Gone are the days when businesses solely relied on conventional advertising platforms including radio, television, banners, and so on to promote their business. The arrival of the internet has transformed the advertising space as more and more companies are turning to digital media to find new customers and expand their business. Programmatic advertising has quickly matured into an incredible ecosystem wherein advertisers compete with each other to display their ads on certain digital ad spaces. 

Many companies are utilizing over 50% of their marketing budget on programmatic advertising [1]. This signals that businesses are gradually shifting to digital media to establish brand presence and connect with their potential customers. 

While there are significant upsides to choosing programmatic advertising, everything is not as rosy as it seems. Unfortunately, there are growing concerns pertaining to programmatic advertising and one of them is brand safety. Digital marketers need to craft impactful yet safe programmatic advertising strategies to ensure their brand image is intact in the crowded online place. 

If you want to understand more about brand safety and alignment, this article is for you. Learn why it is important to create a fool-proof programmatic advertising strategy and how you can build one. 

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Search advertising problems that can be solved with custom programmatic solutions

Let us begin by understanding what we mean by brand alignment and safety. 

To know more about our programmatic advertising services, Schedule a demo

What exactly is brand safety?

Today, businesses need to create a programmatic advertising strategy that safeguards their brand’s safety. Doing so will protect your website from spammy, irrelevant, and unwanted ads that can damage your brand’s safety. 

What do we mean by brand safety? Brand safety refers to a set of programmatic advertising strategies that act as guardrails for the company in the digital environment. In this case, businesses are regularly keeping an eye on where their brand name appears in the digital space. 

In other words, brand safety can be defined as protective measures implemented by a business to protect its image by preventing unsolicited ads from appearing on its website. 

Brand safety has become an important aspect of a company’s programmatic advertising strategy. In today’s business ecosystem, companies are largely focused on creating a brand identity or a profile with strong ethical values and missions. The ultimate goal is to build a solid relationship with customers through dedicated efforts to ensure a pleasant user experience. Companies need to be firm in their stance and have strong moral and ethical values for long-term success. 

Willingly or unwillingly, when brands associate themselves with environments that promote the opposite of what they stand for, it creates a brand compliance problem. Besides, it also has a negative influence on customers, making the restorative mentality of brand safety an absolute must. 

How can brands keep their reputation intact?

While most humans are image-conscious, businesses are no different. The digital environment has compelled companies to create safety barriers to protect their image and reputation. These barriers ensure that they are not associated with any sort of adult content, hate speech, fake news, crime, and shady activities. Therefore such actions should be an important part of your programmatic advertising strategy. 

It is worth noting that a company’s reputation can take a blow even when they do not endorse the views of certain ads displayed on its website. Therefore, the best approach is to restrict such ads from popping up on the company’s website. If you aren’t aware of how programmatic works, you can go through our Programmatic 101 guide for beginners. 

While most humans are image-conscious, businesses are no different. The digital environment has compelled companies to create safety barriers to protect their image and reputation. These barriers ensure that they are not associated with any sort of adult content, hate speech, fake news, crime, and shady activities. 

It is worth noting that a company’s reputation can take a blow even when they do not endorse the views of certain ads displayed on its website. Therefore, the best approach is to restrict such ads from popping up on the company’s website. If you aren’t aware of how programmatic works, you can go through our Programmatic 101 guide for beginners. 

In simple terms, when we speak about programmatic advertising, the software determines where to advertise your ad based on segmentation studies. This is why it is imperative to implement protection measures to ensure that these software solutions do not hinder your brand’s reputation. 

How can you create a fool-proof programmatic advertising strategy?

Now that you have some clarity regarding what brand safety means, let us examine a few you can create a fool-proof programmatic advertising strategy. 

Programmatic advertising strategy #1 – add age and keyword filters

One of the easiest and most affordable ways to protect your brand from being associated with unwanted content is by adding an age and keyword filter. These filters block content that could potentially harm your brand’s image. For example, filters ensure that your company’s ads do not appear on adult websites. 

That said, there are a few downsides to using this method due to its mechanical nature. For instance, there is no semantic analysis involved with this method. Semantic analysis refers to the consideration of two identical keywords that could have two different intentions. Therefore, there is a possibility that these filters could trim down options that may not necessarily have a negative impact on your company’s reputation. 

Do not ignore this while crafting a programmatic advertising strategy for your business. 

Programmatic advertising strategy #2 – leverage the power of machine learning

Colorful lines of code on a computer screen.

The rise of the digital era has provided fertile grounds for the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and complementary innovations such as machine learning (ML). Marketers can leverage the power of machine learning to protect their brand’s image. 

Unlike the previous method, ML algorithms can analyze and deal with large volumes of data since they are automated. These algorithms can perform an in-depth analysis of a website’s important elements including objectives, language, videos, images, and other forms of content. Working with artificial intelligence (AI) has an enormous benefit as it can process a lot of data at once and develop intelligent correlations between them.

Machine learning (ML) employs big data analysis and natural language processing to interpret pages and extract keywords. It’s also key to highlight that the analysis is semantic and not just a comprehension of standalone concepts. The algorithms consider the context in which they will be used.

There are more advantages linked to the use of AI. Apart from preventing your ads from appearing on illegal and unwanted websites, AI-powered algorithms also ensure that your ads do not appear on websites that will not bring positive returns. With this approach, companies can avoid investing large sums of money in programmatic advertising strategies that do not work. 

3. Create lists of good and bad sites

One of the best ways to prevent a negative spotlight is to create lists of good and bad websites. What classifies as a good and a bad website here?

Good websites would constitute domains that are visited by your potential customers and do not pose a threat to your company’s reputation. Bad websites are domains that are heavily linked with shady and criminal activities. Such lists can be created by circling back to previous research. 

The media system is then configured to accept the possibilities from the desired list and reject the options from the other list while purchasing advertisements. It functions as a filter and therefore should be a part of your programmatic advertising strategy. 

The intriguing part is that it requires continuous learning to be able to identify increasingly harmful websites. It is ideal to add new names consistently to ensure effectiveness in brand safety.

4. Keep an eye on the dashboard

Graph Growth Success Strategy Marketing Computer Concept

The company must still maintain tight visual control over its ads, despite filters and AI support. After all, as we’ve already seen, the brand safety factor is crucial and demands global attention. Consequently, it’s also essential to have a dashboard for tracking campaigns and actions.

In addition to automated steps, management keeps a thorough overview of the websites where the brand name appears. Making timely judgements and minimising the negative effects of issues are made easier with such transparency and clarity.

To know more about our programmatic advertising services, Schedule a demo

Final words

As this article has shown, brand safety is essential in the modern world. Organizations are becoming more aware of this and therefore creating effective programmatic advertising strategies in that regard. Following trends and taking safety measures to protect your company’s branding are therefore matters of competition. After all, a positive reputation leads to effective positioning, which results in sales. A negative reputation threatens the viability of the company. 

If you want to know more about our programmatic advertising service, schedule a demo. 

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: The rise of outdoor programmatic: What advertisers need to know

Continue reading iTMunch for the latest programmatic advertising trends, articles, and stories.

Feature Image Source: Image by rawpixel.com

Image 1 Source: Image by rawpixel.com

Image 2 Source: Image by rawpixel.com

Sources:

[1] (2020) “Distribution of media budgets in the United States in 2021, by purchase model” Statista [online] Available from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/679119/programmatic-buying-agencies-usa/ [accessed January 2023]