digital marketing agency, online advertising, Quora

My Quest To Use & Understand Quora’s Ads Manager Tool

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If you’re not familiar with the Q & A site, Quora, check it out! It’s a great place to get answers and respond to both personal and business questions. Not only can you establish yourself as a subject matter expert (SME) by responding to questions, you can also purchase advertising to be served up to audiences who might be in need of the products or services you offer — based on the questions they are asking and topics they are reading.

I figured the easiest way to not forget, and, therefore, be able to accurately document the good, the bad, and the ugly of my first attempts at implementing an ad campaign using Quora’s ad manager tool, was to start a draft of a post about my experiences and add to it as I went along with my ad campaign implementation, so here goes.

The Ugly

Before reaching out to Quora Customer Support for help, I attempted to use the Ads Manager tool on my own, but could make no headway (a button never appeared to allow me to save any work, nor did I receive any kind of prompts to move forward). I now believe that had something to do with the fact that I use Chrome as my default browser because  when I switched to Internet Explorer I was able to save my work. At least with my particular computer and Chrome browser set up, I wasn’t able to scroll down in the tool to see what I needed to see and have access to what I needed to have access to.

Despite switching the browser I used to access the Quora Ads Manager tool to Internet Explorer, and being able to, then, edit/add a campaign, when I tried to add/edit an ad set (equivalent to a Google Ads ad group) under a campaign, I wasn’t able to save my work or select my targeting. I got those red circles with the lines thru them — indicating “STOP” — whenever I hovered my mouse over the various targeting options.

Soooooo, I had to reach out to a Quora Ads rep once again, and that’s when I learned that the third item listed under “The Bad” section below was getting in my way of moving forward. However, even after a call with the rep where I seemed to be able to use both Chrome and/or Internet Explorer to make revisions to my campaign, I found that neither of these browsers were allowing me to do all I needed to do in Quora, and I eventually had to use Mozilla Firefox. Yup, crazy but true!

The Bad About Using Quora Advertising

1) when you set up your campaign start date and time, it is only available in Pacific Standard Time, so you need to calculate what your desired start time or end time would be in Pacific Standard Time when you set that up.

2) Unlike with Google Ads where you can spend as little as $1 a day, you are required to spend at least $5.00 a day.

3) Once you set up an ad set and pick a primary targeting option (see options below contextual, audience, behavioral, and broad), you are stuck with that targeting option, unless you want to delete your ad set and start all over again.quora primary targeting options.png

4) Each time I finished entering my ad copy, images, and logo for a particular ad, I would see a preview of my ad to the right of the fields where I added them. The preview of the ad included a box with a check in it that said “capital.” I kept trying to launch the ads, but kept getting an error message that I needed to do something related to this checked-off capital box, but whether I left it checked or unchecked, and then hit the “apply” button, I could not seem to get my ads approved for launching. Huge sigh. I kept getting the message that “an ad revision was required.” So, here I go again, reaching out to the Quora ad rep. What it came down to is this — Quora doesn’t like and won’t approve a lot of capitalization in ads.

5) Unlike other “Ad Manager” online tools, such as Facebook’s and Google Ads’, an agency, such as ours, can’t implement an umbrella management account under which it can set up/add, and then run and manage client ad campaigns. An outreach must be made to customer service when a client account needs to be added to an agency’s account.

The Good About Quora Advertising

Unlike Google Ads, Quora encourages the use of punctuation at the end of a statement, so you can use ! and ?, something Google frowns on, and doesn’t normally approve in search text ads.

Customer service is ready and willing to help when you need it!

I did finally get my ads launched and running on Quora. I decided to go with “keywords” as my primary targeting option, and ads, such as the one below, now appear alongside questions and answers related to keywords such as “SEO” and “SEM.”

results quora ad

Stay tuned for future updates via new blog posts that elaborate on how my new Quora ads fared, as well as a more in-depth discussion about targeting options available in Quora.

Reach Out To Our Boston Digital Marketing Agency’s Online Advertising Team

In the meantime, please feel to reach out with any Quora questions — because, hey that’s what Quora is all about — answering questions.

Uncategorized, warriors, fighters, doing good, giving back, paying it forward

Recognizing and Supporting the Warriors Among Us

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Recent messaging I’ve been exposed to, activities I’ve participated in, and health challenges with which I’ve dealt have prompted me to remind all my readers to continue to recognize and support the many and varied warriors among us. With October just around the corner, and news media, advertisers, and merchandisers splattering pink ribbons everywhere, breast cancer patients and survivors, as well as their caregivers, come most immediately to mind as individuals who need and deserve our support, but they are a just a small fraction of the many warriors in our midst.

Because of when the Committee gathered post-summer, fall reminds me of my previous pro bono publicity work for the Braintree-Milton-Randolph MA Relay For Life — an activity that regularly provides the opportunity to meet or hear the stories of patients and survivors who’ve battled or are battling many types of cancers (including breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, leukemia, lymphoma and more), and who are incredible fighters.

I was also diagnosed with a rare cancer — abdominal sarcoma — in September 2006, so this time of year always brings reminders of the emotional and physical challenges I faced at that time and continue to face 13 years later as a result of the chronic conditions cancer treatment and surgery left me with. In fact, on the day I’m posting this, I’m off to have some CT scans to try to identify the cause for some new digestive symptoms I’ve been having.

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At different points over the past 7 years, I have had the good fortune of interacting with cancer and other health warriors on a weekly basis because of my “sometimes” need to receive IV iron treatments (I no longer absorb iron well from food or supplements). I say “good fortune” because, while I may arrive at my hematology/oncology practice not wanting to deal with the pricks of blood draws or IV inserts, or simply grouchy because I have to give up several hours weekly to this health inconvenience, when I witness or talk to other patients about what they are going through, I realize how small my challenges are. While I don’t wish bad health on anyone and feel great compassion for those dealing with it, the courage and grace many patients — and those who help them — exhibit under really difficult circumstances is both a reminder to me of how indomitable the human spirit is and an inspiration to me to stay positive and be grateful for the gift of life.

Our Heart Speaks: An Organization Near ‘n Dear To Our Heart That Supports Health Warriors

My pro bono work for Our Heart Speaks (OHS), an organization that provides a voice and means of healing through artistic expression to individuals finding themselves suddenly struggling with new disability or chronic illness, reminds me so often how there are individuals who feel fairly rotten on a daily basis, but who, for a variety of reasons, don’t feel comfortable or have the need for regularly sharing their pain, fright, and suffering with the outside world, including friends and family. I’ve learned thru my social media work for OHS that, particularly patients who suffer from “invisible illness,” such as digestive issues or chronic pain that isn’t obvious to both the loved ones and strangers in the patients’ lives, often feel like they must struggle with their health challenges in silence because there’s no “physical evidence” that can be seen by the human beings with which they interact that they are suffering.

As I alluded to above, we must recognize that warriors come in all shapes & sizes. Some warrior souls are cloaked in the body of a 90-year old woman, and some use the body of a 5-year old boy as their vessel. Some are battling cancer, some, other terminal or chronic diseases like ASL, MS, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. And, some struggling with serious mental/emotional illness that paralyzes them, or, with addiction or social issues, such as homelessness.

Other warriors among us are the medical professionals who give their hearts and souls to their patients by helping them both emotionally and physically deal with their illness. Still, other warriors can be found in the friends and family members of those dealing with illness who do all they can to envelop their ill loved one in an invisible blanket of love. I also believe warriors can be found among the many individuals who give their free time to generate both awareness about research studies and research funds in support of a particular health challenge or social cause.

As briefly touched on above, in addition to physical-health warriors, there are innumerable warriors among us who, while not belonging to one of the four broad warrior groups above, i.e., the afflicted/challenged individual, professional caregivers, friend and family caregivers, and awareness and fund generators, battle non-physical-health challenges that seem equally insurmountable to health challenges. These include afflictions and challenges such as poverty, injustice, discrimination, and bullying. Plus mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, addiction, and PTSD.

As you do when you celebrate Halloween and seek to identify who the person is under a particular costume, make an effort to identify the warriors beneath the surface of the individuals with whom you interact. And, regardless of their circumstances, let’s all be sure to give a shout out and emotional and physical support to all the warriors we come across in our daily lives, not just in September & October, but all year long.

Keep Up The Fight: Fight Songs, Fighting Words & More

In close, and, in keeping with the above, please do let me know if you would like me to add a warrior song, individual, or organization to my “Keep Up The Fight” page. I would be thrilled to do so!