Unprecedented times. We've seen that phrase so often in emails from companies, but in the advertising world - it was certainly a learning experience. Something the scope of a global pandemic did have an effect on the digital advertising industry- and it's resulting in learning some valuable tricks that you can apply no matter what's going on in the world.
COVID-19: Trends we saw
As COVID progressed, with the rapid increase in news available, we saw bloggers create content to try to capture that interest. So you'd see information on masking, on prevention, and ways to take care of yourself if you did become infected.
And it's true - those posts were often the most popular content on their sites. But it became very clear that they weren't monetizing well.
What happened?
While there was plenty of inventory, it wasn't filling with the same ad rates as other posts. Why? Keywords. Part of what determines what rates are available for ads on your site is the content. The keywords that you use can help or hurt. In this case, advertisers didn't want their brand next to content about the pandemic.
They would target away from pages with those keywords, leaving lesser quality ads on those pages. Leading to lower revenue overall.
Targeting?
Ads from providers look at a variety of things on the page. The device, the kind of traffic - but they also look at the keywords that you use on the page, in order to decide if their ad is appropriate for your page.
What we learned
If you're writing content with negative subjects and keywords (examples: pandemics, crime, violence, sexuality), you should be prepared for major advertisers to target away your content. But that doesn't mean that you can't find ways to monetize.
How? Link to other related content on your site.
For sites who were writing about caring for kids during COVID, we recommended that they link to kids activities that they'd shared years prior. It would direct traffic to pages that could monetize fully with higher paying ads - and it helped people recover that revenue, as well as get return traffic.
We also recommend that if possible, people find ways about writing about negative events when possible without naming it. With COVID, we saw bloggers talking about crafts for kids who are bored. Recipes with pantry staples. Stretching your budgets.
The Articles written by SHE Media teams
The Digital Economy and Coronavirus (posted March 13, 2020 - updated March 19, 2020)
Covid-19 and the Impact on Ad Spend (originally posted April 1, 2020)
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