There’s a reason 400,000 professionals read this daily.
Join The AI Report, trusted by 400,000+ professionals at Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Get daily insights, tools, and strategies to master practical AI skills that drive results.
Oh no… You’re still wading in the kiddie pool. 🌊 While ADOTAT+ members are diving into the full edition, you’re stuck with just 1/3 of the report—like ordering a steak and getting a side salad. 🥗 Want the whole story? The juicy details? The stuff everyone in adtech actually talks about? Time to upgrade and join the grown-ups. 🚀
Brand Safety Always Fails—So Who’s Really to Blame?
If you’re an advertiser, mazal tov—you’ve probably poured obscene amounts of money into a brand safety solution that never worked, doesn’t work, and, let’s be honest, was never designed to work. The latest Adalytics report doesn’t just pull back the curtain; it rips it down and sets it on fire. Turns out, the industry’s worst-kept secret is still a secret to the people signing the checks: so-called brand safety vendors like IAS and DoubleVerify are making billions while brands keep showing up next to child exploitation, hate speech, and every flavor of internet garbage imaginable.
We spoke to people across the industry, and the consensus was deafening: these systems are a joke, everyone knows they’re a joke, and yet we all pretend they work because saying otherwise would be admitting the emperor isn’t just naked—he’s doing the electric slide down Madison Avenue. Every quarter, brands hemorrhage cash into these black boxes of nonsense metrics and dashboard theater, all so some VP can smugly answer, Of course, we use [insert overpriced fraud machine here].
Because saying anything else would be career suicide.
Let’s be real. These tools aren’t about protection; they’re about plausible deniability. They’re expensive rubber stamps for execs who need to look like they’re taking action. Reports get generated, nodded at, and swiftly ignored while real decisions get made based on Slack messages, gut instinct, and whatever half-baked hot take someone skimmed on LinkedIn that morning. But hey, at least the invoices get paid on time.
Because when the CEO storms in demanding to know why their brand just showed up next to something so toxic it makes Reddit’s mod team sweat, that VP needs their one lifeline: We followed protocol. We used the tools. It’s not our fault.
And that, folks, is brand safety in 2024.
Erez Levin is direct about brand safety. In a recent post, he made it clear:
Erez Levin isn’t here to soothe fragile egos or offer the usual industry cop-outs. He’s spelling out the problem in neon lights: brands keep whining about ad misplacements, yet they refuse to take the one painfully obvious step to fix it.
The Multi-Billion Dollar Illusion
Let’s talk numbers. IAS and DoubleVerify are making a killing off brand safety, with a combined market value of over $4 billion. Their revenue growth is relentless:
IAS: 35% adjusted EBITDA margins
DoubleVerify: 32% adjusted EBITDA margins
Annual brand safety spend across the industry? $1 billion+
Where’s all that money going? Certainly not into technology. IAS invests only 15% of revenue into actual product development, while DoubleVerify manages 25.3%—but their biggest expense? Sales and marketing.
As Ben Shepherd wrote:
“It does suggest these businesses are much more about sales and marketing than they are about technology. It’s especially unusual given the minefield technologically that is ‘brand safety’ and the repeated demonstrations of this method failing completely.”
The Easy Button is Broken—And Advertisers Are Too Lazy to Fix It
Jared Lake, Co-Founder of Dial-Up Media, just called out the ad industry’s dirty little secret: complacency is how we got here. Advertisers and agencies, drowning in meetings and Slack messages, don’t have the time—or maybe the backbone—to actually scrutinize where their ad dollars are going. Instead, they rely on the “easy button” solutions—IAS, DV, and their ilk—to tell them everything is fine.
Spoiler: everything is not fine.
Lake lays it out: “IAS and DV exist to provide a solution, an easy button for advertisers, that allows them to tell themselves all is good. The tech will protect my brand and I can move on to the next thing. But the tech is clearly compromised and there have been several examples that prove this.”
Read that again. The industry is outsourcing trust to companies that have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, time and time again. These verification vendors aren’t the guardians of brand safety—they’re the comfort blanket agencies cling to while fraudsters, middlemen, and bad actors feast on their budgets.
Meanwhile, nobody actually knows what they’re buying. The real responsibility, as Lake points out, falls on advertisers and their agencies acting as fiduciaries. But that means putting in the work—having an actual Supply Path Optimization (SPO) strategy, regularly analyzing delivery reports, and holding partners accountable. And who has time for that, right?
Lake doesn’t mince words: “There is simply not enough time in the day to take a step back and put in the extra time it takes.” That’s it. That’s the reason ad dollars are burning away in a bonfire of inefficiency—agencies are “resource constrained” and can’t be bothered to execute thoughtfully.
And here’s the kicker: this isn’t fixable with regulation. Open programmatic will always be a breeding ground for bad actors. The only way forward? Stop blindly trusting the tools, start asking real questions, and demand more from your partners.
Because if you don’t know where your money is going, you are part of the problem.
Amazon’s Ad Tech Mess: The Open Web Scapegoat Strategy
Another day, another brand safety scandal, and this time, Amazon is front and center. But instead of taking responsibility, the usual suspects are trying to pin this on the “open web.” No, folks—this isn’t an open web issue. This is an Amazon and Google issue, and it exposes just how little control these so-called ad tech giants actually have over brand safety.
Let’s break it down: Amazon’s ad tech was caught placing ads next to CSAM and adult content on sites like imgbb.com and ibb.co. And guess who else was along for the ride?
That’s right—Google’s DV360. Two of the biggest names in advertising, supposedly the safest places for brands to spend their money, were pumping ads into the darkest corners of the internet.
And yet, somehow, people are still trying to spin this as a failure of the open web. No. This is a failure of Amazon and Google’s ad tech. As Jed Dederick of TradeDesk said put it:
"The reason walled gardens put up walls is to keep you from knowing that they profit from placing advertising on awful things."
So let’s ask the obvious question: If Amazon and Google are such fierce competitors, why is Amazon’s DSP buying inventory through Google? If they don’t work together, how did Amazon’s ads even land there?
Robert Webster’s take on the brand safety scandal is both an indictment of the status quo and a roadmap for fixing a broken system. His main argument? The industry’s perverse incentives—where platforms profit from fraud and bad content—ensure that these scandals keep repeating. No one wants to clean house because it would hurt their bottom line.
The Root of the Problem:
Platforms make money from fraud and bad content, so there’s no financial incentive for them to police it properly.
Brands enjoy low CPMs, and verification vendors often pretend everything is fine, so no one wants to rock the boat.
When these scandals arise, everyone points fingers—platforms blame brands, brands blame verification vendors, and verification vendors shrug.
His Proposed Solution…
Read in ADOTAT+ at the bottom of the newsletter
A Broken System That Nobody Wants to Fix
Everyone in the industry knows this is broken. The Adalytics report exposed over 100 brands running ads next to content that would make Andrew Tate blush, and yet marketers still pretend that a “brand safety certification” actually means something.
As Ben Shepherd put it:
“A ‘brand safety’ expense is ultimately just marketing management risk insurance. It serves to protect the marketer by providing them a level of plausible deniability of negligence should something damaging occur.”
Or, as Adalytics and Check My Ads Institute revealed, even the U.S. government has been caught advertising on a site known to host CSAM since at least 2021. Let that sink in. Government ads, on a child exploitation site, thanks to the ad tech industry’s negligence.
As one marketer bluntly admitted:
“Brand safety should be a higher priority than it is. If pressed, how many marketers could genuinely say with certainty that they know where their ads are running? It’s not a problem until suddenly it is.”
AdTech’s Dirty Laundry: Mark Donatelli Says It’s Time to Pay the Cleaning Bill
Mark Donatelli isn’t sugarcoating it. This is a reckoning, plain and simple. “This is a case of reap what you sow in my opinion,” he says, laying the responsibility squarely at the feet of brands who have, for too long, treated media buying as a set-it-and-forget-it affair. They aren’t entirely at fault, but they’ve certainly played along, handing over budgets without demanding the transparency and accountability they now realize they desperately need.
“The Brands are ultimately accountable for not being informed and engaged in the practices of how their media dollars are being spent.” That’s the brutal truth—advertisers have been writing blank checks, crossing their fingers, and hoping for the best. But that doesn’t mean they’re the real villains here. As Donatelli makes clear, “they are not to blame for the problem. The blame lies in the advertising technology ecosystem who must exhibit some constraint and reasonable integrity into how they make a buck.”
And let’s talk about that “AdTech tax” we’ve all grudgingly accepted as the cost of doing business. Donatelli doesn’t pretend it doesn’t exist—quite the opposite. “We’ve all bought into the ‘AdTech tax,’” he says, but here’s where the rubber meets the road: that tax needs to come with some actual value. Adtech has taken its cut, now it’s time to deliver. “They owe Brands (and consumers) safe, transparent, and common-sense practices.”
Of course, every time these issues come to light, there’s the inevitable pushback, the eye-rolling, the grumbling about who’s behind the latest damning report. But Donatelli shuts that down too: “Many are quick to groan over the source of the findings, but frankly, we need more white hats stirring the pot to hold more people accountable by shining light into the darkness that is the unchecked internet.”
This is the call to arms. The adtech industry has spent years capitalizing on the chaos, but that chaos is no longer sustainable. Brands can no longer afford to be passengers in their own media investments. And if the industry doesn’t step up? Well, expect more “white hats” to start turning over rocks—and the things they’ll find won’t be pretty.
What’s the Solution?
If the system doesn’t work, what does? Another person a radical idea:
“Greater diligence on environment selection and creating inclusions lists using agreed upon parameters. It’s such a simple approach, doesn’t cost a billion dollars plus a year either.”
That’s right. Use a damn inclusion list. Stop blindly trusting these companies to protect you when they’ve already shown that their primary function is cashing your checks, not fixing the problem.
Eric Tilbury, Senior Director of Ad Operations and Solutions Engineering at Inuvo
isn’t mincing words when it comes to brand safety in programmatic advertising. According to him, the only truly safe way to ensure your ads don’t end up on shady, illegal, or otherwise problematic sites is to buy exclusively from allowlists.
“Allowlists are literally the only safe way to make sure you don’t serve on shady illegal content. If advertisers bought 100% on an allowlist, that site would never be fed with revenue because no one in their right mind would buy those.”
The reality, he suggests, is that too many advertisers blindly trust the system to protect them. They assume that DSPs, verification vendors, or some invisible force will prevent bad placements, but the truth is far less reassuring:
“The system is designed to transact.”
In other words, the system prioritizes making deals, moving money, and keeping the pipes flowing. Quality control? That’s more of an afterthought. The consequence? Fraudsters and shady publishers exploit the gaps, siphoning ad dollars away from legitimate media.
Tilbury’s take underscores what industry insiders have been saying for years: If you want real control over where your ads appear, don’t rely on blacklists, keyword filters, or vague promises of “brand safety.” Take responsibility, set strict allowlists, and know exactly where your money is going.
Final Thought: The House Always Wins
Even Wall Street sees through the BS. DoubleVerify is down 45% since its IPO. IAS? Down 43%. Investors aren’t buying the hype anymore.
But until brands stop paying for nothing, ad tech’s worst offenders will keep lining their pockets while your brand funds the worst corners of the internet.
Wake up. The “brand safety” grift isn’t about safety. It’s about you having someone to blame when it all goes wrong.
The Trump Admin Didn’t Want to Protect Consumers—And Neither Does Ad Tech
Barry Green has seen how the sausage gets made in digital advertising, and let’s just say, it’s more rat meat than filet mignon.
A veteran of ad tech’s inner circles, he’s sat at the tables where people pretend fraud is a fixable nuisance rather than a multi-billion-dollar business model.
He’s even walked through a mobile phone fraud warehouse in Ukraine, run by the mafia, where they proudly bragged about stealing millions.
Brand Safety is a Scam, and Everyone Knows It
You’d think after years of scandals, multi-billion-dollar “brand safety” vendors might have figured out how to actually keep ads away from hate speech, disinformation, and, oh yeah, child exploitation. But nope! Here we are again, watching major brands get caught funding the worst corners of the internet—while the companies they pay to protect them do a whole lot of nothing.
And here’s the kicker: no one in the industry is even remotely surprised…
Subscribe to our premium content at ADOTAT+ to read the rest.
Become a paying subscriber to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.
Upgrade