I have come across something very unexpected. I had connected with two, for me, new display ad networks. I had an offer that was geo locked to the United States and the affiliate network didn't have a fallback offer for the geos outside of United States. I built the pre-lander, tested everything carefully with a VPN proxy set to the United States (I am in Europe). Everything worked. I created a campaign in one of the networks and it got rejected with some obscure reason like page is disruptive. I tested and tested again, sent it in again. Now they said that the disclaimer wasn't good enough (and I could agree to that, it's far better now). I fixed the disclaimer and checked the other legal pages so that they looked ok, then I sent it in again for approval. It got rejected again, page "disruptive". When I contacted them they said that the page was not possible to navigate to, that they never reached the site.
I tested it again and with the help of a VPN proxy set to the United States and it worked like a charm. I sent it in again and it got rejected with the same reason.
That was soooo strange. Then I came to think of that when I set up that page some time ago, I had added a service that I run on another of my servers, a heatmap tracking and user session recording service. I looked at the user session recordings and found several interesting things.
1) there was absolutely nothing wrong with the navigability, they had been around on the site. They reached it the first time too.
2) They managed to click on the offer link, but since the user session recording only works on my site, I could not see what happened after that, then I discovered this...
3) They tested it from the Philippines, a country that is obviously not part of the geo that I set up the campaign from. I confirmed this in ClickerVolt. It was tested from the Philippines despite that the campaign was setup for the United States.
The ignorance seemed unlimited on their end.
In a polite manner I sent them a message saying that I suspected a "misunderstanding" in that they hadn't seen that the campaign was setup for the United States and that they tested it from the Philippines. I also showed screenshots to show that it was tested from there. I even sent them a link to a screencast where I showed them what would happen outside of the geo that the campaign was created for + what happened IN that geo. It also showed what happened if the VPN proxy was set to the Philippines + that I asked a couple of my Filipino friends to test it. Of course it didn't work there. It was geo locked to the same geo as the campaign was set up for.
It took a week, after I have asked what happened to my case after 4 days, then they replied with that "it seemed that I was right" but that the offer was against their ad policy with NO reference to WHAT rule it was in violation with. The thing is that I had read their ad policies to the letter so I knew that there was nothing wrong there. They say that such offers are only ok for "premium services". There is NO such policy in their ad policy.
I contacted them again and asked them for what policy my page was in violation with.
After one week waiting for their answer and not getting any, I sent them a reminder. No answer. Now it's been two weeks and still no answer.
==>>>> My theory is that this is so embarrassing to the review team (which is probably a sub-contractor in the Philippines) that instead of saying that they were wrong, they blame a policy rule that doesn't exist.
Oh well, there are other ad networks, so I tried another. Did that go any better? Heck no! Campaign rejected, the page apparently didn't work. They tested the offer from Israel, a country which to my knowledge is not part of the United States geo .
I then sent them a friendly hint that I had seen that they had tested the offer from Israel, but that the campaign was setup for the United States and that the offer was geo locked to the United States and should not be expected to work elsewhere. It does, but only a few more geos. Israel is not one of them. I suggested to use a VPN proxy.
What happened?
If you managed to read all the way down here, then reply with what YOU think happened. I got into a state of laughing shock.
The ignorance is indeed shocking. TWO networks and they don't know how to test pre-landers? This must be a daily thing for them, and that I was unlucky, but unlucky several times in TWO different networks? Nah, this is not bad luck. This is not knowing what they do, or?
Is this a generic problem among display ad networks?
(I would appreciate a few hints to networks whose testers know how to test and where the traffic is good or ok.
Thanks!)
I tested it again and with the help of a VPN proxy set to the United States and it worked like a charm. I sent it in again and it got rejected with the same reason.
That was soooo strange. Then I came to think of that when I set up that page some time ago, I had added a service that I run on another of my servers, a heatmap tracking and user session recording service. I looked at the user session recordings and found several interesting things.
1) there was absolutely nothing wrong with the navigability, they had been around on the site. They reached it the first time too.
2) They managed to click on the offer link, but since the user session recording only works on my site, I could not see what happened after that, then I discovered this...
3) They tested it from the Philippines, a country that is obviously not part of the geo that I set up the campaign from. I confirmed this in ClickerVolt. It was tested from the Philippines despite that the campaign was setup for the United States.
The ignorance seemed unlimited on their end.
In a polite manner I sent them a message saying that I suspected a "misunderstanding" in that they hadn't seen that the campaign was setup for the United States and that they tested it from the Philippines. I also showed screenshots to show that it was tested from there. I even sent them a link to a screencast where I showed them what would happen outside of the geo that the campaign was created for + what happened IN that geo. It also showed what happened if the VPN proxy was set to the Philippines + that I asked a couple of my Filipino friends to test it. Of course it didn't work there. It was geo locked to the same geo as the campaign was set up for.
It took a week, after I have asked what happened to my case after 4 days, then they replied with that "it seemed that I was right" but that the offer was against their ad policy with NO reference to WHAT rule it was in violation with. The thing is that I had read their ad policies to the letter so I knew that there was nothing wrong there. They say that such offers are only ok for "premium services". There is NO such policy in their ad policy.
I contacted them again and asked them for what policy my page was in violation with.
After one week waiting for their answer and not getting any, I sent them a reminder. No answer. Now it's been two weeks and still no answer.
==>>>> My theory is that this is so embarrassing to the review team (which is probably a sub-contractor in the Philippines) that instead of saying that they were wrong, they blame a policy rule that doesn't exist.
Oh well, there are other ad networks, so I tried another. Did that go any better? Heck no! Campaign rejected, the page apparently didn't work. They tested the offer from Israel, a country which to my knowledge is not part of the United States geo
.I then sent them a friendly hint that I had seen that they had tested the offer from Israel, but that the campaign was setup for the United States and that the offer was geo locked to the United States and should not be expected to work elsewhere. It does, but only a few more geos. Israel is not one of them. I suggested to use a VPN proxy.
What happened?
If you managed to read all the way down here, then reply with what YOU think happened. I got into a state of laughing shock.
The ignorance is indeed shocking. TWO networks and they don't know how to test pre-landers? This must be a daily thing for them, and that I was unlucky, but unlucky several times in TWO different networks? Nah, this is not bad luck. This is not knowing what they do, or?
Is this a generic problem among display ad networks?
(I would appreciate a few hints to networks whose testers know how to test and where the traffic is good or ok.
Thanks!)
