Nobody likes firefighting (except, perhaps, actual firefighters?). Advertisers and media buyers are no different. While ensuring your brand or the brands you work with are protected during online ad campaigns has long been vital, in recent months the issue has really come to the fore once more (to say the least). When potential issues can include placement of your brand on sites or beside content that could be damaging to it, fraudulent sites with bot traffic wasting your precious budget, or simply appearing beside content that isn’t contextually relevant, it’s important that you work with the right vendors and tools in order to ensure maximum safety and effectiveness of your ads. With this in mind, we’ve highlighted some tools we believe are definitely worth your while looking at when planning your next digital campaigns, that can make your life a whole lot easier.
DoubleVerify
When it comes to validation of digital media, DoubleVerify is a particular favourite and a pretty comprehensive tool. Authenticating the quality of every digital impression that your ad can bid for (before you part with your cash), DoubleVerify will help you make sure that (a) impressions are brand-safe, (b) are fully viewed and (c) are served to the right (i.e. human) eyeballs. Metrics are delivered in real-time, meaning you can keep apace of whether you are purchasing valid impressions at a moment’s notice.
Peer39
Another very useful tool for guaranteeing brand-safety and impression authenticity. Some of the aspects that Peer39 caters to include contextual targeting, site auditing for safe advertising, viewability, traffic validation and mobile app targeting amongst many more. One great feature on offer is the ability to map topics to particular URLs, thereby giving you the option of targeting people when they’re engaging with specific subject matter. Effective, dynamic reviewing of ever-changing available content is a tricky task to get control of, but Peer39 provides a great solution.
comScore Content Activation
Released in the latter half of 2016, comScore’s Content Activation product allows media buyers and advertisers to better ensure that their ads reach more relevant target audiences in suitable contexts. Through analysis of page content and user behaviour, comScore can put together a better picture of a potentially appropriate content through the generation of detailed criteria, helping advertisers reach the right people across the right kind of sites. After building out placements with these criteria as their basis, advertisers can then integrate these into their DSP quickly and easily. This ensures that targeting via appropriate context is easy for you.
GrapeShot
Similar in purpose to comScore’s offering above, Grapeshot helps makes sure you can target audiences via the right content. By constantly monitoring and auditing sites, their content and user behaviour, Grapeshot gives advertisers the ability to recognise which sites are most aligned to their brands and therefore worth targeting. Not only does this mean you’ll likely engage with the right audiences, but being seen alongside complementary content will assist in protecting your brand’s aura.
With the ever-growing importance of ad verification (and ever-imperative brand safety), you can expect this area to increase in the number of competing offerings going around. However, we feel the tools mentioned above are well worth checking out when planning your next online campaigns and will certainly help prevent you from waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, wondering if your brand is safe and sound or whether bots are eating all of your money. With these tools, you can sleep easy.