Amid the many challenges and concerns within ad tech in 2020, one that stood out was ad safety. While not a new topic, the events over the past year have put more emphasis on ad safety and its critical importance to publishers and the consumer experience.
A recently published survey on consumer sentiment during Covid-19 found that nearly half of the respondents reported receiving ads they deemed “inappropriate” during the first lockdown (Spring 2020). A large majority of consumers, however, still wanted to continue receiving ads from these brands, but in a more appropriate manner. Considering these two elements, along with a measurable surge in online activity during the pandemic, the need to ensure safe and compliant advertising has never been higher.
As a leading ad tech provider, Criteo has taken yet another step in its commitment to serve high-quality, meaningful, and safe advertisements by recently implementing automated inappropriate content checks to ads. This global rollout called Criteo Ad Safety, uses AI-powered image recognition to filter out unsafe images.
This in-house solution to prevent the display of inappropriate content in ad banners was refined in the Criteo AI lab based in Paris, staffed with more than 100 data scientists from the leading universities around the world with significant expertise in machine learning and deep learning applications.
Criteo Ad Safety is a comprehensive framework using both text detection and top-notch AI image recognition capabilities to filter unsafe products from being displayed in ads served by Criteo. This new feature will drastically reduce occurrences of disapproved ads, helping our publishers protect their consumers, while continuing to deliver high-performing digital marketing campaigns for our clients.
Working to protect publisher partners and drive client performance through ad safety is a common value shared by many Criteo partners. “The topic of ad quality is extremely important to us and is a topic we take very seriously. Ensuring we serve appropriate, brand safe advertisements across our platform has been a top priority for many years”, said Jerome Tran from MoPub’s Strategic partnerships, “knowing Criteo has taken the necessary steps to invest in ad quality reinforces the reasons we continue to work together.”
To learn more about how Criteo continues to drive value to publishers, reach out to us here.
