What if you could actually pick where your ads show up? No more ads next to wild conspiracy videos, cringe memes, or that weird clip your competitor got stuck with last week. You’re not just hoping the internet does you a favor—you’re in control now.
Picture this: every ad spot you buy works hard to keep your brand safe AND still gets you clicks. Sounds like magic, but it’s real. This is all about DSP brand safety and suitability settings, now in open beta on platforms like Amazon and Adobe. With these, advertisers have way more say over exactly what kind of sites and content their ads land beside.
Let’s be honest: one bad ad placement can destroy your brand’s trust real quick. You can bust your budget on brand campaigns, but if your logo pops up next to a viral, not-so-great meme or a hot conspiracy video—boom. PR nightmare. Before, you crossed your fingers and hoped for the best. Now, things are different.
With the newest controls from big dogs like Amazon and Adobe DSP, you can finally use super-targeted filters, mix AI with your own smarts, kick out fraud, and see reporting in real time. Ever lost sleep over a blown ad spot? This is your playbook for staying safe and crushing your goals. Buckle up: here’s how you make open beta your home turf and leave your competition sweating.
"Leaving brand suitability to chance is like playing Russian Roulette with your ads. The winners are the ones who use the controls, not just trust them."
Key Takeaways
Brand suitability isn’t just another fancy term. It’s your safety net. Ignore this, and it’s like driving fast with no seatbelt. Edelman says 70% of people will ditch a brand just for seeing one sketchy ad[^1]. End up next to something bad? Just one screenshot could launch a PR mess or worse—a viral takedown online.
For ages, brands wanted that magic button to lock in safe ad spots. Older tools couldn’t keep up with how quick the internet moves. “Oops, we’ll fix it next week”? Not good enough—bad news spreads in seconds.
Now, with open beta brand controls on Amazon and Adobe, you get real-time prevention instead of panicking after a slip. Third parties like DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, Comscore, and Peer39 give your brand some armor.
This is like moving from throwing darts blindfolded to hitting bullseyes with a laser pointer:
Expert says:
"If you aren’t using real-time suitability, you’re driving with your eyes closed. Open beta lets you shield your brand before disaster. Total game-changer."
— Sarah Franklin, CMO at Salesforce
If the internet is a wild party, contextual filters are your bouncer. You don’t just ban generic "bad stuff"—you decide the topics, genres, or sites your ads will dodge. DoubleVerify, Comscore, and Integral Ad Science help add super-tight controls.
Need certain themes off-limits? Block whole areas like “extremist,” “adult,” or "gambling" with a click. These filters update themselves too: if something safe goes bad, it drops off your list without you lifting a finger.
Want to supercharge your safety zones? Check out DSP Services for help.
You sell family products. Use your Amazon DSP to block anything labeled with violence, mature themes, or certain keywords. Need to avoid hard news? Add that genre to your no-go list. For a huge launch, you might only allow pre-cleared safe sites. Your million-dollar budget won’t pop up next to tragic headlines.
Contextual filters work, but combining pre-bid and post-bid blocking is the real win. Think door lock (pre-bid) plus alarm (post-bid).
Say your pre-bid filter misses a new bad article. Post-bid tools will catch it, and you can squash that site immediately—no waiting on month-end data.
"Our biggest brands went to pre+post-bid. Brand safety misses dropped by 80%. The old way? It was like locking your door but leaving all the windows open."
— Alex Vass, Programmatic Director at Peer39
Scam sites and bots love stealing your ad money. Now, open beta DSPs fight back. Networks like WhiteOps and IAB standards bake in real fraud checks.
Say you find a publisher packed with bots. Midway through the campaign, the DSP yanks that spot and shifts your ads to clean inventory. More real people, less trash.
Now you get dashboards that actually show the sites where your ads go. No more mystery logs. You can click into publishers, pages, even creatives.
Lots of brands now check these dashboards every week—sometimes daily. Grab your coffee, scan your reports, zap sketchy spots before anyone else even knows.
Amazon’s Brand+ and Performance+ (Adobe does it too) are where smart AI meets safety. Not the creepy secret AI, either. You pick your risk level, goals, and the system adjusts placements live, checking in on new stuff happening online, not just old rules.
Let’s say you want only family-friendly sites, but don’t want to kill your reach. Just set Brand+ on strict in your DSP. The AI will boot out any shady stuff on the fly. If a safe site gets called out for drama, it’s out. If a bad site turns around, it might get a second look.
"It’s like Google Maps but for brand safety. Real-time reroutes so you never crash."
— Jenny Sun, Amazon Ads Senior Product Manager
No more late nights with Excel. Just plug in suitability APIs on your DSP platform and you can:
/brandSafetyTierInheritedSettingDetails)./brandSafetyTierTarget.Let’s say you run a global drinks campaign. Go hard on filters everywhere, but lighten up just for trusted regions. Test a market? Change filters for just one ad group while the rest run as usual.
Pro tip: Set daily reports for flagged sites. If one keeps popping up, blacklist it and move money somewhere better before lunch. It’s a time-saver and stress-buster.
You can overdo it with safety settings. Go too strict? You’ll lose ad reach, spend more, and maybe even hurt your campaigns. The new trick is to blend tight safety with smart, data-driven tweaks, so you’re safe but your ads still work hard for you.
"Great brand safety is useless if nobody ever sees your ads. Let smart controls fine-tune your guardrails—and don’t kill your scale."
— Ram Gopinath, Jellyfish Programmatic Lead
A food app launching in a strict market dialed up their safety (blocking alcohol, nightlife, hard news). After two weeks, they saw little brand risk—but also low sales. Team loosened filters for safe entertainment content. Sales jumped 19%, complaints? Zero.
Open beta is for the bold. The advertisers leading the pack are:
"We had a killer ROI—until we looked at the publisher list. One horrible site, whole PR mess. Using open beta, zero risk calls since. Huge win."
— Lauren Kim, Digital VP at TBWA
Real talk: Beta stuff is still evolving. Not everything works perfect. Sometimes docs are slow. New features break for a minute. But early adopters write tomorrow’s playbook. Here’s how to crush it:
A CPG brand trying Amazon’s beta found its strict keyword blocks doubled verification fees. They switched to a mix: pre-bid for big risks, lighter post-bid for most traffic. Verification costs dropped 40%—brand stayed safe.
1. What’s the main difference between pre-bid and post-bid brand safety?
Pre-bid stops your ad before it ever shows somewhere sketchy—no wasted money. Post-bid flags or removes problems after the fact, so you’re safer next time.
2. Can I use these settings on Facebook in the Meta Brand Safety Center?
Yep! Most big platforms have safety controls, though not all are as detailed. Meta’s dashboard (inside Facebook’s Business Manager) lets you exclude some categories and publishers—just not always as deep as Amazon or Adobe.
3. Does third-party filtering cost more?
Usually, yeah—especially for special keyword lists. Think of it as insurance. Messing up once can cost way more than buying filters upfront.
4. Will strict controls kill my ad performance?
Tighter rules mean less inventory. Expect higher prices or reaching fewer people. But, platforms are using AI more so you get a better mix—you should stay safe and still win results.
5. Is this out for every ad type?
Not right now. Open beta mostly works on Display and Video, plus early access via Twitch for Amazon. Audio and native placements are coming—watch for updates.
6. How do I find bad publisher sites?
Good reporting shows exactly where your ads ran. See trouble with the same publisher? Blacklist it and talk to your DSP to get a fix.
Print this for your ad team:
/brandSafetyTierInheritedSettingDetails and /brandSafetyTierTarget)Bottom line: protecting your brand isn’t a one-time thing. You gotta be hands-on, data-smart, and always watching. Use open beta, combine your gut with machine learning, and keep an eye on every publisher. That way you shine bright—and never end up saying sorry for your ads.
Want to make reporting even easier? Run safer campaigns with powerful AMC Cloud tools.
Ready to nerd out? Dive deeper with Amazon attribution, run a brand lift study, or go all-in on DSP optimization using our Amazon DSP guide.