Digital Marketing and Brand Safety

October 27, 2017

Brand safety is the newest term to make the rounds in the digital marketing world. While digital marketing may have started with a knowledge of where your ads were going to be placed, the programmatic nature of most digital ad buying services no longer allows for specific placements. With this in mind, digital marketers need strategies to make sure an online ad does not appear on a site or alongside content that could damage the brand’s image.

The article on NBC New’s website from October 10th, “Advertisers Getting Nervous About Their Marriage to Google, Facebook” , discusses how many advertisers are fed up with their Google and Facebook ads not appearing next to quality content. Earlier this month, Facebook gave Congress 3,000 ads that linked to Russian involvement in the 2016 election. Google also found that there was propaganda purchased from Russian sources with the intention of influencing the results of the election. While Facebook and Google have hired many to join their brand safety team, some instances are still slipping through the cracks.

When placing a Facebook or Google ad, it is important as a marketer to make sure you are securing your ad to be placed on respectful pages throughout the internet. When creating the ad, block sites and profanity that you don’t want your company to be associated with. If there are specific sites that you know your ads should never appear on, it is best practice to create a block list. Even though both Facebook and Google allow for certain categories to be blocked, these options will not block all sites with questionable content. Recently, Google has faced a lot of criticism over ad placements on YouTube. There have been a number of instances when ads have appeared on videos involving ISIS. As a result of this, companies have been pulling ad dollars away from the platform by the thousands. Additionally Twitter has come out and banned two Russian media companies from purchasing ads on their platform.

Facebook says they will be placing 1,000 employees on securing ads and addressing the problems. It is a time where the pressure is on for Facebook and Google to ensure brand safety for all advertisers they do business with.

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