In the fast-paced world of digital advertising, programmatic advertising has emerged as a powerful tool for marketers to reach their target audiences effectively.
Programmatic advertising offers numerous benefits, such as efficiency and targeting capabilities. But along with those benefits come inherent risks, too – particularly related to brand safety.
Why Brand Safety Is So Important for Programmatic Advertisers
Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of ad inventory in real-time through an auction-based system. It allows advertisers to target specific audiences based on demographics, interests, and behavior, leveraging data-driven insights. While programmatic advertising offers unparalleled reach and precision, the nature of its automated processes raises potential risks for brands, making brand safety a paramount concern.
Brand safety in advertising refers to the measures and practices taken by advertisers to ensure that their brand’s reputation and integrity are protected when their ads are displayed across various platforms and environments. It involves strategies to prevent ad placements alongside inappropriate, offensive, or harmful content that could potentially damage the brand’s image or result in negative associations.
Let’s explore the importance of brand safety in programmatic advertising and how it plays a pivotal role in building trust, protecting brand reputation, and maximizing campaign effectiveness.
Understanding the Significance of Brand Safety in Programmatic Advertising
It is important to pay attention to brand safety within programmatic advertising. Maintaining it is crucial for several reasons:
Protecting Brand Reputation
This ensures that ads are displayed in environments that align with a brand’s values, mission, and image. Inappropriate ad placements, such as next to controversial or offensive content, can harm a brand’s reputation and result in negative associations. A brand’s image takes years to build but can be destroyed in moments. Maintaining a strong reputation is vital for building trust and attracting customers.
Preserving Consumer Trust
Consumers hold high expectations for the brands they engage with. By delivering ads in brand-safe environments, marketers demonstrate their commitment to consumers’ well-being and values, fostering trust and long-term relationships.
Maintaining Brand Consistency
Consistency in brand messaging is essential for creating a cohesive and recognizable brand identity. Brand safety measures help ensure that ads are displayed in appropriate contexts and alongside relevant content. This alignment strengthens the brand’s message and maintains consistency across various touchpoints, contributing to brand recognition and recall.
Enhancing Ad Effectiveness
Ads placed in inappropriate or irrelevant contexts risk being ignored or associated with negative sentiment. By ensuring brand safety, marketers increase the chances of delivering their messages to receptive audiences, leading to improved campaign performance.
Avoiding Negative Associations
Placing ads next to harmful, offensive, or controversial content can lead to negative associations with a brand. Consumers may perceive the brand as supporting or endorsing the content, which can significantly damage brand perception. It could also be a matter of preventing mismatched or unfortunate content in relation to the advertising. For instance, an airline company might not want their ads shown with articles concerning air travel mishaps. By implementing brand safety measures, advertisers can minimize the risk of such negative connections.
Regulatory Compliance
Many countries have strict regulations regarding online advertising, such as restrictions on advertising specific products or services to certain age groups. Adhering to these regulations is essential for programmatic advertisers to avoid legal consequences and maintain compliance. Brand safety measures help ensure that ads are placed appropriately and comply with relevant laws and regulations.
Ad Fraud Prevention
Brand safety also plays a role in preventing ad fraud, which is a significant concern in programmatic advertising. Ad fraud involves fraudulent activities like fake ad impressions, click fraud, or bot traffic. Advertisers need to ensure that their ads are displayed to real, engaged audiences in legitimate online environments. By employing brand safety measures, advertisers can reduce the risk of falling victim to ad fraud and optimize their ad spend.
Implementing Brand Safety Measures
To maintain brand safety in programmatic advertising, marketers should adopt a proactive and multi-layered approach. Here are some key strategies to consider:
- Brand-Specific Contextual Targeting: Employ advanced technologies that analyze the content and context of websites or apps before placing ads. By aligning advertisements with relevant and brand-appropriate content, the risk of harmful associations can be significantly reduced.
- Real-Time Monitoring and Blacklisting: Utilize real-time monitoring tools to identify and flag any potentially harmful or inappropriate content. Maintain a blacklist of websites, keywords, or categories that are incompatible with the brand’s values, ensuring ads are not displayed in those contexts.
- Third-Party Verification: Collaborate with third-party verification partners to ensure brand safety. These partners employ sophisticated tools to monitor ad placements, provide independent verification, and offer comprehensive reporting on the suitability and context of ad environments.
- Ad Quality Standards: Establish clear guidelines and standards for ad quality to maintain consistency across programmatic campaigns. This includes considerations for ad placement, format, and creative elements to ensure a positive user experience and protect brand reputation.
How Sonobi Works to Ensure Brand Safety
As advertisers seek to protect their brand image and deliver content to the right audiences, the need for robust tools and strategies to ensure brand safety has become increasingly important. Sonobi, a leading supply-side platform (SSP), recognizes this challenge and has developed a multi-faceted approach to safeguarding brands.
When you partner with Sonobi, you can be sure your needs are being met. Sonobi uses a combination of advanced tools, proprietary technology, strategic partnerships, and close partnerships with suppliers in our efforts to ensure brand safety.
Close Partnerships and Expertise
Through its close partnership with publishers and media companies, Sonobi has gained valuable insights into the content offered by various partners. As the first stop for publishers, Sonobi’s strong relationships allow us to have a deep understanding of the quality and nature of the supply they provide. This knowledge, combined with our exceptional customer service, empowers Sonobi to connect brands with the appropriate supply, ensuring a seamless alignment between advertisers and publishers.
Screening Supply Ahead of Time
Sonobi’s data scientists have developed our own contextualization tool that can analyze the content of any website. This innovative tool enables Sonobi to thoroughly examine the suitability of supply for a brand’s image, even before any advertising campaigns are initiated. By leveraging this tool, Sonobi can make informed decisions regarding supply compatibility, reducing the risk of brand misalignment.
Fine-Tuning with Supply Curation Tools
Sonobi’s supply curation tool plays a crucial role in maintaining brand safety. By utilizing allow- and block-lists, we are able to carefully refine the domains, apps, and publishers in which a buyer will bid. Constantly updated to adapt to changing requirements, this curation process ensures that brands never bid on unsafe supply. We are committed to providing a secure and trustworthy advertising environment.
Sonobi’s Quality Supply
We place a strong emphasis on quality supply and focus on Comscore 100 publishers. We use established tools to check the health of potential supply, and we have a constantly running human process validating the quality of the clients we partner with.. This deliberate focus ensures that Sonobi’s marketplace includes reputable publishers known for their credibility, audience reach, and brand safety measures. This further strengthens brand safety for advertisers.
Fraud Detection Through Our Partnership With HUMAN
Sonobi ensures that only reputable websites and apps are added to their supply ecosystem. Additionally, Sonobi has partnered with HUMAN, a renowned fraud detection platform, to enhance the safety and security of our supply. Through this collaboration, Sonobi preemptively detects potential fraud and also analyzes/validates the system with post delivery analysis as well..
Sonobi Is a Trusted Provider of Quality, Brand-Safe Supply
In an era where brand safety is crucial, Sonobi has emerged as a reliable partner for advertisers seeking to protect their brand image.
Through our combination of proprietary tools, close supplier partnerships, fine-tuned supply curation, and collaboration with industry-leading fraud detection platforms, Sonobi has established itself as a leader in brand safety within the digital advertising landscape. Advertisers partnering with Sonobi can be confident that their campaigns will be delivered in a secure environment, aligning their brands with reputable publishers and safeguarding their online reputation.
If you’re ready to learn more about working with Sonobi, request your free demo today!