As a follow up to last week's advertising awareness efforts, it appears most of the advertisers initially referenced have pulled off Coulter's site. Many thanks to all participants for another apparent success. Here's a list of the "good guys" who have taken the time to respond to concerns:
The Good Guys:
Zipzone Media Bluetooth Marketing
Maryland Department of Tourism
Allstate Insurance
Delta Airlines
Starwood Hotels and Resorts (Westin Hotels)
Organic Valley (responded, no committment to withdraw but not appearing)
(For reference, a link to last week's diary on this subject is here. More on the flip:
A second group of advertisers on the initial and subsequent lists have not responded to inquiries but appear to have pulled off the site. (Some of these companies may have responded to inquiries not yet reported by Kossacks) After dozens of browser refreshes this weekend they have not appeared on anncoulter.com. If any of these have reappeared in your market, please note it in the comments below:
Non-responding Advertisers No Longer Appearing
Walmart
Sunrocket VOIP
Nishty Telecom
RealEstateBook.com
Kodak
One other advertiser on the initial list, Intermarkets and it's associated ad placement service Mercuras are known for work with conservative sites and are highly unlikely to withdraw support.
Edmunds.com
Edmunds.com, a really great automotive site, responded to inquiries last week and advised they had pulled their ads in March. However, the ads remain.
Here is a copy of the email sent to many Kossacks last week:
Dear xxxxxxxxxxx,
Thanks for your interest in Edmunds.
As you may know, any Web site can request to become an "Affiliate" of our company as described at http://www.edmunds.com/...
Becoming an Affiliate allows the Web site to publish pre-approved advertisements for Edmunds. The ads you have seen have come through this system; they were not placed by Edmunds directly.
We are able to decline Affiliate requests and discontinue Affiliate relationships, and we do so whenever we deem it appropriate. For example, we discontinued our Affiliate relationship with www.anncoulter.com in March.
If you'd please send along the URL where you saw an ad for Edmunds this week, we can determine our appropriate next steps.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Edmunds.com Customer Support
Here is a screen cap of the ongoing rotating Edmunds ad:
The rotating ad verbiage refers to "Fuel Economy Sport Wagons", "SUV's" and other automotive types. Clicking on the link takes you to an Edmunds page on a specific vehicle.
Let's help Edmunds find the root cause why their ads are still appearing. Please take a moment to contact Edmunds:
Edmunds.com. Link.
Attach a copy of the screenshot and advise them ads are being placed by two separate web ad placement services, Mercuras and Adbrite. You can see the name of the placement service briefly at the bottom of your screen when you click on a link. As Mercuras appears to have a tendency to place ad content on conservative and/or political sites, some companies may want to reconsider using Mercuras.
Ad Networks
Most of the ads seen recently on anncoulter.com, in addition to Mercuras Network, appear to have been placed by Tribal Fusion and Adbrite. As noted above, if new ads appear watch the bottom of the screen when clicking on a link and the ad network name will briefly appear. Shown below is contact information, for future reference, for Adbrite and Tribal Fusion:
Tribal Fusion
Contact info
here,
Adbrite
Contact info is here.
Next Steps:
The DKos community participation in this effort has been nothing short of phenomenal. However, the risk of "burnout" by asking participants to contact advertisers on a weekly basis is a valid concern. That said, let's continue to monitor anncoulter.com and take actions on an intermittent but infrequent basis as needed. We can also monitor her site and take individual actions as we feel appropriate.
Again, kudos to this great community for a job well-done.