Adverse Blocking Continues to Burn LGBTQ+ Publishers

Adverse blocking of ads from running next to content—a years-long problem for publishers, especially those catering to the queer community—continues to persist despite multiple marketers' pledges. In some cases, the problem is evolving beyond lists to whole categories, according to publisher sources. Topics relating to queer women and sexual health are commonly blocked, restricting publishers' ability to monetize and grow, as the industry grapples with balancing brand safety and funding diverse—often niche—media. Last year, 65% of what tech firm Oracle terms progressive media content, which includes LGBTQ+ focussed media, was blocked by a standard blocklist, based on its Oracle Contextual Intelligence analysis. Commonly blocked terms include lesbian, gay, trans, pandemic and politics. Oracle also found that the term gay appears on 1% of all online content but 95% of all LGBTQ+ related inventory. As more people identify as LGBTQ+—a recent Gallup survey found that one in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBT—and the value of the pink dollar grows, so does the urgency for marketers to reach these communities effectively. "If [keyword blocking] is a problem for us, then we know it also remains a problem for all diversity media," said PinkNews chief operating officer Anthony James. Infographic: If Your Pride Marketing Plan Is a Rainbow Flag, Think Again Aside from preventing smaller-scale publishers from monetizing safe and suitable content, the negative impacts of blunt keyword blocking corner resource-strapped publishers into hiring salespeople for direct outreach, (which can be hard to scale). Sites also run the risk of looking like they routinely accept crummy ads on their sites. No publisher interviewed shared how much revenue is lost due to blunt blocking. Since 2020 and a summer of social unrest, advertisers have been ramping up their keyword blocking efforts, spurred by near-hysterical brand safety fears. While no advertiser is obliged to work with any publisher, LGBTQ+ focused publishers, along with other publishers catering to diverse communities, are the hardest hit. From lists to categories Ad tech company Teads found that between 30% and 40% of its campaigns include requests to add custom brand suitability keyword exclusions, which include LGBTQ+ terms as well as keywords relating to race and religion. The good news is this number is down from 60% in January 2021. In a small sample size of 10 different campaigns, Teads found that 50% include blocking words discriminatory to the LGBTQ+ community. While some advertisers have massaged their keyword lists and are using smarter sentiment analysis tools, others have moved on to block entire categories like news and politics, said Chris Kenna, founder of Brand Advance. “Funding that media feeds people in that community,” Kenna added. For Gray Jones Media, which publishes titles like Bear World and Gayming, display advertising makes up about 10% of its revenues. But it gets repeatedly dinged by ad networks for violating content policies, especially around lesbian-focused content and sexual health, despite none of its sites running any legitimate violations. “I can set my watch on a daily basis for the email to drop in about violations with our sites,” said founder Robin Gray. “Frankly I have given up.” There’s a brand repetition jolt too for blunt blocking. The ads that are not blocked are often cheaper units and lower cost, making it look like Gray Jones Media's sites take lower-quality ads. "You just have to look at this type of content on our website versus, say, entertainment content to see that the ads that end up being served are dramatically different when being sold programmatically," said James, adding that PinkNews serves billions of ad impressions on closed environments like Snapchat, where it doesn’t encounter the same problems. Curated marketplaces struggle to grow Compounding the issue is still a lack of serious investment from brands and agencies in LGBTQ+ media. While no advertiser is under an obligation to buy ads with any publisher, major agencies have pledged to spend more ad dollars with diverse media and spin up curated marketplaces. But these conversations rarely materialize into anything concrete, sources say, mostly because there’s not enough demand from brands committing a decent chunk of ad spend. Of course, the problem is wider than LGBTQ+ media. Agencies like GroupM, along with brands like P&G, have pledged collectively billions of media spend towards minority-owned and operated media. “They won’t even be able to make it to the $50 million mark,” said Kenna, since the publishers rarely have the scale marketers want. Case in point: PinkNews has lost pitches when the advertiser, looking to reach LGBTQ+ audiences, has chosen to spend with non-LGBTQ+ publishers with larger audiences. “It's definitely not an overnight thing,” said Prerna Talreja, managing director of digital activation at media agency Cross Media, agreeing that curated marketplaces are nascent and the cost of CMPs is what would encourage more brands to commit. But payments in CPMs for smaller publishers will never be enough for them to grow, said Kenna. For a network like Brand Advance, CPMs for display are rarely under $8, for video, they are rarely under $25. One agency that deals in diversity advertising signed up Gray Jones Media to its marketplace, but it was only able to fetch CPMs around $2.50, since demand was low, Gray said. Going direct, despite being harder to scale, Gray Jones Media can fetch CMPs between $10 and $15, (deals that often include formats like hybrid events or content creation.) Without the transparency in the tech, publishers like PinkNews are finding success going direct, especially in the U.S. But in the U.K., the publisher said networks claim to work with it, “capitalizing on our brand equity and including us in their pitches and proposals, when no actual advertising revenue is coming through from them to us,” James added. Fair access to programmatic is still an opportunity Despite the slew of problems with the programmatic display ecosystem, having fair and equal access to the marketplace is still important, but "mopping us up in other ad packages with agencies is not the way forward,” Gray added. That means updating keyword lists, training agency staffers in smart contextual tools, being more open-minded about what topic constitutes as safe versus suitable—and staffing content moderation teams at platforms with more diverse people. Publishers willing to group together to reach the right scale might also find success. "For brands, it's not easy," said Kenna, "you will make mistakes, but learn from those. Don't stop because of it." ‘It’s Whack-a-Mole’: How The Root Is Navigating Blocklists

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

'I Have Given Up': Adverse Blocking Continues to Burn LGBTQ+ Publishers

One in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBT

Lucinda Southern

Meseret Ambachew

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Lucinda Southern

Meseret Ambachew