In the business world, safeguarding your reputation is as crucial as preserving your finances. Brand safety is a pivotal term for advertisers and publishers when it comes to protecting both sides’ values and integrity. If you are a digital content creator thinking that advertisers’ well-being is irrelevant to you, let us convince you otherwise! Read this article to learn how to shield your business from potential risks!
What is brand safety
In digital marketing, this term describes methods and platforms intended to shield business owners from harmful environments and associations that could harm their reputation. In the ad monetization universe, advertisers (caring for their brand safety) prefer to avoid showcasing their ads in surroundings that could injure their good name. Interestingly, the idea of brand safety dates back to the early days of print advertising, when advertisers wanted to ensure their ads didn’t appear next to controversial or offensive content in newspapers and magazines.
Brand safety vs brand suitability
Brand safety, apart from what we already described, is a term that is not specific to a particular advertiser or brand, but applies throughout the whole industry. For instance, content promoting terrorism or drug addiction should be considered harmful to all advertisers.
Brand suitability means steering clear of content that doesn’t align with a brand’s specific values, voice, or audience while prioritizing content that fits those criteria. It’s a step further from brand safety. For instance, a failure in brand suitability would be an ad for an environmentally-conscious brand appearing on a website that promotes environmentally harmful practices or products.
The importance of brand safety for publishers
One critical aspect of brand safety for advertisers is ensuring that the ads they distribute are shown in a safe environment. However, this approach applies not only to them but also to publishers. On the one hand, they should care about their brand safety by ensuring that no harmful or inappropriate ad creations are displayed next to their content. They can achieve just that by entrusting a reliable partner, like a GCPP, with the monetization process.
On the other hand, by creating great quality content and collaborating only with verified partners providing safe ad creations, publishers enhance the chances of finding numerous advertisers who seek safe advertisement environments. A secure ad environment enhances User Experience, which can additionally increase the interest in your ad inventory. It builds a trustworthy reputation and complies with industry standards, making publishers more credible. This focus also helps avoid legal issues associated with inappropriate ad placements.
IAB and Media Rating Council guidelines
Brand safety is a continuous challenge, to which the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and MRC (Media Rating Council) have responded by developing effective measures supporting both sides of advertising transactions. The importance of this issue is confirmed by many surveys, such as IAB Europe’s 2023 Brand Safety Poll. It affirms that, according to experts, brand safety was a major priority for the industry in 2022 and that the technology innovations helped address brand safety concerns. Additionally, it helped to reveal that most experts considered publishers the most responsible group for brand safety out of all stakeholders.
Brand safety guidelines
- Choose your keywords carefully, and especially avoid those that may be on advertisers’ blacklists, like terrorism, drugs, or violence-related words. Failure to do so may result in your content being avoided by advertisers;
- Don’t allow bot traffic – a great way of getting rid of it is by installing Google’s reCAPTCHA;
- If your site includes user-generated content (UGC), you have to ensure that you supervise it by, for instance, eliminating hateful and inappropriate comments;
- Seek strategies to minimize harmful advertising on your website, such as Google Ad Manager’s Protection features. Here are all the subtypes:
- Ad content can assist you in blocking or allowing specific ad-types,
- Competition, which helps to exclude ads that can be unwanted competition for the advertisers you collaborate with,
- Inventory exclusion that facilitates inventory removal from Open Auction;
- Manual creative review (currently in beta phase) is an option that lets you check ads manually before serving;
- Consider carefully your ad settings. For instance, if you use Google Ad Manager 360, you can give permission to alcohol advertisements, but under some circumstances, like at least three-quarters of your users are in the drinking age or your website doesn’t inappropriately interfere with advertising content (like in case your website cover pregnancy or alcoholism problems);
- Additionally, collaborate exclusively with trusted monetization partners who ensure a secure advertising environment and enhance your ad revenue through solutions like Google MCM (which, among other pros, allow for Google AdX access).
Safe and sound
Brand safety is a multifaceted issue in the realm of advertising monetization, affecting every aspect of ad display. It’s important to consider not only the content being displayed but also the context and manner in which it is presented. You only get one chance to make the first impression, so ensuring that your content is safe and appealing to both users and advertisers is crucial. Consider this advice a recipe for success! If you need assistance with this process, feel free to reach out to us by filling out the registration form. We’re here to help, and we have all the ingredients!
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