Updated March 2025
ADVERTISING POLICIES
Texas Highways adheres to ASME (American Society of Magazine Editors) guidelines.
Texas Highways operates on the following principles:
- Every reader is entitled to fair and accurate news and information.
- The value of magazines to advertisers depends on reader trust.
- The difference between editorial content and marketing messages must be transparent.
- Editorial integrity must not be compromised by advertiser influence.
Acceptable advertising
- Texas vacation, travel, and tourism- related features, sites, facilities, destinations, accommodations, restaurants, events, equipment, and services
- Texas shopping opportunities related to destinations, food products, etc.
- Texas-related products
- Pleasure-driving features, sites, equipment, facilities, destinations, and services
- Recreational features, sites, equipment, facilities, and services
- Camping, hiking, fishing, birding, boating, outdoor features, bicycling, gardening, photography, wildlife viewing, astronomy, and geology
- Public transportation modes, products, facilities, and services
- Financial, media, and higher education services related to Texas institutions
- Real estate developments related to recreational and retirement living, and other matters of interest and value to the public and highway users
- Hospitals
Non-acceptable advertising
- Out-of-state travel-tourism features, locations, destinations, facilities, and services, unless augmenting Texas travel or tourism, or unless on border locations with ties to Texas
- Alcoholic beverages (see ‘Advertising Exceptions’ below)
- Tobacco products
- Sexually oriented products and services
- Other subjects not related to travel and tourism as determined by the Department
Advertising restrictions
Texas Highways will not accept advertising:
- It deems misleading or a misrepresentation of facts
- From an entity, organization, or individual that discriminates based on any state or federally legally protected class of persons
Advertising exceptions
The following is not considered to be an advertisement for alcoholic beverages:
- An advertisement from a person or legal entity registered and authorized to use the Texas Department of Agriculture’s GO TEXAN certification mark for the purpose of verifying their product or service as grown, produced, manufactured, or provided in Texas, advertising on-site facilities open to the general public which highlight the GO TEXAN registered product or service as grown, produced, or manufactured in Texas
Covers
Cover and premium ads must be approved by Texas Highways publisher.
Premium position ads
All premium pages will be full page (single) ads, and they may bleed.
Unless specifically contracted, premium position ads will be left-read.
Co-op ads
Co-op ads will always be placed in the back of the book. Co-op ads are not eligible for premium positioning, even with a surcharge.
Adjacencies
Texas Highways does not offer adjacencies. If an advertiser is featured in the editorial of an issue, their ad will not appear near the article.
When to label advertising
Advertisements that could be mistaken for editorial content should be labeled, even if the advertisement does not resemble the issue in which it appears.
Publisher will determine which ads must be labeled.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Submission of insertion order for placement of advertising constitutes acceptance of the following terms and conditions. No terms or conditions in any insertion orders, reservation orders, blanket contracts, instructions or documents that conflict with or alter these terms and conditions will be binding on Publisher, unless authorized in writing by a senior executive of Publisher.
Payment
- Payment shall be cash or credit card with order of Net 30 from invoice date.
- Agency and Advertiser are jointly and severally liable for the payment of all invoices arising from placement of advertising in the Magazine and for all costs of collection of late payment.
Positioning
- Special placement requests will be accommodated, if possible, on a first-come, first-served basis, confirmed by an insertion order, and will result in a 10% surcharge.
- Co-op advertisements do not qualify for special placement.
- Back cover and inside cover spread ad design and creative must be approved by Publisher.
Cancellation and changes
- Publisher expressly reserves the right to reject or cancel for any reason at any time any insertion order or advertisement without liability, even if previously acknowledged or accepted. In the event of cancellation for default in the payment of bills, charges for all advertising published as of the cancellation date shall become immediately due and payable.
- Advertisers may not cancel orders for, or make changes in, advertising after the issue closing date and will still be responsible for payment.
- If ad materials are not received and ad does not run, Advertiser is still responsible for payment if the order has not been cancelled or changed before the closing date.
- Cancellation of orders or changes in advertising to be placed on covers, in positions opposite content pages, and for card inserts will not be accepted after the date thirty (30) days prior to the issue closing date. Cancellation of orders for special advertising units printed in the Magazine, such as booklets and gatefolds, will not be accepted after the date sixty (60) days prior to the issue closing date.
- In the event Publisher accepts cancellation after any of the foregoing deadlines, such acceptance must be in writing, and such cancellation may be subject to additional charges at Publisher’s discretion.
- The conditions of advertising in the Magazine are subject to change without notice. Publisher will announce ad rate changes thirty (30) days prior to the closing date of the issue in which the new rates take effect. Orders for subsequent issues will be accepted at the then-prevailing rates.
Publisher’s liability
- Publisher is not liable for any failure or delay in printing, publishing, or circulating any copies of the issue of the Magazine, nor any failure of operation of digital channels, in which advertising is placed that is caused by, or arising from, an act of God, accident, fire, strike, terrorism or other occurrence beyond Publisher’s control.
- Publisher is not liable for any failure or delay in publishing in the Magazine or digital channels any advertisement submitted to it. Publisher does not guarantee positioning of advertisements, is not liable for failure to meet positioning requirements, and is not liable for any error in key numbers.
- Publisher will not consider any objections to positioning of an advertisement later than six (6) months after the on-sale date of the issue in which the advertisement appears.
- The liability of Publisher for any act, error or omission for which it may be held legally responsible shall not exceed the cost of the ad space affected by the error. In no event shall Publisher be liable for any indirect, consequential, special or incidental damages, including, but not limited to, lost income or profits.
Digital placements
- If Publisher does not receive new creative for rotation into an existing schedule by the 15th of the preceding month, Publisher will run the creative that was last supplied.
- Publisher will not refresh or swap out placements after the material close date.
Miscellaneous
- Publisher’s acceptance of an advertisement for publication in the Magazine or digital channels does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service advertised.
- No Advertiser or Agency may use the Magazine’s name or logo without Publisher’s prior written permission for each such use.
- The word “advertisement” will be placed above all advertisements that, in Publisher’s opinion, resemble editorial matter.
DIGITAL AD REPORTING TRANSPARENCY
TexasHighways.com
Advertising on the Texas Highways website is managed and displayed using a paid WordPress plugin called Advanced Ads. The plugin is used by thousands of sites around the world and is responsive to bug fixes and security updates.
Texas Highways staff manually upload and schedule the ads each month. This plugin treats all users equally and displays ads in an evenly rotating fashion. Texas Highways does not display ads based on user interest or past behavior and does not report advertising metrics to anyone but internal staff, sales representatives, and the client.
Reporting: Impressions and clicks are monitored using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) events. Each time a banner ad is displayed, an impression event is logged in GA4. These events are labeled by the ad that they represent, and at the end of each month, a summary of all impressions is reported to the sales reps. Events are regularly audited using the GA4 DebugView module to ensure impressions fire when ads are displayed.
Clicks are reported using the same technology. Texas Highways invites advertisers to include link parameters, called UTMs, on their provided URLs so clients may have some insight into inbound traffic. Some users may use tracking blockers or other technology which interferes with the behavior of UTMs—for this reason, it is not unusual for click reports and UTM visits to vary slightly.
Email Newsletters
Email marketing at Texas Highways is managed and sent through Emma by Marigold. Emails are built manually by Texas Highways staff, and ads are placed as ‘Image’ blocks with links manually inserted.
Reporting: All reporting is handled by Emma. Texas Highways reports the number of emails sent, the number of unique email opens, and the open rate, as well as ad clicks.
These ad clicks are reported using the Emma “Click Analysis” module. This shows the platform’s best understanding of what link was clicked and what copy was clicked to that link—for example, a CTA button labeled ‘Visit Us’ would point to the same URL as the rest of the ad, but these clicks are tracked separately. Texas Highways reports the total clicks on the URL in aggregate, with more detailed information available upon request.
Texas Highways does not release reports of specific email addresses who clicked on an ad.
It is important to consider the practice known as “server sniffing,” where email clients scan the contents of an email to determine if it is legitimate. At times, these spam tests are reported by the Emma platform as clicks, even though they are not legitimate opens or clicks. On June 11, 2024, Emma released a feature tracking ‘Non-human interactions’ in an effort to reduce the number of bot clicks that appear in the final report. Whenever possible, the Texas Highways staff relies on Emma’s report of human engagement and ignores non-human interaction data.
Advertisers are again welcome to include UTMs with their e-newsletter URLs but must consider the likelihood for discrepancy due to tracking blockers or server sniffing.
