Now I am not sure how these ads are served, they are not Adwords, or other obvious PPC ads. They seem to be generated by the INL ad bureau.

What caught my attention was that AD/DC was being advertised on a page mentioning Hells Angels. (I have also seen other ads relating to mens issues, Expedia, IRD, NZArmy, Sky TV and others)

Now, upon looking at the code of the page, the Javascript that runs the ads, states that the keywords that are triggering the ads are: (exact content, non capitalisation included)

• Hells Angels
• Wanganui
• gang patch law 

Now with Ad servers I have worked with, advertisers can choose the keywords they want their ads to be triggered by. It is also possible, that they are just on a site wide rotation.

However, it is interesting to see what keywords and what advertisers are appearing for this kind or article.

If the ads are keyword triggered (which makes sense from a targeting point of view, you don\’t waste as much money), what was the keyword that worked?

Was the targeting deliberate or just accidental, if it is deliberate, are they aware of what articles their ads are appearing in?

This issue is common in generic news sites, especially when some keywords can be wildly different (Wanganui vs Hells Angels)

The post Contextual Ads – AC/DC and Hells Angels first appeared on SAJE.