• by Melynda Fuller , March 17, 2020

DoubleVerify, producer of marketing-measurement software, data and analytics, is helping publishers and brands avoid situations that strip much-needed revenue from trusted news sources through an over-reliance on keyword blocking during the coronavirus outbreak.

In a blog post, the company’s COO Matt McLaughlin issued a set of guidelines for brands to follow when approaching the ad space as new information about the emerges and changes quickly. The post was inspired by a report by The New York Times that revealed DoubleVerify competitor Integral Ad Science (IAS) had blocked the keyword “coronavirus” 38.4 million times.

“The IAS numbers in The New York Times report were concerning for advertisers and publishers alike. Advertisers want to avoid unnecessarily taking good supply out of their media plan, while publishers rightly have concerns that imprecise brand suitability settings could demonetize high-interest news content,” McLaughlin told Publishers Daily. 

“This is especially important at a time when there is a pandemic, and citizens around the globe are relying on trusted news publishers to keep them informed of updates about the emerging events and the impact on their lives.”

McLaughlin offered three suggestions to DoublyVerify’s customer base, including exempting trusted news publishers from its “Natural Disaster” content classification category; exempting trusted news providers from coronavirus-related keyword blocklists; and adding trusted news site homepages and section pages to their page exception lists.

The use of the exception lists is valuable for programmatic buys and “on high-volume entry pages where the consumer associates the brand with the news publication more than the dynamic and aggregated context of the content on the page,” McLaughlin wrote in his post.

The post was the first in a series of four set to appear over the coming days.

“The global significance and longevity of the coronavirus outbreak reinforces the importance of both trusted news publications and working with the right media verification partner,” McLaughlin told Publishers Daily.

“Standards in the future will likely consider some of the lessons learned during this event, but equally important: The DV service was built to effectively manage suitability in these unique circumstances,” he added.