The Best Guide to Explaining Brand Safety in Advertising of Ads

The world of digital marketing and advertising is evolving rapidly. With this evolution, brand security has become a priority for publishers and brands and for any marketing professional with accessibility challenges and a good brand image. This guide examines the essentials of brand safety, providing strategies, brand safety tools and resources to protect and maintain your company’s reputation in the advertising industry.

What is Brand Safety?

In simple words, brand safety refers to the measures and strategies used to ensure that advertisements for the brand are placed in the right environment—an environment that aligns with the brand’s values and does not associate the brand with inappropriate or harmful content. It is a critical part of creating a brand identity and an important part of marketing. 

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Its importance has increased in the last decade as brands want to create a positive perception about themselves in the market. Brand safety is all about identifying and mitigating risks. 

Why Does Brand Safety Matter?

The digital ecosystem is quite complex and vast with thousands of ads appearing one after another on all kinds of websites. Without adapting effective brand safety strategy, your ads can end up on websites you don’t want them to end up on. This misalignment can harm a brand’s reputation and diminish the effectiveness of your advertising efforts. All this makes brand safety very important. 

Risks of Poor Brand Safety

Brands can face a lot of risks if it has a poor brand safety. Some of the major risks are mentioned below. 

• Reputation Damage: Unsuitable website placement of advertisements may cause people to view your company negatively.
• Loss of Customer Trust: Customer loyalty and trust can be damaged by associations with unfavorable content.
• Legal and Compliance Issues: Inappropriate advertisements may give rise to legal disputes and regulatory examinations.
• Diminished ROI on Advertising: Inadequate brand safety can lead to squandered advertising funds and decreased rates of engagement. Advertising is of no benefit without a good ROI. 

Impact on Brand Safety on Advertisers and Publishers 

Brand safety is equally important for both advertisers and publishers. Have a look at the ways it impacts both parties. 

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• For Advertisers: Brand safety advertising protects reputation by ensuring it is seen in a positive environment and increases consumer trust and engagement. Targeting the proper context optimises ad spending, thereby improving ROI. Efficient manufacturing processes also ensure safety compliance, reducing legal risks.
• For Publishers: Maintaining brand safety increases brand confidence and attracts more demand for ad space, increasing revenue. It improves the quality and authenticity of the content, which increases the credibility of the publisher. Additionally, it reduces the risk of ad rejection and improves the overall user experience, making the platform more attractive to advertisers and users.

Essential Brand Safety Tools and Strategies

Here are some of the most effective methods and brand safety tools that brands can use to ensure brand safety in advertising. 

1. Use of Brand Safety Tools

Ad safety tools help advertisers and publishers monitor and control where their ads appear. These tools provide features such as real-time tracking, keyword filtering, and contextual analysis to ensure ads are placed in the right places. Some famous brand safety tools include:

• DoubleVerify: Provides insights and analytics to help brands avoid unsuitable content and traffic that is not related.
• Integral Ad Science (IAS): Offers solutions to verify that ads are viewed by real people in brand-safe environments.
• Moat: Measures the quality of ad placements and ensures they meet brand safety standards.
• CorSearch: This tool assists in originality protection and helps remove content that is not genuine and found on different sites. 
• Zefr: It is an advertisement placement tool that helps you in placing your ads carefully on platforms that are good for your brand. 

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2. Implementing Brand Safety Guidelines

Establish clear guidelines on brand security that are consistent with your brand’s values ​​and target audience. This includes defining what constitutes unacceptable content and maintaining criteria in which you want your content to fit. Criteria can be decided on the basis of brand values, vision, the type of service that it offers, and the audience it is catering to. Review this guide and update it regularly to keep up with the changing digital landscape.

3. Monitoring Ad Placements

Always check where your ads are being shown. Use the real-time reporting features provided by advertising systems and brand safety tools to monitor and adjust placements as needed. Proactive monitoring helps identify and address potential issues before they affect your brand.

4. Contextual Targeting

Embrace contextual targeting techniques that align ads with the content on the page. By matching your ads to quality, relevant content, you can increase engagement while protecting your brand’s image. Contextualised tools, some of which have already been mentioned above, can help automate and streamline this process.

5. Partner with Trusted Publishers

Building solid relationships with reputable publishers is essential to maintain brand safety. Setting high priorities and partnering with publishers who adhere to brand safety standards ensures that your ads are displayed in the right places. This collaboration helps reduce the risk of ads appearing next to unwanted products. Reliable publishers provide a trustworthy platform for your advertising, increasing the visibility and credibility of your brand and enhancing the brand experience for all involved.

6. Limit Spending based on Location

Optimise your advertising budget by setting spending limits based on Location. Use geo-targeting to direct money to high-performing areas and avoid overspending on less effective regions. Monitor and adjust these requirements based on performance metrics to maximise ROI and ensure your ads are reaching the most relevant audiences.

7. Utilise Block Lists & Exclusionary Tactics

Enhance brand safety by implementing block lists and exclusion strategies. Create and manage site keyword categories that you don’t want your ads for. These tips keep your ads from showing up in unwanted or harmful content and protect your brand’s image. Update this list regularly to reflect new risks and maintain control over the ads you place, ensuring that your ads reach only the most relevant audiences that have something to do with your brand. 

Brand Safety in Publishing

For publishers, brand safety in publishing involves creating and maintaining a trustworthy environment for advertisers. This includes implementing measures to ensure that the content published is appropriate and aligns with advertisers’ brand safety requirements. Publishers can achieve this by:

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• Conducting Regular Content Reviews: Regularly audit and review published content to ensure it adheres to brand safety standards.
• Implementing Content Moderation Systems: Utilise automated and manual moderation systems to filter out inappropriate content.
• Offering Transparent Reporting: Provide advertisers with clear insights into where their ads are being displayed and the type of content surrounding them.

Elevate Your Brand with Brand Safety Tools

In the dynamic world of digital advertising, prioritising brand safety is essential to maintaining a positive brand image and enhancing advertising performance. You can effectively protect your brand image by implementing clear brand safety guidelines and constantly monitoring ad placement. You can also target relevant content, partner with trusted publishers, limit location-based waste, and use block lists and exclusion strategies. 

These strategies help not only avoid unwanted content but also your target your ads to the right audience. Brand safety tools can help you take a step closer to this target. Investing in a strong brand safety strategy ultimately maximises the effectiveness of your advertising efforts and builds trustworthy relationships with customers.

FAQs

1. What is IAS brand safety?

IAS (Integral Ad Science) Brand Safety refers to methods and technologies designed to ensure that digital ads appear in safe and appropriate environments. IAS provides tools and services to help advertisers and publishers avoid harmful ad coverage around. This includes monitoring and filtering content across platforms to prevent ads from appearing on websites or along with content that could damage brand reputation. 

2. What is brand safety vs brand suitability?

Brand safety ensures that advertisements are screened in areas free of harmful and inappropriate content that can damage a brand’s reputation. Brand suitability, on the other hand, focuses on placing ads in contexts that align with the brand’s values ​​and target audience, even if the content is obviously non-damaging. 

3. How do we measure brand safety?

Brand safety can be measured by keeping in mind some simple things like being clear about what brand safety means to you, maintaining transparency, selecting a good service provider in this domain, and avoiding blacklisted publishers.