With a changing climate in the digital advertising space, where brand safety is a growing concern for modern marketers and business leaders, understanding brand safety and how to protect your brand’s reputation has never been more critical. Digital ad impressions grew nearly fourfold between 2019 and 2023, and 22% of all ad spend in 2023—about $84 billion—was lost to fraud. Against this backdrop of explosive volume and quality risk, ensuring that your brand appears in the right context is no longer optional—it’s absolutely essential. Brand safety defines the strategies, processes, and technologies used to protect a brand’s advertising from anything that could damage a brand’s placement or oppose a brand’s values.
Ultimately, brand safety is about establishing and protecting trust with your customers. Consumers are increasingly aware of where brands show up and what they are saying in the digital space. Just as fraud prevention safeguards advertising investments against invalid activity, brand safety safeguards reputation by controlling the environment in which ads appear. If an ad placement appears above, below, or behind inappropriate and offensive content, it can erode years of credibility and earned trust with consumers, create a public outcry on social media platforms, and ultimately cost a brand financially and/or legally. According to a 2024 report, over 51% of consumers stated they would avoid a brand whose advertisement appeared alongside content they found objectionable or offensive. In a changing social landscape, brand safety not only means being safe, but it also means amplifying your brand’s credibility and integrity among the digital crowd.
What is brand safety?
A lot of marketers have a straightforward definition they went through in school: Don’t put your ads near damaging content, and it’s true (kind of) but the topic of brand safety is much broader! Brand safety exists in a universe where every ad impression is assessed for its contextual relevance and appropriateness going above and beyond not just finding a setting without problematic content. Brand safety also encompasses avoiding content pieces with hate speech on them not limited to content around adult situations, violence, misinformation, and so on.
Brand safety is always thought of in combination with brand suitability, while both are different concepts. Brand safety is not advertising next to inappropriate content versus brand suitability which is advertising in media choices that can be associated with having a positive impact on my brand image. So for instance, a children’s education app is not advertising on a general gaming platform, partially because of the safety parameters but partially because they want their brand to appear next to many possible pieces of content that are talking about creativity, learning or even parenting! They don’t work against each other at both can have a hand in determining a safe and relevant ad ecosystem.
The Importance of Brand Safety
Brand safety is about more than avoiding risk. In today’s digital-first marketing world, where mobile impressions can dominate consumer attention, one mistake can create wide-reaching backlash. According to forecasts, programmatic channels will account for 90% of global digital display ad spending by 2026, up from around 80% in 2023. This continued automation streamlines buying—but also reduces visibility into placement and adjacency, making it increasingly challenging to ensure brand-safe environments. Without adequate brand safety programs, brands may not only appear in contexts that contradict their messaging, but will also risk alienating everyday loyal customers, especially if they’re responsible for long-term growth.
Financial implications are just as dire. Each misplaced ad is not just a wasted spend, but can also have clear impacts on critical KPIs such as engagement metrics, conversions, and return on ad spend (ROAS). Additionally, in today’s world of consumer trust, brands that fail to prioritize safety can face potential reputational risks that equate to real market share losses. Conversely, brands with solid brand safety metrics – especially when sited in the marketplace – increasingly separate themselves among consumers, partners, and investors as responsible, thoughtful, and trustworthy organizations in their marketing initiatives, which elicits loyalty and drive toward long-term success.
Key Considerations for Brand Safety
Brand safety includes processes, technologies, and other considerations as a whole. Content classification, one major part, affords marketers the desired knowledge of the variations in content among every digital platform, determining the content’s adherence (or non-adherence) to their brand. The availability of advanced machine learning algorithms to analyze all content types (e.g., text, images, videos) at scale will identify potentially dangerous content before advertisements are placed.
Strategic controls over Ad Placement is a second major consideration. This is setting the rules for placements that you do wish to participate, and those you do not wish to participate in. Traditionally, exclusion lists would allow brands to block certain sites/brand categories. Today’s performance advertising green-lights smart tools to make decisions in real time thereby eliminating unwanted placements next to unsafe content. The ability for brands to monitor and report their advertising activities is another top consideration. Brands are not only expected to know where they are advertising, but to trust that it will adhere to their safety expectations moving forward. Brands can demonstrate transparency inside and outside their brand, cementing their commitment to upholding safety. It also provides a documented trail acknowledging the presence of whatever the safety protocols entail.
The Role of Technology in Brand Safety
Technology and innovation have completely redefined brand safety. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now at the forefront of analyzing content, identifying potentially harmful behaviour, and offering real-time alerts. AI-enabled tools can process billions of impressions in one day, identify contextual risk, and update their placements instantly. This can all be accomplished in a fraction of the time it would take a human.
There are other purposes of technology as well. For example, with data analytics, and programmatic controls, brands now have a process to get insight, and make more informed decisions. Brands can continually look back at past performance, audience behaviour, as well as contextual risk to evaluate the future or predict possible risks and adjust their approach accordingly. Some brands include the use of blockchain technology, which allows more transparency, and prevents ad fraud. When every impression is verified and trustworthy, it ensures better placement for clients.
Obstacles to Brand Safety Implementation
Even with significant progress, there are still obstacles to a full brand safety process. Digital content is extremely dynamic and developing, making it impossible to monitor every potential environment where the ad may appear. Different advertising regulations globally are yet another factor since the content standards can vary drastically depending on the geography or jurisdiction.
There are also limitations in resources which can hamper smaller brands or app developers from developing or applying the advanced use of brand safety technologies. Implementation is more than just using technology; it is knowing how to use the technology appropriately. An effective approach includes embedding the technology with the human aspect, including an automated process with the human process. This is especially true for brands looking to enter new markets (for example, mobile-first) or emerging markets. In these scenarios, brands may face two challenges in ensuring their advertisements are both safe and suitable—namely, appropriate local cultural practices and regulatory knowledge.
Brand Safety in Mobile Ads
With mobile advertising accounting for more than 70% of digital ad spend in many geographies, we face entirely different brand safety considerations. In-app placements, social feeds and streaming platforms greatly broaden the scope of brand safety challenges—ads could be served in thousands of potential environments that are constantly modified, frequently personalized, and designed for engagement. In the absence of a successful glass-box structure, mobile advertising may be served next to other brand safety and/or appropriateness risks without any preventive measures in place.
Brand safety is especially important to app marketers because there is a close relationship between brand and user experiences and perceptions. If poor ad placements lead to app uninstalls, bad ratings in app stores, disengagement, or other negatives–including negative perceptions of the app–it can have disastrous consequences for app marketing campaigns.
Original content, mobile-first protocols for brand safety–such as SDK-level monitoring and AI contextual analysis–can protect apps by ensuring ads are served in environments that align with the app and are operationally responsible environments, and can also ensure high levels of ad engagement and conversion.
The Potential of Brand Safety
The future of brand safety will likely manifest itself through more automation, smarter AI and an even closer relationship with total brand marketing plans. As consumers become more sophisticated and socially conscientious, brands will have to demonstrate that their ad placements not only adhere to the ethical demands of consumers but also align with their brand principles.
Emerging trends point towards brand safety becoming more holistic and predictive, instead of being purely, reactive to ad placements that are being deemed as unsafe. In the future, a key element will be advertisers using AI technology to anticipate and prevent unsafe placements from ever occurring. Furthermore, purposeful integration with corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives will also assist in ensuring the advertising practices of brands are aligned with and build on their organizational values, creating coherent, credible brand messages.
Conclusion
As we enter an age where digital advertising completely dominates growth in audience attention, brand safety has quickly transitioned from a desirable feature to a necessity. Brand safety protects your reputation, maximizes ROI, and aligns your brand with the consumer pledge.
Brand safety is about the holistic measurement of the digital advertising landscape, from content classification to AI monitoring, controlling ad placements, to reporting and transparency.
If we learn how to uphold brand safety, marketers can protect their brand while simultaneously building audience trust, increasing engagement, and increasing growth while maintaining the organization’s long-term ambitions. We at Apptrove assist app developers and marketers in using brand safety solutions that are not only comprehensive and sustainable but will also allow brands to safely operate in the complex and evolving digital environment.