Brand Safety in Online Advertising: A Guide to Protecting Your Brand in 2025

No advertiser wants to see their ad next to fake news, conspiracy theories, or harmful content. But with programmatic advertising automating placements, keeping control isn’t as easy as it used to be.

Maybe you've seen it happen—your ad showing up on a questionable website, before a controversial video, or beside content that makes you cringe. With automation running the show, it’s happening more than you think.

Here’s a reality check: 75% of companies say brand safety impacts their business, yet only 26% take action. That means most brands are gambling with their reputation without even realizing it.

So, how do you stay brand-safe while still reaching the right audience? This guide breaks it down. We’ll dive into brand safety risks, real-world mistakes, and the strategies you need to take control—before your reputation is on the line.

Where It All Began... A Brand Safety Crisis

The first major brand safety crisis occurred in March 2017. The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, blacklisted YouTube after discovering its advertisements appearing alongside hate speech and extremist content.

As a result, major names like Toyota, P&G, AT&T, and Verizon withdrew millions of dollars in ad spending from YouTube.

For the first time, YouTube was dealing with both reputation and revenue damage. And it wouldn’t be the last time. Despite implementing remedial steps in 2017, 2018, and 2019, YouTube was still on the radar for deploying ads on harmful content.

YouTube is not the only platform affected by the problem; advertisers on Facebook and Twitter are also experiencing brand safety difficulties.

What Is Brand Safety Exactly?

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), brand safety is defined as keeping your brand protected in the digital advertising space by ensuring your ads don’t run alongside harmful, offensive, or inappropriate content. That could mean anything from misinformation and hate speech to violent or adult content—things that can make customers question your brand’s values.

But here's the thing: brand safety isn’t the same for every business. As the IAB puts it, “Brand safety is in the eye of the beholder.” A fitness brand might not want its ads next to unhealthy diet content, while a gaming brand might be fine advertising on edgy entertainment sites. That’s where brand suitability comes in—it’s not just about avoiding bad content but also making sure your ads show up in the right places.

To help advertisers, the IAB created the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list, a set of high-risk content categories to avoid. Ignoring brand safety can lead to negative press, lost revenue, and wasted budgets.

Brand Safety vs. Brand Suitability: What’s the Difference?

Brand safety and brand suitability might sound alike, but they’re actually two different things. Brand safety is all about avoiding risks—keeping your ads away from harmful, offensive, or controversial content. It’s a broad, industry-wide approach that helps advertisers steer clear of the bad stuff.

Brand suitability, on the other hand, is more about strategy. It’s not just about where your ads shouldn’t be—it’s about where they should be. It ensures your ads show up in places that make sense for your brand and resonate with your audience. What’s a great fit for one brand might not work for another, and that’s the whole point.

The following table breaks down the key differences between the two:-

Aspect	Brand Safety	Brand Suitability
Definition	Protects against negative associations	Promotes positive associations
Focus	Avoiding harmful or inappropriate content	Ensuring appropriate and beneficial content
Applicability	General across all brands	Specific to each brand's identity
Techniques Used	Keyword blocking, URL exclusion	Contextual analysis, audience targeting
Complexity	More straightforward	Requires nuanced understanding of context

The Challenges of Brand Safety

Brand safety is more complex than just avoiding harmful content—it’s about ensuring your ads appear in the right places without sacrificing reach, engagement, or credibility. With 56% of US digital media professionals considering programmatic advertising vulnerable to brand risk, it’s clear that advertisers face significant challenges in keeping their campaigns safe.

The Scale of Online Content & Malgorithms

One of the biggest hurdles is the sheer volume of content being created. With 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, manually reviewing and filtering placements are impossible. Advertisers rely on automation and AI, but these tools sometimes fail, leading to misaligned ad placements or “malgorithms”—when an ad’s context doesn’t match the content. A simple example? A cheerful travel ad appears next to a tragic news article.

Fake News & Misinformation

Another major challenge is fake news and misinformation. If you’re not monitoring where your ads appear, they could end up funding false narratives, conspiracy theories, or clickbait sites designed to mislead. Platforms like Reddit and Google’s AdSense have taken action, but brands must be proactive in avoiding association with harmful content.

Two-thirds of consumers believe brands have full control over where their ads appear, and 77% say seeing ads next to offensive content damages their perception of the brand—which makes brand safety a business-critical issue.

Ads appearing on Extremist Content

Then there’s the risk of extremist content. The last thing any brand wants is to be linked to hate speech, radical views, or offensive ideologies. Yet studies show that brands in the UK unknowingly contributed over £250,000 to extremist websites through ad placements. Social media and programmatic networks make it easier for these mistakes to happen, and once they do, the damage is already done.

Fraudulent traffic is another growing concern. Bad bots account for nearly 28% of all online traffic, inflating ad impressions and draining ad budgets without reaching real consumers. While bot detection tools are improving, advertisers must actively monitor campaign performance to spot irregularities.

There is a need for a smarter, more adaptable approach to brand safety. Instead of relying on outdated keyword blocking and blacklists that often overblock or underprotect, advertisers need AI-powered contextual targeting, human oversight, and real-time monitoring. Content alignment has been shown to increase ad recall by up to 50%, proving that brand safety and campaign effectiveness can go hand in hand.

Why Brand Safety Matters More Than Ever For Advertisers?

Building a brand takes years of effort, but one wrong ad placement can undo all that hard work in seconds. Consumers don’t just connect with your product or service, they connect with your values. If your ad appears next to harmful, misleading, or inappropriate content, it can damage your brand reputation and break consumer trust. In fact, 51% of consumers say they would stop using a brand if its ad appeared near inappropriate content. That means brand safety is not optional; it is essential.

First, it protects your reputation. Around 80% of consumers say they will stop or reduce buying products if they see ads next to violent or extreme content. Where your ad appears shapes how people see your brand. For example, an ad placed alongside disaster footage or negative news could unintentionally create a bad association for your brand.

Second, it keeps you competitive. Today’s consumers expect brands to stand for something. Aligning with positive, relevant content helps reinforce your brand identity and connect with the right audience.

Lastly, it optimizes your ad spend. Brand-safe ads are more likely to appear on premium, high-quality content, ensuring that your budget goes toward real engagement, not wasted impressions.

Brand safety is not just about avoiding risks. It is about building trust and long-term success.

Who Decides “What’s Safe & Unsafe” Anyways?

Many organizations are working to improve brand safety, but two of the biggest names leading the charge are the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Media Rating Council (MRC). These groups, along with brand safety vendors, set the rules and best practices that help advertisers, agencies, and publishers keep ads away from unsafe content.

They make sure publishers follow privacy guidelines and place ads responsibly, while advertisers stick to brand authenticity standards. In short, they help create a safer, more trustworthy ad space, so brands can advertise with confidence and audiences can engage without distractions.

Ensuring Complete Brand Safety with Silvepush’s Mirrors

One of the key challenges with traditional brand safety tools is the inability to identify the right context, be it keyword targeting, blacklists, or dealing with unsafe programmatic video ad placements.

Mirrors, by Silverpush, is an AI-powered contextual targeting solution focusing on serving personalized ads to the audience in a complete brand-safe environment. It enables the processing of large volumes of data at speed, with better context identification, at a larger scale, and improved targeting efficiency.

But brand safety isn’t just about avoiding bad content—it’s about smart placement. Mirrors lets you customize inclusion and exclusion lists, helping you target content that’s not just safe but suitable.

Whether you need to categorize kids' content, filter specific themes, or refine placements, Mirrors puts brands back in control.

With AI-powered precision, full transparency, and real-time insights, Mirrors ensures your brand is seen where it makes the most impact—without the guesswork.

Ready to take control of your ad placements? Contact us today to book a free demo.