In this day and age, consumers are able to find just about anything they want online which presents a problem for online advertisers. From LOLcats to sites dedicated to Asians who want to poke fun at their own parents – there is no shortage of obstacles to ensuring your clients’ ads are running on relevant sites.

While individual ad networks may have their own way of managing site selection and blocking sensitive categories from campaigns, most rely on their partner sites to self-populate information about what their sites contain – and not all are truthful.  The risks grow even larger when clients choose more open-ended run-of-network targeting as opposed to content targeting.

The solution? Scanning real-time content before serving an advertisement to ensure brand compliancy.

Products like Affine’s image-recognition software have recently come-to-market, and though services like these do cost more than typical ad-serving, I am here to argue that they are well worth the cost.

Family oriented companies such as Disney could surely take advantage of this technology to ensure that their kid-friendly ads aren’t in the wrong place.  The same goes for the election campaigns that are starting to pop up more frequently as this year continues.

Sure, there are companies out there that verify your ads after they’ve run, but that could potentially mean having to ask for forgiveness from clients if (and when) ads end up on the wrong sites.  In my opinion, investing in technology services that go beyond standard web page content verification is well worth it to ensure your video ads are not only placed effectively but return maximum awareness and relevance for your client’s dollar.

Carolyn Bee, Account Manager for Adap.tv

Tags: affine systems, LOLcats, online video advertising, verification, video content