Online advertising today revolves around reaching the right audience at the right time in the right place. Missing just one of those factors can derail your advertising plans or, worse, cause public-relations headaches if your ads appear on a site your supporters find objectionable.
People are paying close attention to where your ads appear and they will take action if they dislike what they see. Two grass-roots campaigns, Sleeping Giants and AdStrike, are drawing attention to organizations that run ads on right-wing or fake-news sites and encouraging online activists to voice protests.
The campaigns have targeted at least two nonprofits whose ads appeared on Breitbart News, the controversial media organization closely tied to the Trump administration: the American Red Cross, which says it is working with its advertising agency to remove its ads, and Heifer International, which blocked its ads from appearing on the site in March.
“We aren’t in advocacy ... so we try to target our advertising to news sites,” says Robby Matthews, advertising and marketing manager at Heifer.
Here are some steps Mr. Matthews and other experts recommend groups take to make sure ads do not appear on sites that conflict with their values or mission.
Set up blocked categories.
Some ad-placement services, including the most widely used, Google’s Display Network, offer whole site categories to block. If your service does so, be sure to implement that feature first.
Mr. Matthews says Heifer, which uses Display Network, blocks sites the service labels “sexually suggestive,” “profanity and rough language,” and “death and tragedy,” among others.
He also suggests blocking the “not yet labeled” category, which Google sets up for sites it hasn’t yet vetted or categorized, which could include spam or new fake-news sites.
But these categories aren’t foolproof, warns Michael Lott, digital-advertising strategist at consulting firm M+R. who has written about blocking advertising on certain websites. You’ll have to refine your blocking strategy, he says.
Build your “blacklist.”
Experts recommend creating a list of specific sites on which you do not want your advertising to appear. Most ad networks and agencies make these blacklists easy to build and to update regularly. Google AdWords and Facebook Audience Network have specific instructions for how to manage these lists yourself.
Mr. Matthews says Heifer looks for sites that anyone across the political spectrum could find offensive.
If you want to ensure that you only appear on specific sites, you can also set up a “whitelist” of authorized sites on which your ads can be placed. That’s appropriate in some situations, but Mr. Lott says it can hinder your ability to reach a broad audience, trading the goal of targeting the “right person at the right time” for reaching people in a specific place.
Regularly check where your ads are appearing.
A blacklist isn’t something you can set once and forget, Mr. Lott says. There should always be a way, with every advertising system and agency, to see where your ads are appearing. It’s important to check those reports once or twice a month to learn about new sites, “even if it’s after the fact,” he says.
If you don’t recognize a site in the report, pay it a visit to see if it fits with your mission and brand. If it doesn’t, add it to the blacklist. This task should become less time-consuming as your blacklist grows and excludes more sites, Mr. Lott says.
Clearly communicate your expectations to vendors.
Working with vendors and navigating online advertising platforms can be complicated and fraught with problems. The New York Times and media-news site Digiday have reported on the challenges some organizations have faced, including technical issues and inattentive advertising agencies.
That’s why it’s particularly important to make sure your vendors know your nonprofit’s goals and your expectations.
“They have plenty of clients who also care very much about their brand,” Mr. Lott says. “It’s not just nonprofit groups that don’t want their ads showing up on sites with racist or homophobic content; everyone is working on this.”
If your organization has pro bono advertising help, it’s especially important to make sure you have a way to quickly stop or change an advertising campaign when you need to. Some pro bono services may offer placement but fall short in support when you need it.
Don’t worry about missed advertising opportunities.
Because online advertising is geared more toward buying an audience — say, people who have previously visited your site — than toward targeting particular outlets, your ads could follow people anywhere they go online.
But Mr. Lott and Mr. Matthews say you shouldn’t be concerned about missing out on opportunities to reach your supporters on controversial sites they may visit. There’s much, much more advertising availability online, and you’ll be able to reach your supporters on more mainstream sites.
And if you’re responsive when you get called on a misstep, it may win you some support.
Leigh Ann Magier of Culver City, Calif., tweeted a positive message and gave to Heifer after the charity pulled its ads from Breitbart. She said it was important to her to link the donation to the charity’s action on ads.
“I wanted to give them some positive feedback on taking the steps they took,” Ms. Magier said in an email.