How To Advertise “Safely” On YouTube

Kat Bauguess - October 12, 2020

Advertisers want to show up where their target audience is spending time, which today includes YouTube, more than ever. Yet, a worry when advertising on YouTube is the type of content that your advertisement may be showing alongside of. Concerns include videos that are sexually suggestive, contain racist undertones, or a plethora of other issues that have caused some brands to shy away from the platform.

So, the question is, how can you utilize YouTube while also keeping your brand safe? This can be accomplished by employing multi-layer exclusions to prevent video ads from showing with content that a brand doesn’t want to be associated with.

Choose a Google Inventory Type

The first action occurs when setting up your YouTube campaigns. Google provides inventory types. There are three: Expanded, Standard and Limited. Google suggests standard, but if you want it to be exclude most types of sensitive content, Limited inventory should be chosen.

Employ Content Exclusions

Apply Google Content Exclusion at the campaign level. Google classifies content and uses labels, which are very much like a movie rating. They have DL-G, DL-PG, DL-T, etc. and you can choose which content labels to exclude. This helps avoid content that doesn’t fit with the audience based on a maturity level.

Utilize Topic Exclusions

Next is layering in Topic Exclusions. This narrows the targeting and disallows ads from showing with content that’s considered unsuitable. Google provides a list of topics that can be excluded. Some examples include computer and video games, mature interests and reproductive health.

Add Placement Exclusions

Lastly, you can create a list of placements to exclude. This is helpful in limiting the possibility of ads appearing with YouTube channels or videos that wouldn’t align with the brand.  Once you launch the campaigns, it’s important to check your placement results to see where your ads are initially shown and update your exclusion list accordingly.

While there is no guarantee of a perfect solution and sometimes things slip through the cracks, these are steps that you can take to minimize the possibility of your brand being associated with undesirable content.

If you’d like to learn more and discuss further, please let us know.