Last updated: April 7, 2020, at 10:38 am
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, some advertisers are tasked with quickly adding keywords related to the virus to their keyword blocklists. Similar to publishers, advertisers maintain their own blocklists to protect their brand safety. Advertisers will not buy advertising space on pages that contain specific keywords.
Here are general keywords that may be added to blocklists by advertisers related to the virus:
- Coronavirus
- Coronavirus pandemic
- Coronavirus symptoms
- Coronavirus news
- Coronavirus USA
- Coronavirus China
- Coronavirus Italy
- Coronavirus recession
- Coronavirus update
- Coronavirus map
- Coronavirus vaccine
- Coronavirus pets
- COVID-19
- COVID-19 live updates
- Pandemic
- Virus
- Face masks
- Respirator masks
- N95 face masks
As of April 3, 2020, Google and Twitter decided to lift its coronavirus-related ad ban. These bans were an effort to stop the spread of misinformation and bad actors from trying to profit from this pandemic. These bans stopped companies from running ads directly related to COVID-19 which negatively impacted many publishers.
After pushback, Google and Twitter have decided to lift its ban. “We’re planning to allow other advertisers, including political organizations, to run ads related to COVID-19. We will have more information to share on this in the next few days,” said Google head of industry Mark Beatty in an email obtained by The Verge.