The media ecosystem has spent years focused on warding off risks — blocking fraudulent traffic, blacklisting content and removing impressions that fail basic checks. While such tactics helped address the immediate dangers of invalid traffic and misaligned brand safety, they also created new problems. Certain legitimate content categories, including news, became collateral damage, with publishers unfairly penalized by rigid keyword filters.
Meanwhile, friction between brands and publishers intensified, as one side sought “make goods” for disqualified inventory and the other faced constant revenue clawbacks.
Now, with 87% of marketers saying that trust must be restored between buyers and sellers, per Mediaocean research, it’s clear that the status quo is no longer sufficient. Taking its place is a “positive” approach to ad verification — one that uses robust data, context-aware analysis and shared accountability to ensure ads reach real, engaged viewers while rewarding publishers who deliver premium, brand-appropriate content.
This positive approach not only better harmonizes incentives, but is actually more technically able to keep pace with fraudulent methods that have only grown more sophisticated.
Part 1: Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT)
Our recent research findings underscore a growing urgency around fraud, with 63% of marketers declaring that SIVT is more critical now than it was in the spring. Despite ongoing detection technologies, only 43% of marketers feel confident they aren’t paying for non-human or invalid impressions. Indeed, the more fragmented the digital landscape becomes — spanning connected TV, streaming apps and emerging channels — the more opportunities exist for bad actors to slip through minimal checkpoints.
Traditional verification might simply certify that an impression was technically “viewable,” but that does not guarantee a real person was watching. Increasingly sophisticated bots mimic real viewing behaviors and exploit the fact that many brand safety solutions lack deeper context or advanced fraud-detection layers. This gap translates to wasted media spend and inflated performance metrics that mask the true engagement of a campaign.
A positive approach to SIVT addresses these challenges by looking beyond binary pass/fail indicators. Rather than asking, “Was 50% of the ad visible for two seconds?” it measures meaningful user presence and engagement. Duration of active viewing, screen size and potential for conversion become relevant metrics. When advertisers measure the depth of user interaction, they can separate real engagement from the “TV-off” scenario in which the ad might be technically served yet unseen. This shift incentivizes publishers to emphasize quality and transparency, rather than checking the bare minimum required to qualify an impression.
Part 2: Redefining brand safety
Brand safety concerns have also intensified, with 75% of marketers viewing it as more critical than it was early last year, and 66% voicing the need for verification that goes beyond site exclusions and negative keywords. Relying on rigid blocklists has resulted in some content categories — especially news — being penalized merely because they contain charged or controversial language. Often, these environments feature high levels of audience engagement and draw clear opt-in from a valuable, educated audience — one that marketers have consequently missed. The negative approach to brand safety automatically flags this content due to simplistic filters that fail to interpret context.
In a positive model, technology and AI do more than scan for undesirable words: they interpret tone, evaluate thematic relevance and consider the audience’s intentional consumption of potentially sensitive topics like world events or social issues. This enables advertisers to confidently place ads in serious or mature content when it aligns with their brand values, rather than dismissing the entire category. A viewer actively seeking in-depth coverage of global affairs, for instance, is highly engaged — a fact that should be recognized, not punished.
By allowing nuance and context to inform brand safety strategies, publishers benefit from fairer monetization of legitimate material, while marketers can tap in to diverse audiences without fear of negative adjacency. This pivot helps preserve the financial viability of reputable content producers and reduces friction caused by broad-based blocking.
Part 3: Restoring trust
Beyond the technical challenges of fraud and inappropriate ad placements lies a more fundamental issue of trust. According to our survey, 87% of marketers agree that rebuilding trust in ad verification is essential for the industry to progress.
The current model frequently casts buyers and sellers as adversaries, as advertisers use verification data to demand makegoods for flagged inventory, leaving publishers on the defensive. Over time, this dynamic erodes goodwill and stifles collaboration.
A positive verification framework flips that script by encouraging both sides to adopt a shared technology layer or mutually accessible data sets. Rather than surprise clawbacks, publishers see real-time intelligence on how their inventory is being assessed and have the opportunity to correct problems or refine targeting to better serve advertisers’ objectives.
Buyers, meanwhile, gain confidence that the impressions they’re paying for reflect genuine engagement — something publishers can demonstrate via detailed reports on dwell time, user actions and the nature of the viewed content.
This model also eases friction by aligning incentives around transparent performance. Publishers who deliver verifiable engagement stand to earn premium rates, while advertisers can invest with confidence in inventory that meets brand, audience and contextual needs. In practical terms, this could mean technology integrations on the sell side that feed robust data directly into buy-side dashboards, producing a unified perspective of the real value an ad delivers.
When both parties trust the metrics — and share responsibility for achieving them — the entire ecosystem benefits.
The pivot to positivity is well underway
By shifting the focus from what to avoid to what truly works, advertisers can protect their budgets against wasteful fraud and align with brand-appropriate content.
Publishers, meanwhile, can showcase the genuine value of their inventory without fear of automatic disqualification.
Most crucially, a shared, positive vision for verification means the solutions deployed to prevent fraud and unsafe placements will no longer become problems themselves. Instead, they evolve into engines of trust and growth for the entire digital advertising ecosystem.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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