How do you write a brand suitability profile that teams can apply?
Part of Brand suitability
The short answer
A brand suitability profile is a one page document that records, for each sensitive content category, how much risk one brand accepts, why, and two or three concrete examples of content it allows and content it excludes. Planners, buyers and verification partners read it to apply the same judgment across platforms, and the brand signs it off.
Key takeaways
- A profile is one page per brand: one row per content category, with a tolerance, a reason, allowed examples and excluded examples.
- Examples carry more weight than labels, because two people can read medium risk differently, and a specific headline narrows the room for disagreement.
- Rules that come from law or an industry code belong in the profile as fixed lines, kept apart from the brand's own preferences.
- The brand lead signs the profile, legal confirms the fixed lines, and the agency confirms each line can be applied on the platforms in the plan.
- Revise on a set schedule and whenever a code, a platform control or the news changes the meaning of a line.
What is a brand suitability profile, and what does it replace?
Definition
- Brand suitability profile
- A short, signed record of one brand's tolerance for each sensitive content category, written in plain language with examples, so that anyone setting up a campaign can reach the decision the brand would reach.
Without a profile, a brand's tolerance lives in scattered places: an old keyword list, a verification dashboard set up by a former employee, a note in a brief, a client's comment in an email thread. Each new planner rebuilds it from memory. The profile pulls those decisions into one page that travels with the brand from agency to agency and from campaign to campaign.
The IAB's brand safety and suitability guide (opens in a new tab) describes suitability tools as doing two jobs: helping a brand avoid content that is wrong for its own sensitivities but may suit another brand, and allowing content that aligns with the brand on context, sentiment, tone and messaging. A good profile records both jobs. It says what to keep out, and it says just as clearly what must stay in.
| Document | What it records | Main readers |
|---|---|---|
| Brand safety policy | Scope, the floor, owners, escalation and the review cycle for the whole advertiser | Legal, procurement, agency leads |
| Suitability profile | One brand's tolerance per category, with reasons and examples | Planners, buyers, verification partners |
| Media brief | Topics this campaign avoids or seeks, on top of the profile | The campaign team |
| Platform settings | The profile translated into each tool's controls | Whoever builds the campaign |
The profile does not replace the brand safety policy or the brief. It is the middle layer: more specific than an advertiser wide policy, and more lasting than one campaign's avoid list.
How do you set a tolerance for each content category?
Start from a standard category list so the profile can be mapped to tools later, and work through every category, not only the ones that feel risky. For each one, the profile records a tolerance in the brand's own words and the reason behind it. Reasons matter because they let a planner make a sensible call on content the examples did not anticipate.
Five questions to answer for every category
- Is anything fixed by law or an industry code? Write those limits first and mark them as fixed. They are not a matter of taste and the brand cannot relax them.
- Does the product connect to the category? A beer brand and alcohol content, or an insurer and accident news, need a more careful line than a category with no link to the product.
- Does treatment change the answer? Decide whether factual, educational or news treatment is acceptable when glamorizing or graphic treatment of the same subject is not.
- Who is the audience? Note whether the line should be tighter where the audience may include people the brand must not target.
- What would the brand lose by excluding it? Name the useful content a strict line would remove, so the cost of each exclusion is visible when the profile is signed.
IAB Tech Lab's implementation guide for brand suitability (opens in a new tab) gives buyers the same advice in short: understand the risk and tolerance levels the brand is comfortable with "by looking at examples", then work with buying platforms and verification partners to specify those goals in shared category terms. The guide was written when GARM's framework was current; GARM ended in August 2024, but the method of setting a level per category from examples still holds.
Which examples make a suitability profile easy to apply?
Examples are the part of a profile a planner can apply directly. A label such as medium tolerance for alcohol content means different things to different readers. A pair of real headlines does not. The IAB guide makes the point with two alcohol articles: one titled "Top 5 Drinks that Smash You Surprisingly Fast" may carry more risk for some advertisers, while "Best Wines to Pair with Your Thanksgiving Turkey" may not.
| Vague line | Why it fails | Usable rewrite |
|---|---|---|
| Avoid negative news | Crime, weather and political reporting can all read as negative, so the line removes large parts of journalism | Allow factual reports on local crime and weather; exclude stories with graphic injury photos or video |
| No alcohol content | Unclear whether recipes, restaurant reviews or health reporting count | Allow food pairing and restaurant reviews; exclude drinking games and content about drinking to get drunk |
| Low tolerance for politics | Does not say whether election results or policy explainers are out | Allow nonpartisan election results and explainers; exclude opinion columns that endorse a party or candidate |
| Brand appropriate content only | Restates the goal without a test anyone can apply | Delete it, and add one allowed and one excluded example to each category instead |
What every example in the profile should pass
- It is specific enough to be a real headline, video title or page description.
- Each category has at least one allowed example, so the line is visibly not a ban.
- Each category has at least one excluded example close to the line, not only an extreme case.
- Examples cover each format in the plan, such as an article, a video and a feed post.
- Examples in French or Spanish are included where the plan buys in those languages.
- No example relies on a single keyword to make its point.
What does a finished profile look like for a craft brewery?
Fictional example
A one page profile for a Colorado craft brewery
An unnamed craft brewery in Denver sells its beer in Colorado and New Mexico and buys display, online video and YouTube through an agency. It is a member of a brewers trade association, so its profile opens with fixed lines taken from the Brewers Association Marketing and Advertising Code (opens in a new tab), amended January 2024. The code says advertising should be placed only in media where at least 73.8 percent of the audience is expected to be of legal drinking age, and that marketing should not promote underage drinking or portray driving and drinking.
The audience rule is a placement test, not a content category, so the profile records it in a separate fixed box and the agency checks it with audience data before each buy. The content rows below then set the brewery's own tolerance, each with a reason and examples. The brand lead, the brewery's compliance lead and the agency planner sign the page.
- Alcohol: allow beer reviews, brewing guides, food pairing and brewery travel; exclude drinking games, binge drinking stories and content aimed at teens. Reason: the code and the product.
- Crime and harmful acts: allow local news reporting; exclude impaired driving crash coverage. Reason: the brand must never sit beside drinking and driving.
- Death, injury or conflict: allow storm safety and wildfire news without graphic imagery; exclude graphic injury video.
- Politics and debated social issues: allow nonpartisan local news and ballot explainers; exclude partisan opinion.
- Obscenity and profanity: allow mild language in comedy and music content; exclude explicit or demeaning content, which the code also bars from the brewery's own ads.
Who should sign off a brand suitability profile?
A profile only works if the people who will be blamed for an awkward placement agreed to it beforehand. The IAB's brand checklist opens with the same point: gain consensus among all stakeholders on the brand's suitability guidelines. The table splits the page across four roles, and each signs for a different part of it.
| Role | Signs for | Question they answer |
|---|---|---|
| Brand or marketing lead | The tolerance and reasons in every row | Is this how we want the brand to be seen? |
| Legal or compliance | The fixed lines from law and industry codes | Is every mandatory rule here, and stated correctly? |
| Communications or public relations | Categories tied to reputation events | Would we be comfortable explaining this placement in public? |
| Agency planner or buyer | That every line can be applied | Can each platform in the plan carry this line, and where can it not? |
The planner's signature is the one that catches gaps. A line that relies on a control a platform does not offer needs a different method there. For example, Google states on its content suitability page (opens in a new tab) that sensitive content exclusions apply to the Display Network and Google video partners, not to YouTube, so the planner should note how each such line is handled on YouTube before signing.
How often should a brand suitability profile be revised?
Set a fixed review date, at least once a year and before each major campaign, and add event triggers on top. The IAB guide warns that suitability is not static and recommends reassessing strategy at the onset of developing news stories. Each revision should keep the old version, record what changed and collect fresh signatures for the changed rows.
| Trigger | Dated example | What to update |
|---|---|---|
| An industry code changes | The Brewers Association code was amended in January 2024 | The fixed lines and their source date |
| A platform changes a control | Google says YouTube ads have not used digital content labels since September 2024 | The planner's notes on how each line is applied |
| A reference framework ends | The WFA discontinued GARM in August 2024 | Any line or citation that called GARM a current standard |
| A major news event | A local disaster or crisis that dominates coverage in the brand's markets | Temporary lines with an end date, kept apart from the standing profile |
| The product or audience changes | A new nonalcoholic line or a launch in a new state or province | Every row the product connects to |
How does PlacementGraph apply a suitability profile to a site list?
Frequently asked questions
How is a suitability profile different from a keyword blocklist?
A blocklist is a tool; a profile is the decision behind the tools. The profile says what the brand accepts in each category and why, with examples. A short keyword list may be one way to apply a single line of it on one platform, alongside category settings and inclusion lists.
Should an advertiser keep one profile per brand or per campaign?
One per brand, with campaign limits added in the brief. A brand's tolerance for alcohol or politics belongs to the brand rather than the flight, while a launch may need to avoid one news topic for a few weeks. Keeping those apart stops temporary limits from quietly becoming permanent.
Does a company with several brands need several profiles?
Yes, where the brands differ in product or audience. A parent company can share fixed lines from law and codes across brands and keep a separate page of tolerances for each, so a family product and an adult product in the same portfolio are not forced onto one line.
Should a suitability profile be shared with publishers?
Sharing the relevant rows with publishers in a direct or curated deal helps them propose fitting sections and flag conflicts early. Keep internal notes, such as legal advice or crisis plans, out of the shared version, and send the version date so both sides know which rules apply.
Sources
- Brand Safety and Suitability Guide (December 2020) (opens in a new tab)IAB
- Implementation Guide for Brand Suitability with IAB Tech Lab Content Taxonomy 2.2 (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab
- Brewers Association Marketing and Advertising Code (amended January 2024) (opens in a new tab)Brewers Association
- About content suitability (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.