Hi 

 

I haven’t been doing any paid online advertising during lockdown. 

 

People have been finding my videos and blogs through organic search (keywords and SEO) and sales have kept coming through despite current events

 

That’s been the case from the high level life changing stuff (SFM & DEA) to the low cost video tools like Viddyoze and Vidnami that I promote

 

But I decided to do a little test ad using a video I recorded in 2019 BC (before coronavirus) and which has had thousands of views on Youtube.

 

I was surprised at how tricky Covid has made this……..

 

The video is about starting again after redundancy - a subject close to my heart - and how SFM helped me do that.

 

Pretty relevant right now I think you’ll agree 

 

But to stay on the right side of Youtube’s copyright rules - even though the video is mine - I had to change it slightly to use it on my ads channel 

 

So I made a couple of small edits and added an intro section I created with Viddyoze. 

 

I initially titled it “Recession proof your income” and Youtube disapproved the ad because it dealt with “Sensitive events”……

 

I tried several variations and they were all disapproved.

 

Eventually I got the ad approved under the title of “Start Again After Redundancy”.

 

Point is that at present Youtube and other major advertising platforms are taking a very hard line on ads that address the corona virus or the recession 

 

Their explanation is that they want to prevent advertisers from taking advantage of and profiting from the situation

 

That’s very noble but it does make it awkward to advertise the sorts of products that so many people actually do want and need precisely because of these “Sensitive Issues”.

 

So "covid19" and "recession", are sensitive events but redundancy is not?….

 

My ad got approved by not referring to the “Sensitive Events” themselves but to their effects

 

Like everyone else many of Youtube’s staff are currently working from home so most of the ad checking process is done by algorithm rather than human 

 

My first 4 four attempts were disapproved within an hour - far too fast for any human involvement on a platform the size of Youtube

 

The final ad took 24 hours to be approved which suggests to me that it was passed to a person for a proper assessment. 

 

So my little test ad actually took the best part of two days to get started 

 

But hey - I’m glad that ads are being filtered. Even if some of the good guys are accidentally caught in the net  

 

It’s just a little inconvenience to me and if my ad helps even one person who is in the position I was in the last recession I’m a happy man 

 

 

Cheers! 

 

 

Dave