Brand Safety Controls Are Demonetizing Publishers’ Israel-Hamas Coverage

Missiles, violence, refugees and death—for news publishers covering the horror unfolding throughout Israel and Gaza, the language of their reporting reflects the brutal realities of war.

But that same language also triggers a series of brand safety measures—keyword blocklists, sentiment analysis, or contextual filters—that companies use to prevent their ads from running alongside polarizing content. Measures that demonetize vital, cost-intensive reporting in the process, according to interviews with publishers, media buyers and ad-tech vendors.

Although media buyers’ brand safety efforts have grown more nuanced and their technology more sophisticated in recent years, publishers’ ability to monetize their coverage of the latest Israel-Hamas war has still suffered, according to ad ops executives at three news outlets.

“A lot of people are taking responsible measures to support news environments in moments like this,” said Mario Diez, the chief executive of the brand safety vendor Peer39. “But you also don’t want to deliver a campaign flight next to content that might not be relevant.” 

Keyword blocking has made some of publishers’ most consequential coverage their least financially sustainable. In 2019, for instance, brand safety filters cost the news industry $2.8 billion, according to the artificial intelligence firm Cheq. The practice has come under redoubled scrutiny in recent years, as news cycles surrounding Covid-19, the Black Lives Matter protests and the Russia-Ukraine war have cast a fresh spotlight on its unintended effects. 

The dynamic reflects a core tension at the heart of digital advertising, as news publishers depend on advertising to fund their operations. Still, brands fear the reputational blowback of promoting themselves alongside divisive content. 

Throttled revenues in critical junctures

News publishers are reluctant to complain publicly about brand safety measures, as griping about monetization amid a crisis appears tone-deaf.

But news outlets’ advertising revenues take a material hit during these disasters, some of which can last for months, according to an ad ops executive at a global news outlet.

According to Steve Brill, the cofounder of NewsGuard, some publishers lose between 30% to 50% of their advertising revenue to brand safety filters. Since the beginning of the latest Israel-Hamas war Oct. 7, one publisher has seen delivery of its house ads rise 12%, the result of unfilled programmatic inventory. 

Two others reported, anecdotally, that while traffic has spiked, revenue has remained flat.

“We have seen a spike in traffic due to the war coverage, but have not seen an equal spike in programmatic revenue,” according to one executive.

The brunt of the decline comes from two sources: direct advertisers asking to stop their campaigns and keyword blocklists built into private marketplace deals, according to another ad ops executive. Programmatic guarantees, which publishers have more control over, are less affected.

“The news from the Israel-Hamas war is obviously harrowing and not necessarily a suitable place for our clients’ advertising to appear,” said Josh Woolas, digital planning director at Wavemaker. “That being said, we want to support the media that keeps us informed of such vital news and not block news completely.” As such, the agency is using a combination of content avoidance tools from brand safety partners—so ads still appear in the news—as well as short-term keyword blocks on “certain non-negotiables.”

News outlets can account for these halts and blocks by tapping into open-exchange demand, but these bids typically yield a lower CPM and leave publishers with less control over ad creative and quality.

The net result of these measures is inefficient monetization, meaning publishers still generate revenue but at far lower yields.

“Typically, during this time, we would want to see our [ad] fill rate going direct rather than programmatic, so we are not being made whole,” said one executive.

Bloated blocklists

Compounding the issue, brands that add keywords to their blocklists often never remove them—either out of negligence or a sense of misguided prudence, according to Vanessa Otero, the chief executive of Ad Fontes Media.

Many crises also spill into other areas of news coverage, making it challenging for publishers to confine their un-monetizable content to a single section or homepage, according to one executive. 

The latest Israel-Hamas conflict, for instance, has affected coverage of financial markets, domestic politics and—as influential figures respond to the events—even sacrosanct verticals like sports and entertainment. This means that advertisers looking for content untouched by blocked keywords and charged semantics quickly run out of real estate, according to an ad ops executive.

In general, publishers understand the rationale behind brand safety measures, and many offer to work collaboratively with direct advertisers to hold, adjust or redirect their campaigns.

But when brands implement overly broad blocklists, fail to update their filters, or otherwise act inconsiderately of their publisher partners, they risk undermining key sources of newsgathering right as they are most critical, according to Otero.

“Agencies, brands and vendors are all pointing the finger at one another,” Otero said. “In a conflict where journalists are being killed, their concerns should be put into perspective.”