad Targeting Goes Bad

As a digital marketer, I’m hyper aware of the kind of ads that pop up in my browser when I’m on the internet. A whole lot of research and strategy goes into those ads you see, so I’m always curious when I am served ads that seem extremely irrelevant to my internet presence and past searches.

Recently, on an unnamed music website, I was served this ad for paper towels:

The ad was well designed, with a bright green popping against the white background of the website, the product shot and text had the right proportions. So far, so good. But my first thought, was not “Bounty paper towels, adding it to the grocery list,” it was:

That this ad is in Spanish is curious, because I don’t speak Spanish very well, and I’ve certainly never searched in Spanish. This would suggest that I don’t have any Spanish targeting indicators, which means that someone somewhere in the digital world is mismanaging their client’s digital dollars.

But what I’m about to show you is even more egregious. As you can see, some of the ad text is clipped by the ad specs. Comcast, what’s going on with your creative team? Did someone give them the wrong specs for the display ad platform? Anyone paying attention over there? Most platforms won’t even let you upload images that aren’t the right specs, so how did this even happen?

Being served these ads was a friendly reminder that when we as agency put creative together and send it into the digital world, it’s critical to do it in a responsible manner.