How do public service announcements run in programmatic?
Part of Fair publisher planning
The short answer
Public service announcements run in programmatic two ways. Donated PSAs are free creative that publishers place in their own unsold space, under the campaign owner's license terms. Paid PSAs are bought like any campaign, through deals or auctions, by an agency or government. The two need different rights checks, publisher lists and reports.
Key takeaways
- A donated PSA and a paid PSA can carry the same creative but follow different rules: the license decides where donated assets may run.
- Ad Council terms limit its PSA content to media that has been donated and bar placement beside pornographic, violent or discriminatory content.
- Public health and safety messages fit local news, health, parenting and community publishers, including coverage of the very emergencies the PSA addresses.
- Report delivered impressions, the paid media cost and any donated placements as separate lines, and keep allocations apart from actual spend.
- A PSA plan earns its keep by reaching the communities the message is for, which favors local and in-language publishers that size based rules drop.
How do public service announcements run programmatically?
A public service announcement is an ad whose purpose is public information: vaccination, emergency preparedness, road safety, scam awareness, mental health support. In programmatic media it travels one of two routes. On the donated route, a campaign owner such as the Ad Council offers creative free of charge, and a publisher chooses to run it in its own ad server, in space it has not sold. On the paid route, a government department, public health agency or sponsor buys impressions like any advertiser, through an auction, a private marketplace or a guaranteed deal.
| Question | Donated PSA | Paid PSA |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays for the media | No one; the publisher gives the space | The agency, department or sponsor |
| Who picks the sites | Each publisher that chooses to run the asset | The buyer, through a site list or deal |
| How it serves | Tags trafficked in the publisher's own ad server | Through a DSP, an exchange and the publisher's ad stack |
| What limits placement | The campaign owner's license and expiry date | The buyer's brief, suitability settings and site list |
| What gets reported | Placements and impressions the publisher shares | Platform delivery, cost and viewability |
A paid PSA can use a guaranteed deal with trusted publishers. Display & Video 360's Programmatic Guaranteed documentation (opens in a new tab) describes deals that "provide an automated buying solution with tagless trafficking", negotiated from a proposal that contains "campaign details, including inventory and a proposed price", with dates and impression units agreed between the parties. For a time bound message such as a vaccination drive, a fixed volume on named local publishers is easy to defend.
What is donated ad inventory?
Definition
- Donated ad inventory
- Ad space a publisher gives to a public service campaign at no charge, served from its own ad server and chosen by the publisher, under the license terms the campaign owner attaches to the creative.
The Ad Council's public media planning FAQ (opens in a new tab) says its "PSAs may only be placed in donated media and not on any media that is purchased." Its asset library can be searched "by language, issue area, target audience", and banner and online video assets are requested rather than downloaded, because "Implementing these tags requires access to an ad network or server." The FAQ also says that "After a PSA expires it must be removed from air and online," and that its assets are for use in the US.
Inside a publisher's ad server, donated creative can sit in the lowest priority tier. Google Ad Manager's line item types page (opens in a new tab) says house line items "only serve when remnant line items (Network, Bulk, Price Priority), Ad Exchange or Open Bidding demand aren't available to serve", and that they are treated as if they have a $0 rate, "effectively serving as a fall-back ad." A publisher can traffic a PSA that way, which is why donated delivery rises and falls with the publisher's unsold space rather than with the campaign's needs.
Which publishers suit public health messages?
A public health or safety message works where people go for information about their community and their health. That points to local newsrooms, community and in-language outlets, health and parenting publishers, weather and emergency information sites, and the health desks of regional papers. Public bodies already plan this way: the Public Health Agency of Canada's 2025 dementia strategy report (opens in a new tab), published May 8, 2026, says its national dementia education campaign was shaped by public opinion research and expert consultation and ran across television, digital platforms, out of home and print, with English and French spokesperson tours.
| Publisher type | Why it suits a PSA | Check before adding it |
|---|---|---|
| Local and regional news | Readers looking for what is happening where they live | A real local audience in the target area, not only a local name |
| In-language community media | Reaches people the English campaign misses | Creative exists in that language and the outlet is an active publisher |
| Health and parenting publishers | Readers already thinking about prevention and care | Named clinical sources and dated articles |
| Weather and emergency information sites | Readers acting on an alert | Selling path confirmed for paid delivery |
Fair planning matters here. A PSA aimed at rural households, newcomers or French speaking minorities fails if a popularity cutoff removes the small local and in-language sites that serve them. The guides to local news advertising and in-language media cover those publisher groups in depth.
How should PSAs handle sensitive topic placements?
A PSA reverses the usual suitability logic. A consumer brand may want distance from wildfire, outbreak or overdose coverage; a preparedness or harm reduction PSA is useful right beside it. Default exclusions can therefore work against the campaign. In Display & Video 360, the News (recent) theme (opens in a new tab) covers "News content that's been recently announced, regardless of the themes or people being reported on", and the Health (sensitive) theme covers "medical procedures or images and descriptions of various medical conditions." The theme page says themes apply to YouTube, Demand Gen and Google Video Partner inventory (checked October 2026).
Google Ads offers a Limited inventory type that its content suitability page (opens in a new tab) says "is intended to exclude as much sensitive content as possible" and "may limit your reach and performance"; it applies to YouTube, the Display Network and Google video partners. Limits still apply in the other direction. The Ad Council's terms bar its content from appearing "adjacent to content" that features "pornographic, defamatory, violent, discriminatory, or otherwise unlawful or immoral content", and a PSA beside graphic imagery helps no one.
Setting suitability for a PSA
- Start from the message, not the brand template. Write which news topics the PSA should sit beside before choosing any exclusion.
- Switch off defaults that remove the topic. Recent news and health themes can remove the coverage the message needs.
- Keep the floor. Graphic, hateful and illegal content stays out, as the license terms require for donated assets.
- Review opinion pages by hand. A vaccination PSA beside a heated opinion column can look like a reply to it.
How are PSA campaigns reported?
Keep three numbers apart. Delivery is what served: impressions, viewable impressions and video completions. Display & Video 360's metrics list (opens in a new tab) defines media cost as "the raw cost for impressions purchased from an exchange" and counts complete views as "The number of times a video has been played to its end." Paid cost is what the buyer spent. Donated placements are what publishers gave, reported from their own ad servers and never added to paid spend as if it were cash.
Public bodies also separate plans from spending. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's government advertising page (opens in a new tab) (dated July 27, 2026) lists allocations such as $5,000,000 for the Public Health Agency of Canada's Childhood Vaccination and Measles campaign and $1,500,000 for Public Safety Canada's Emergency Preparedness campaign for April 1 to June 30, 2026, and says the amounts "do not constitute actual expenditures." Final spending appears in the annual report on advertising. The PHAC dementia report shows delivery reported on its own: advertising in the campaign generated about 227.7 million impressions, which describes reach, not health outcomes.
What a PSA campaign report should contain
- Delivered impressions, viewable impressions and video completions, by publisher.
- Paid media cost and fees as separate lines from any donated placements.
- Donated placements as reported by each publisher, labeled with their source.
- The suitability choices made, including any default exclusions switched off.
- Asset expiry dates and confirmation that expired creative was removed.
- Outcome measures, such as surveys or site visits, reported apart from delivery.
How can PlacementGraph build the site list for a paid PSA?
What does a PSA plan look like on a real brief?
Fictional example
A fictional county heat safety campaign in Nevada
A fictional county emergency management office in southern Nevada plans a summer heat safety PSA for Las Vegas and Henderson, with a smaller flight in Reno, in English and Spanish. It has a paid budget for display and online video, and a local broadcaster has offered to run the same message in donated space on its website.
The agency builds the paid site list from local news, Spanish language community outlets, weather sites and parenting publishers. It switches off the recent news exclusion so the PSA can appear beside heat warning coverage, keeps graphic and hateful content excluded, and sets opinion columns about city heat policy for manual review.
The creative for paid delivery is licensed for paid use, and the broadcaster's donated placements use a separate version. The report shows paid delivery by publisher, the paid media cost, and the broadcaster's donated placements as their own line, with no outcome claims drawn from impressions.
Frequently asked questions
Do programmatic PSA placements need an ads.txt check?
Paid PSAs do, like any programmatic buy: the buyer should confirm the site's ads.txt file and the exchange's sellers.json entry agree before a deal. Donated PSAs served as tags in the publisher's own ad server do not pass through an exchange, so the check that matters there is the publisher's identity and editorial quality.
Can Canadian publishers run Ad Council PSAs?
The Ad Council's media planning FAQ says its assets are for use in the US. Canadian public service campaigns come from federal and provincial departments, public health agencies and Canadian charities, and their creative carries its own license terms. Check the terms attached to each asset before trafficking it.
Can an agency put paid media behind a donated PSA?
Not with the donated asset. The Ad Council's terms limit its PSA content to media that has been donated. An agency that wants paid reach for the same cause needs creative the campaign owner has licensed for paid placement, and should report the paid flight separately from the donated one.
Is click-through rate a good measure for a PSA?
It is a weak one on its own. Clicks measure interest in a landing page, not whether people learned the message or acted on it. Pair delivery and clicks with outcome research such as message recall surveys, and report those outcomes separately, as the Public Health Agency of Canada did for its dementia campaign.
Sources
- Media planning FAQ (opens in a new tab)Ad Council
- Terms of use (opens in a new tab)Ad Council
- Line item types and priorities (opens in a new tab)Google Ad Manager Help
- Programmatic Guaranteed (opens in a new tab)Display & Video 360 Help
- Excluded content themes (opens in a new tab)Display & Video 360 Help
- About content suitability (opens in a new tab)Google Ads Help
- Metrics in Display & Video 360 reports (opens in a new tab)Display & Video 360 Help
- Government advertising (opens in a new tab)Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, July 27, 2026
- A Dementia Strategy for Canada: Together We Achieve, 2025 Annual Report (opens in a new tab)Public Health Agency of Canada, May 8, 2026
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.