These guidelines are designed to help you offer a powerful advertising vehicle for your valued-sponsors while maintaining your publication’s objectivity.
Publisher’s Rights
Publishers have the right to reject any Sponsored Comments related to any of these guidelines, or if you generally deem the Sponsored Comment unacceptable for your audience.
TalkAhead will always defer to the Publisher’s discretion.
Sponsored Comment Features
As a publisher, you decide which TalkAhead features shall be available to your sites’ advertisers. Features can apply to all of your sites in their entirety, or be restricted to specific sections or even articles (see below for details). Features include:
- Links. Publishers choose whether or not advertisers may include links to external sites within Sponsored Comments.
- Number of Comments. Publishers choose the number of Sponsored Comments to appear. TalkAhead recommends a maximum of three Sponsored Comments per article.
- Reviewing Comments. Publishers can opt to review a Sponsored Comment prior to posting, or allow advertisers to publish Sponsored Comments at-will.
- Flexible Pricing. Publishers determine how to, and how much to charge for Sponsored Comments: flat fee, or auction. TalkAhead’s platform automates both options.
- Channels. Enable you to specify different settings for different websites, website sections or even articles. For example, a publisher can set a different minimum CPM for the sports section and the business section of the website.
Acceptable Comments
TalkAhead has set standards of acceptability for advertisers to follow, and informs them of their obligation to adhere to those standards through our
Guidelines for Advertisers. In keeping with those standards, publishers should reject any Sponsored Comment based on the following reasons:
- Fails to follow the FCC’s rules regarding Obscenity, Indecency & Profanity
- Contains any manner of threat, promotes discrimination on the basis of nationality, race, religion or any other characteristic
- Makes claims listed as deceptive by the FTC
- Makes claims that cannot be substantiated
Rejecting Comments
In the event that you opt to reject a Sponsored Comment, its status will be set to “rejected.” Additionally, you may choose to provide an explanation to the advertiser via the Message Center, but are under no obligation to do so. Please note that should you choose to notify the advertiser of a Sponsored Comment rejection, the advertiser will have the opportunity to resubmit a Sponsored Comment that meets your criteria.
Sponsored Comments Best Practices
- The TalkAhead platform gives you a lot of flexibility to implement Sponsored Comments on your site, including pricing and inventory. As a publisher, you know your audience better than anyone else:
Set prices based on the audience size and value-to-readership of each section of your site
Allow for more Sponsored Comments in sections, such as your Editorial page, where readers are more apt to debate stories
- If you choose not to review Sponsored Comments prior to posting, you might want to include on your site a disclaimer stating that “Comments are solely the views of the advertiser, not the publisher"
