Dive Brief:

• Media measurement company Integral Ad Science has developed a product it claims offers a more granular way than publisher block lists for advertisers to avoid placing ads next to content on Facebook and Instagram they deem unsuitable, the company said in a press release. 
• Currently in the testing phase with Meta, IAS’s third-party Content Block List works across Facebook and Instagram feeds and Reels. It is available to customers using IAS measurement tools and is scheduled to be available to all advertisers in early 2025. 
• IAS is also expanding its Total Media Quality measurement solution for TikTok within the platform’s profile, search and following feeds as well as TikTok Lite ad placements, the company recently announced. IAS is also in Alpha testing for its new Video Exclusion List solution for TikTok.

Dive Insight:

Social media continues to be a top channel for advertisers’ attention and dollars, but it is also a channel that drives significant concerns around brand safety and the effect poor content can have on ads and the user experience. In this environment, marketers need to hold their partners accountable for ad safety and placement quality, Forrester recommended in its report, “Bad Ads: All The Ways Ads Misbehave And How To Stop Them,” published earlier this year.

IAS is one of the digital companies that has stepped in with products to meet advertisers’ brand safety needs on social media. Earlier this year, it unveiled products to target misinformation on Meta’s social networks and the availability of its Total Media Quality (TMQ) measurement system across those platforms as well. 

IAS asserts that by leveraging its Content Block Lists, advertisers will be able to pre-screen capabilities at the content level to ensure impressions are delivered to brand-suitable content, create custom lists across an ever-growing list of contextual categories for more granular control than publisher block lists and receive end-to-end campaign support with IAS’s Total Media Quality for Meta across 28 languages on Facebook and Instagram. 

“As the first provider to test this solution with Meta, we are delighted to enable advertisers to drive engagement and reach users in brand-suitable, contextually relevant environments across Meta's platform,” said Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS, in a release. 

The Content Block List announcement came just days after IAS revealed it had begun alpha testing its Video Exclusion List product with TikTok, offering a solution that uses AI to analyze sentiment and emotion in the platform’s video content at scale. IAS also announced it had expanded its TMQ tool for TikTok, offering viewability, invalid traffic and brand safety and suitability measurement on the popular platform.