Brand safety for brand managers: which calls are yours to make?
Part of Brand suitability
The short answer
A brand manager owns the decisions that express the brand's values: how much risk each content category may carry, whether the brand stays beside news, how much reach it will give up for protection and who may pause spend. The agency turns those choices into platform settings. The brand manager approves them in writing and checks the results every quarter.
Key takeaways
- The agency sets up the controls; the brand manager decides the risk the brand accepts, category by category.
- Write down whether the brand fears a bad adjacency more than lost reach, because that choice shapes the settings that follow.
- In the US, an FTC order bars Omnicom from steering spend by a publisher's political viewpoint without the advertiser's express and individualized direction.
- Suitability reports are evidence, not invoices: Google says its content suitability report is not billing data and may include invalid traffic.
- A short quarterly review with set questions catches drift before it becomes an incident.
What brand safety decisions belong to the brand manager?
Brand safety work splits into execution and judgment. Execution belongs to the agency or the in-house trading team. A small set of choices is different. They describe what the brand stands for and how much risk it will carry, so nobody outside the brand can make them on its behalf. The ANA's 2023 guidance on made for advertising sites (opens in a new tab) puts one of them plainly: "advertisers should determine, independently, if MFA sites fit with their brand suitability standards for content and user experience and clarify their tolerance for the inclusion of MFA inventory in their campaigns."
| Decision | Owner | Why it sits there |
|---|---|---|
| Risk tolerance per content category | Brand manager | It expresses the brand's values and its customers' expectations |
| Whether the brand appears beside news, and which beats | Brand manager | It trades reach and civic support against adjacency risk |
| Appetite for over blocking against under blocking | Brand manager | It decides which kind of error the brand would rather accept |
| Tolerance for made for advertising inventory | Brand manager | The ANA asks the advertiser to set it independently |
| Who may pause spend, and for how long | Brand manager names the person | A pause costs delivery the brand has paid for |
| Which platform settings express those choices | Agency | It knows each buying tool's controls and limits |
| Day to day exclusions and list hygiene | Agency | It runs the campaigns and sees the logs |
Industry frameworks help but do not decide for the brand. The World Federation of Advertisers discontinued GARM in August 2024 (opens in a new tab). Its Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework is a legacy reference, not an operating standard or certification. A brand manager who inherits a plan described as GARM compliant should ask what the agency actually configured.
How do brand managers balance safety and reach?
A filter can make mistakes in both directions: it can block pages that were fine and let through pages that were not. The brand manager's job is to say which mistake hurts more. The IAB's 2020 Brand Safety and Suitability Guide (opens in a new tab) frames this as two postures. Under zero tolerance, compliance outweighs reach and a missed unsafe placement costs more than over blocking. Under contextual alignment, reach concerns can outweigh exact suitability guidelines and over blocking is the costlier error.
Platforms state the trade in their own words. Google Ads describes its Limited inventory type as "intended to exclude as much sensitive content as possible" and warns that it "may limit your reach and performance," on its content suitability page (opens in a new tab). Choosing Limited is a brand decision with a reach cost, so it belongs on the sign off sheet rather than in a default.
What should a brand manager ask the agency before launch?
Seven questions for the agency before a campaign goes live
- Show the settings per platform. Ask for a screenshot or export of the suitability controls on every buying platform in the plan, not a summary.
- Name what each setting does not cover. Platform controls differ by surface; ask which inventory, such as YouTube feeds or apps, the settings leave unprotected.
- Show what the settings exclude. Ask for a sample of blocked pages, so over blocking is visible before the money moves.
- Explain every exception. Any trusted publisher or section exempted from a category rule should be listed with the reason.
- Say how made for advertising inventory is screened. Ask which checks run before a site reaches the plan.
- Name the pause owner. Confirm who can stop spend on the agency side, how fast, and how the brand is told.
- Agree the report. Fix the format, the sources and the date of the first suitability report before launch.
The IAB guide offers questions to put to verification partners that a brand manager can borrow, including "How granular do I need to go for my brand?" and "When will diminishing returns begin?" Both push the agency to justify the depth of the setup rather than defaulting to the strictest option.
What should a brand manager approve in writing?
Written approval protects both sides. The agency can show it followed instructions, and the brand can show its choices were deliberate. In the United States one choice now needs particular care. The FTC's final consent order on Omnicom's acquisition of Interpublic (opens in a new tab), announced September 26, 2025, bars Omnicom from denying advertising dollars to publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoint, except at the express and individualized direction of its advertiser customers.
| Item to approve | Evidence the agency attaches | Sign again when |
|---|---|---|
| Tolerance for each sensitive category | Two or three real pages per category: in, borderline, out | A product launch, a new market or a public controversy |
| News stance and accepted beats | A list of beats with sample articles | An election period or a major breaking story |
| Posture: zero tolerance or contextual alignment | The platform settings that express it | Reach falls short of plan for a full quarter |
| Publisher exclusions tied to a viewpoint, if any | The brand's own instruction, dated and specific | Each time; not inherited from an agency default |
| Made for advertising tolerance | The screening checks used | The agency changes its method |
| Pause authority | Names, backups and the notice route | Staff changes on either side |
How should a brand manager review suitability reports?
Read a suitability report for what it can prove. Google's Content suitability report (opens in a new tab) shows impressions by source, and Google says its impression counts "don't reflect the impressions that you're billed," that the report "may include invalid traffic," and that its purpose is "strictly for brand suitability." Placements appear only above minimum thresholds, and Shorts impressions are not deduplicated. A report is therefore a sample of where ads ran, not a full ledger.
Six things to look for in a quarterly suitability report
- The report names its source and the dates it covers, for every platform.
- Excluded and blocked volumes appear beside delivered volumes, so over blocking is visible.
- Any placement that breached a category tolerance is listed with the action taken.
- Surfaces the report does not cover are stated rather than left out silently.
- Exceptions granted during the quarter are listed with their end dates.
- Changes to settings since the last report are dated and attributed.
Raw logs do not wait for a quarterly meeting. The IAB guide noted that DSP log data retention is usually up to seven days. If the brand wants to audit where its ads served, the agency has to export and keep that data during the flight.
What does a quarterly review look like for a baby care brand?
Fictional example
A baby care brand in Saskatchewan
A fictional maker of diapers and baby wipes runs programmatic display and YouTube campaigns for parents in Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert. The brand manager sits down with the agency's planner for the first quarterly review.
The worksheet signed at launch set zero tolerance for adult content and for violence aimed at children, and contextual alignment elsewhere. Parenting news, including reporting on product recalls in the category, was accepted. The report shows two placements on a celebrity gossip site that breached the adult content rule, already excluded, and a large block volume on health news caused by an old keyword list carried over from another client.
The brand manager approves removing the inherited keyword list, re-signs the news stance with pediatric health added as an accepted beat, and asks for a sample of the newly unblocked pages at the next review. The agency logs each change with its date.
What can a brand manager see in a PlacementGraph plan before signing?
Frequently asked questions
Should a brand manager approve every site on a list?
Not site by site. A list can hold dozens or hundreds of sites, and line by line approval slows launches without adding much. Approve the tolerances, the exceptions and a sample of sites with their reasons, then ask the agency to flag any site that sits close to a category limit.
What if the agency's default settings are stricter than the brand needs?
Ask for the brand's own settings. An agency default may be built for its most cautious client, and they can remove news and specialist publishers the brand would gladly fund. Use the sample of excluded pages to show the difference, and sign the looser settings so the agency is covered.
Can a brand manager ask the agency to avoid publishers because of their political views?
The FTC's September 2025 order covers Omnicom: it may not deny ad dollars to publishers based on political or ideological viewpoint except at the express and individualized direction of its advertiser customers. Any such instruction should come from the brand, in writing, naming what it covers.
Which brand safety records should a brand manager keep?
Keep the signed worksheet with its dates, each quarterly report, the list of exceptions with their reasons, any incident notes and the exported logs the agency hands over. Together they show what the brand decided, what it was told and what changed, which matters when staff or agencies change.
Sources
- Leading Trade Groups Define Made For Advertising Websites (opens in a new tab)ANA, September 26, 2023
- Brand Safety and Suitability Guide (opens in a new tab)IAB, December 2020
- FTC alters final consent order in response to public comments (opens in a new tab)Federal Trade Commission, September 26, 2025
- About content suitability (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- About the Content suitability report (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- WFA discontinues GARM (opens in a new tab)World Federation of Advertisers, August 9, 2024
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.