Ad serving and geopolitical uncertainties
                     Ad serving and geopolitical uncertainties
Watson F
Writes on ad servers, involved with Adspeed ad server 
solutions and Adspeed Ad server for publishers.
When running a business, especially an online business that operates 
globally and relies on ad serving, it is a good idea to keep up with 
current affairs around the world. While every business owner would like 
to be in a situation where the geo-political climate doesn’t affect them 
at all. There are already enough things to worry about when running a 
business.
However, the reality is that we are not living in a simple era when 
countries are self-contained and self-sufficient. Globalization has been 
working its way through pretty much all industries and companies for 
many years. Now we are seeing a push back against globalization with 
more trade restrictions and protectionism. Furthermore, pandemics, 
wars, and a host of other issues can all have an impact on business. They 
also have an impact on how companies market themselves and serve 
ads during those times. In an uncertain world, businesses need to be 
able to adjust on the fly to ensure that their sales continue unabated, or 
at least stay steady during troubled times. Let’s take a look at how an 
uncertain geo-political situation might affect your ad serving strategies:
Sanctioned markets
One of the first things that nations do when trying to shut down a 
perceived aggressor is to put sanctions in place. Sanction is done in an 
effort to hurt the economy of said country, which is exactly what is 
happening to Russia at the moment.
A sanction blocks companies from doing business with the sanctioned 
country. This results in a difficult time getting products, parts, and 
services from foreign companies. Modern products and services rely on 
a complex series of parts and components from many different 
companies in different countries. Therefore, an international blockage 
can stop production and disrupt supply chains.
Within the advertising industry, companies may be forbidden from 
advertising in a specific country or region. Depending on your business, 
you might or might not have exposure to the affected country. If you do 
have a significant exposure, you need to quickly adjust your marketing 
campaigns to take these sanctions into account because continuing to 
do so is basically throwing money away. Even if you can display ads, 
people might not be able to buy the product or make the purchase 
transaction. To be on the safe side, apply geotargeting, turn off current 
advertising campaigns in the ad server and/or put planned campaigns 
on hold before evaluating the situation further.
Sanctioned clients
Where things get more tricky for businesses is when sanctions have a 
negative impact on existing clients. It is likely neither their fault nor your 
fault that the business relationship and activities must be terminated or 
put on hold. It may seem unfair to discontinue working with a good 
client from a sanctioned country, but that is the nature of the game. The 
financial impact is definitely significant if it happens to a big client or if 
you have many clients in the sanctioned country. There is no single 
approach when dealing with this situation but it’s wise to maintain a 
good relationship with those clients even if you cannot serve them now. 
It is the hope that those clients will return when things get back to 
normal, or as close to it as possible in the future.
About Adspeed
AdSpeed ad server is a reliable & powerful ad serving and ad 
management solution that serves your ads, tracks impressions & clicks 
and reports ad statistics in real-time. Driven by the latest ad serving 
technologies, the goal of Adspeed adserver is to provide a reliable 
platform that can help in executing online advertising strategy more 
efficiently. 
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