What to do when your website is showing a wrong ad or is not showing an expected ad?
                     What to do when your website is showing a wrong 
ad or is not showing an expected ad?
Watson F
Writes on ad serving, involved with Adspeed 
adserver solutions & Adspeed ad server platform
As a publisher, encountering the wrong ad showing on your site or finding a 
missing ad can be a frustrating and worrisome experience. Publishers must 
take proactive measures to prevent and address these issues promptly to 
protect their reputation, maintain user trust, and ensure the long-term 
success of their online businesses. To effectively address this issue, follow 
these steps to identify and resolve the underlying cause:
Check the Ad Status
Before delving into the specifics of the ad content, it's crucial to verify the 
ad's overall status. It is a very quick and simple check yet it can be easily 
overlooked from time to time. You might assume an ad is active when in fact 
it is inactive. Familiarize yourself with the ad server's interface and 
determine whether the ad is Active or Pending. An active ad is currently 
running and displaying to users, while a pending ad is still under review and 
not yet visible to the public.
If you expected an ad to show on your site and yet its status is pending or it’s 
not even shown in the ad server then you have found your problem. The simple 
solution is to create or activate it so that it is active and can begin showing on 
your site. On the other hand, if an old ad is showing when you thought it was 
previously deactivated, double-check its status again. The goal is to rule out one 
of the most obvious reasons before moving on to other possible causes.
Inspect Ad Targeting Criteria
Ad targeting criteria define the specific audience and context in which an ad 
should appear. Ad restrictions are limitations placed on where and when an ad 
can be shown. Your advertisers might want to restrict ad serving from certain 
audiences or geographical locations. When the expected ad is missing or the 
wrong ad is showing, it is very important to review the targeting criteria 
associated with the ad to ensure they match the advertiser’s requirements and 
align with your intended audience and content. Examine the ad restrictions to 
ensure that they are not preventing the ad from appearing on the desired 
pages or platforms. This may involve checking factors such as geo-targeting 
locations, demographics, interests, device type, content categories, sensitive 
placements, and competitor exclusions.
For example, if the ad has a restriction to viewers from California and you 
are not in California then not seeing the ad is normal and expected. 
However, if you are in California and you are not seeing the ad then there 
are other possible reasons you need to rule out. Also, the result of a single 
restriction might be different from the result of combining multiple 
restrictions and targeting criteria. For example, the ad targets California 
viewers but only on Saturdays and Sundays. You are testing the site on a 
Monday then you should not expect to see it.
 
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. 
 
 
 
 
Thank you for your time in reading this article.