Programmatic buying is known to be followed by the issue of brand safety. It does not mean though that your brand is doomed without the direct negotiations. Programmatic is driven by data, not relationship building. Thus, it requires data-driven adjustments for keeping your brand safe.

The danger to the brand safety arises due to the lack of control over the context for your ads. Aside from severe cases, where main content’s topic is sensitive, as in the infamous “Youtube funding terrorism” story, there’s a general problem of advertisers being unable to match brands with the context – a step needed for a better engagement.

Sophisticated programmatic platforms provide publishers with adjustment tools for determining potential context of ad appearance at the highest level of likelihood.

While building your brand safety strategy, you should consider the following:

• Narrow your ad campaign scale.
• Exclude websites to avoid inventory that has been identified as unsafe.
• Select certain categories. Match your brand to the type of the main content.
• Adapt your ads to mobile in-app advertising.

The question of brand safety reappearing in media makes it seem all the more pressing and forces the industry to evolve itself.

• Auction participants now can use blacklisting or whitelisting. The main flaw here is cutting your audience reach.
• Manual adjustments can be combined with AI. With machine learning developments, you may eliminate sensitive placements.
• Market partnerships change. Programmatic open auctions are replaced with more favourable programmatic direct and private marketplace solutions.

The problem has been discussed for a long time now. So why do analysts return to it?

US political situation plays a huge role here. The tendencies of today’s media are threatening for wide monetization. US media coverage got full of controversial political stories. Avoiding news completely  with the concentration on entertainment context means much less placements.

And so, flexible advertisers can win if they get sophisticated tools at hands, provided by highly developed programmatic platforms.