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In this week’s PPCChat session, host Julie F Bacchini invited experts to share their views on ethical marketing, discuss tactics that PPC professionals consider unethical, explore whether ad platforms influence ethical versus unethical behavior, and consider if anything can be done to make the world more ethical.

Q1: What does “ethical marketing” mean to you?

To me, ethical marketing means both how I operate my business as a marketer and also not doing things that are unethical or against a platform’s terms of service. @NeptuneMoon

White hat and transparent. @revaminkoff

To me, ethical marketing means running an agency that is transparent with its clients—we give them the good, the bad, and the ugly and don’t run away from it (even though sometimes we want to hide). Also, not violating platform terms and doing blackhat things. @adwordsgirl

Not doing things against platform terms, and always be honest with my client and deal with integrity i.e. don’t suggest optmisation practices that you know they aren’t suited for, don’t promise immediate results, don’t hold their account access hostage….it’s a long list but hopefully you get my gist. 😉 @TheMarketingAnu

To add to Anu: Don’t make pageviews a conversion goal. @adwordsgirl

Market unto others the way you’d want them to market unto you. 🙂 @revaminkoff

Doing well by doing good. This means taking care of your customers and team members like they are family, staying up to date so you don’t suggest harmful strategies, and never allowing short-term greed to get in the way of long-term scalable success. @navahhopkins

As a consultant, being transparent with performance data with my clients and not hiding behind vanity metrics. As a marketer, not misleading potential customers. @Austin_Dillman

Don’t exaggerate claims in text copy that mislead consumers and can get you in hot water with government authorities. @JeffreyHain

I will echo all the transparency mentions. Very important to be up-front, honest and clear. @NeptuneMoon

Make audits objective and meaningful again where there are actual numbers to back up the points. More often than not I see rubbish like Ad Strength being used to throw shade at the current set-up.    I’ve also seen lots of cherry-picked data without context that was intentionally pulled for the sake of making eyebrows raise. @EricLouisConsulting

Transparency can and should extend to making sure stakeholders understand what we’re reporting. @navahhopkins

Ethical marketing also includes owning up to mistakes promptly and completely. @NeptuneMoon

Oh heh. For me, it’s an audience-centred practice through a lens of inclusivity, accessibility, brand safety, and customer privacy. @ferkungamaboobo

With me it’s about transparency and being agnostic. We have to choose what is best for the client, not just what platforms or our own biases want. It also means emphasizing investments in local media and ensuring our dollars go where they can do the most good. @JuliaVyse

Like, if you’re lying in your ads, if you’re scamming your customers, whatever. That’s table stakes to being a not-POS. But I don’t think 99% of people set out to do that. @ferkungamaboobo

I treat every client’s budget like my own. I hold myself accountable and report to the client on my responsibilities, good, bad, and ugly.  @robert_brady

But there’s a difference between promoting and creating easily measured harms in our audiences and not – and I think that’s where ethical marketing really is. @ferkungamaboobo

Q2: Are there tactics you’ve seen that you consider unethical and if so, why?

Agencies holding accounts hostage. Also, the people who call saying they are Google who are not actually Google. @revaminkoff

Agencies owning client accounts is a huge one for me. I cannot tell you how many times I am set to work with a new client and we cannot get access to their existing account. And hiding behind “proprietary” anything as reasons to not provide account access to clients. @NeptuneMoon

What Reva said – also promising results without giving caveats. @TheMarketingAnu

The one thing that irks me the most is when they use language like it’s our “proprietary” system or some other nonsense. @adwordsgirl

Running ads that fund neonazis. Creating experiences that rely on over-tracking. On my more extremist days: UX that is combative to the audience instead of focused on their goals. @ferkungamaboobo

Agencies owning clients’ ad accounts (dealt with this recently). Agencies paying for clients’ ad spend but marking it up significantly. Agencies not giving clients’ access to their ad accounts. Conducting paid media audits that are set up to make the existing in-house team/agency appear incompetent to try to win business. Audits should be fair and honest and not use cherry-picked data.  @Austin_Dillman

It seems like we all agree on the owning the account issue. @JuliaVyse

Here’s where I have to give the disclaimer this is my opinion, not to be conflated with any other company: @navahhopkins

  1. Brands not owning their accounts.
  2. Advertising agencies pushing spend up to get better MRR on % of spend and/or credit card points
  3. Forcing an account to follow “a proven method” rather than honoring what’s working for them. I.e forced restructures or starting over.
  4. Not reporting anything other than spend and conversions
  5. Using micro conversions and short phone calls without explaining why and or taking credit for full conversions because of that
  6. Saying a type of marketing is bad or a waste + not collaborating with another channel (SEO, Social, Email, etc.)
  7. Always hating or supporting the ad platforms without applying a critical eye as to whether the ad platform is being helpful or hurtful. Usually, this is so you can get engagement on social

Oh, I literally don’t care about that haha. There’s benefits and drawbacks. @ferkungamaboobo

I’ll add that conflicts of interests abound! there is a way to deal with personal connections to influencers and influencer spend and there’s a lot of that being ignored out there. @JuliaVyse

Preying on lack of technical knowledge to bamboozle clients. @NeptuneMoon

I’ve seen agencies set up redundant conversion actions to make conversion performance look better. Or, they’re tracking things like page views or button clicks as conversions and combining that with phone calls/form fills to make the CPL seem lower. It’s hard for me to believe this isn’t intentional. If it’s not intentional, the incompetence is just as bad. @Austin_Dillman

I mean, again, we’re talking about literally lying to our clients — which happens, for sure, but no one’s going to own up to that publicly. I don’t think that’s where we should be patting ourselves on the back for our ethics, IMO. @ferkungamaboobo

Data obfuscation as others have said. Be clear on what the goal(s) are and how performance is relative to those goals. Don’t use bogus metrics. Report the real stuff even when it is not doing well. @NeptuneMoon

So so much unethical stuff, the holding accounts hostage, praying on lack of knowledge with added conversions, pretending metrics matter that don’t, adding micro conversions, making the client feel it is their fault and while not unethical I think this is poor ethics adjacent and that is charging insanely low retainers like 500 a month or 1000 a month knowing full well someone has 40 plus accounts to manage. @runnerkik

I was speaking to someone about that yesterday @NeptuneMoon The barrier to entry is so low, and you can easily photoshop results to make it look like you know what you’re doing. Which then just creates a race to the bottom for pricing which is irritating too. @adwordsgirl

Navah just reminded me of this point — lack of reporting/lack of useful reporting. OMG, the agency that was just reporting on spend and impressions and nothing else…@revaminkoff

I work with a lot of clients in restricted spaces, so my advice to them tends to be less exciting than other agencies. But I tell the truth about what they can and cannot do legally. there’s pushing a client to try new things, and then there’s leading them down a dangerous path. @JuliaVyse

I’m happy to see most of us agree on what’s unethical. gives me hope @navahhopkins

The low retainers is just trashing the industry IMHO, Duane has a great POV too because I also see paying someone in a low cost of living area lower wages as wrong, there is so so much…@runnerkik

Can we add in mixing brand and nonbrand in reporting? Because that is its own type of deceitful performance figures. @NeptuneMoon

yes!!!! omg I hate it. @navahhopkins

Charging huge retainers/management fees and not putting in the work.I know there is a lot of analysis/monitoring that won’t show up in a change log, but I’ve seen a company pay $25K/month in mgmt fee and there are literally 2 guys doing like 10 hrs/month of work on their accounts. @robert_brady

Yes, @NeptuneMoon we can add that or a DSA to a non-brand that is pulling in brand…@runnerkik

And it’s so freaking common. same with refusing to add negatives. I kind of addressed both with my list but really important to call those out @navahhopkins

@NeptuneMoon Yes but only if it’s done intentionally. @revaminkoff

Well re: brand/nonbrand — the amount of times I’ve been told “I don’t care about the details” by clients. @ferkungamaboobo

Agreed @revaminkoff – I am talking about intentionally blending brand and non-brand to make things like cost per click and cost per acquisition lower. @NeptuneMoon

We do a section for conversions and then have performance separated by campaign to stay transparent, but we’ve had experiences similar to what Reid mentioned. Sometimes, they don’t care. @adwordsgirl

The abuse I see of employees at agencies is unethical as well, so I know I harp on giving someone 40 accounts but I also think some agencies KNOW or should KNOW ppc alone as a channel can’t fix certain things and the poor jr ppc manager thinks it is their fault. @runnerkik

@runnerkik  no comment from my holdco. and also, will you be at hero conf? maybe we can chat in person. @JuliaVyse

When I started, I had 35 accounts and ended with 63 + reporting + client calls. IT SUCKED, but it also taught me a lot. In hindsight, I appreciate the experience, but it wasn’t fun. @adwordsgirl

Q3: How much do the ad platforms influence ethical vs unethical behavior? And do you find ad platforms themselves to be ethical or unethical or a bit of both?

So here’s where not all ad platforms are created equal – I think Amazon the company is not ethical at all, but their ad team is one of the most ethics-driven teams out there. @navahhopkins

It is a very layered question…@NeptuneMoon

The platforms are capitalism and that should answer the question on ethics by saying capitalism…much larger discussion…@runnerkik

Google and Meta we can talk about how much they build in areas for human error to get folks to invest more than they intend. @navahhopkins

The core premise of display has rotted the internet and is a falsehood. The core premise of social is irrelevant in the face of bots. @ferkungamaboobo

As usual it depends. I’d say both. I’ve worked with some of the best teams out there IMO, but Meta as an entity is not ethical. neither is amazon. Google is getting real goofy. @JuliaVyse

Microsoft is pretty great in most ways – though I think they also build in some easy pitfalls. @navahhopkins

Ad platforms, first and foremost, are about delivering shareholder value, not advertiser value. @NeptuneMoon

Some of the default setting are borderline unethical to me. Geotargeting to “interested in” people where spend goes worldwide. Audience expansion in Google Display campaigns. @robert_brady

I do think that “Search” is in fact the most straightforward of digital marketing channels, and you have to get in the weeds of auction design to see where it starts to harm consumers and companies. @ferkungamaboobo

Platforms of a certain size I feel tend to start looking at things too much from a profit POV that they skirt the line of ethics. More accountability departments/teams should be in place to avoid ethics lines being crossed. Some poor junior member could just be following orders – leading to doing something unethical as well. @TheMarketingAnu

Platforms encourage unintentional, nonvigilant or inexperienced de facto unethical behaviors with their default settings and recommendations. @NeptuneMoon

I’d like to see more awareness around conversion tracking settings in general. @navahhopkins

Intentionally making settings hard to find (AAR settings in Google, the network settings being at the ad group level in Microsoft Ads) and burying data in reports (user location for Google Ads, placement reports for PMax) @robert_brady

“Recommendations” and “Auto apply” on the Google Ads side that literally almost tricks you into spending more money is not ethical. @revaminkoff

Reps undermining agencies is not awesome but this is only someone doing their job. @runnerkik

we won’t talk about reps making undocumented changes in accounts. @navahhopkins

I used to really feel that Google did no evil, but I’ve become increasingly cynical — and agree it’s just about what’s best for the business, not the advertisers. @revaminkoff

Platforms lack of care for brand safety in pursuit of revenue is another ethical failing, IMO. @NeptuneMoon

Google is making so many changes that help its bottom line at the expense of advertisers…@revaminkoff

@revaminkoff The “Don’t Do Evil” thing went in the trash the day Google went public. The execs are accountable to shareholders to increase stock value, not advertisers (their customers). @robert_brady

@revaminkoff Well those cushions are not going to shake themselves. @NeptuneMoon

I think we need to get comfortable with which platforms function off of exclusions vs targets. @navahhopkins

Totally. The change from credit card payments to bank transfers is still going on and I’d love to hear more about its impact on businesses. @adwordsgirl

Google needs exclusions (and respects them). Meta thrives on targets. @navahhopkins

There is also a bit of sleight of hand happening too with automation. You are given shiny things and have actual data taken away or aggregated. @NeptuneMoon

As far as platforms influencing unethical behavior the certification itself is influencing bad behavior think of the people who get ads certified like it is “get rich quick” and smart campaigns too – there is alot for unaware advertisers to fall into…@runnerkik

Like even the segment news – most of the segments still say “cross-network”. that isn’t helpful XD. @navahhopkins

@runnerkik I didn’t even think of that. @adwordsgirl

If you blindly follow platform recommendations or even some “best practices” you can inadvertently be doing things that are not in the advertiser’s best interest so easily. And the way things are worded in the platforms is really shady to get you to do this (Google is particularly egregious in this area).I consider that pretty unethical. @NeptuneMoon

“upgrade” to broad match. @adwordsgirl

I have so often had clients wonder if we were falling behind because they read a help article and worried it was a ‘best practice’ I’m happy to calmly explain you can’t run shopping ads without a merchant centre, but the panic it instils is amazing. @JuliaVyse

To follow up a bit – I am a big fan of specific buys. Buy from your client’s local CBS affiliate. Buy from NPR. Buy from Hulu. Their inventory is fine and is self-serving. @ferkungamaboobo

The classic “Well, you could change that setting but most advertisers don’t” or “ok, change that but your performance will probably tank if you do” prompts make me angry every single time I see them. @NeptuneMoon

@ferkungamaboobo buy local. I mean it! that dude who owns a billboard you need to be on is a local business just like you are. @JuliaVyse

yesyes! Plus I ASSURE you more in-market people have a meaningful impression of that billboard than any ad you place on the internet. @ferkungamaboobo

Q4: Have you ever been in a position where you’ve been asked to do something unethical by a client/boss? How did you handle it?

Oh yes… and now I work for myself. @revaminkoff

Kinda. I had a boss call me to ask if something unethical was possible as he was getting ready to meet a potential client, and that’s what I told him. His response was, “I’ll just call [VP] to see what he says,” which was essentially his way of saying, “he’ll give me the answer I want.” It was the day I knew I wasn’t going to be there much longer. @adwordsgirl

I had a weird situation in my strexcorp life – one brand in our ‘family’ wanted to take credit for conversions in my account. I saw why they wanted to do it and show our ‘partnership’ but it was weird and very awkward. fun fact: not only am I no longer there, the company doesn’t exist anymore! @JuliaVyse

Yes. At agency. Told them it wouldn’t work. They didn’t care. It was to help billings. I did it, and it didn’t work. @JeffreyHain

To be less snarky – all the time, especially earlier in my career when I was less aware of the harms of things. You do what you have to under capitalism to survive, you do what you think is right because these are your mentors and bosses. @ferkungamaboobo

It’s not easy, but with consistency, it becomes habit. @JuliaVyse

It’s really interesting how much is built in — I like, laugh at zip code targeting these days. @ferkungamaboobo

Yes. Had a client ask me to tell the CMO that we had already launched campaigns when we had not. Reason was that he missed his deadline and wanted me to cover for him. Told him I’m not willing to lie. Have had managers when I worked in-house ask me to blatantly copy ad creatives or copy ideas from competitors because “it must be working if they’re doing it.”  @Austin_Dillman

And tbh it took working with a client that legally couldn’t do that (financial) where i was like, oh wait, this is literally against the law [for certain industries] but the question is “why?” @ferkungamaboobo

I have had fewer situations with direct clients and more when working white label  for another agency. And mostly is was reporting BS. I always raised my objections and if continually overruled, would end that engagement.  @NeptuneMoon

I’ve told many clients that “this is against the terms of service for this ad platform” and they still want me to try it to see if we can get away with it. I explain that getting their ad account shut down is not worth it and that usually puts an end to that conversation. @Austin_Dillman

or like, the back and forth on creative where you have the data that shock of shocks, representing your real audience (i.e. by putting darker-skinned folks in your ads) actually makes your ads more effective. @ferkungamaboobo

@Austin_Dillman Isn’t it amazing when you tell them the consequences and some are still saying “yeah, but CAN you do it?” @NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon They can find someone else to do it, but not me. @Austin_Dillman

@ferkungamaboobo I worked on an ecomm account that was like this (and never again). They were so dead set against all the data we had on demographics. It was wild and frustrating. @NeptuneMoon

Well blackhat (as defined as “against platform TOS”) is just a question of “how risk-averse are you” @ferkungamaboobo

I’ve put my foot down on the things that really went against my values or were legally questionable. @revaminkoff

There’s nothing wrong inherently with not following Google’s rules or whatever. obvs have to communicate all that with client, etc etc. @ferkungamaboobo

@ferkungamaboobo I feel like we would work well together. @JuliaVyse

I think too, like, you have a lot of marketing talking heads out there who spatter off ideas and they’re just bad ones — location-based SMS/push notification for lead gen is one I heard ALL THE TIME for a while. and it comes back to “would you like this experience yourself?” “well, no” “okay why are we doing this to our clients?” @ferkungamaboobo

Or shady tools that claim to let you actually see competitors analytics or ad accounts. That is a hard no. Or tracking on a site that is very over-the-line intrusive. @NeptuneMoon

I am still waiting on a client to agree with me that pageviews/traffic are not a KPI or metric. @ferkungamaboobo

I think the old adage “just because you can does not mean you should” is a classic for a reason.  @NeptuneMoon

GA4, my beloved, you just needed an evangelist to say “the way we’ve been doing web analytics for two decades is wrong” @ferkungamaboobo

Q5: What, if anything, can we do to make the world a more ethical place without sacrificing the pragmatic need to make a living?

oof. as I said to my gov client two weeks ago, individuals cannot solve structural problems. that’s not how structures work. @JuliaVyse

I think bringing ethical concerns up to clients is a good start. Awareness is an important first step in anything. @NeptuneMoon

One thing I’ve done in my marketing practice is use the equity-building tactic of “a pause.” Think about where this can go wrong for the audiences that you’re communicating with. We’re analytical people — let’s use that power to see how what we’re doing harms our audience, harms the larger world. @ferkungamaboobo

Build stuff into your processes as well — one big thing for my design stuff is that I check color contrasts with AA and AAA WCAG Guidelines. What passes, what fails? How can we get it to a place where we’re meeting those guidelines? @ferkungamaboobo

Accessibility is a great point @ferkungamaboobo and it is so often not considered or an afterthought. When it should be baked right in. @NeptuneMoon

Even something as simple as “our research shows that we should default to person-first language, and for these audiences, we should use identity first language” @ferkungamaboobo

That was such a powerful thing at one agency I was at — right in the employee handbook was a thing about person-first language. To cut a rant off — ethical practices almost always are more effective practices, practices that we can stand by without having to hem or haw.@ferkungamaboobo

I think what we’re doing will continue to make a difference. Having open and honest conversations online with each other, along with creating our own content on what is ethical, will help close the knowledge gap. It’s going to take a billion years, but progress is progress. @adwordsgirl

Ethics is doing the right thing when no one is looking. @JeffreyHain

And let’s keep calling out BS when we see it! @NeptuneMoon

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