PubMatic Teams Up With NewsGuard to Implement Additional Brand Safety Measures

PubMatic has integrated NewsGuard's content rating system to give buyers more assurances around brand safety. Brand safety has been an ongoing topic of frustration for marketers for multiple reasons, particularly over the last year as misinformation around Covid-19 increased. However, this integration between PubMatic and NewsGuard aims to reduce wasted marketing ad dollars and avoid having ads show up in undesirable places. "The reason we decided to partner with NewsGuard was that buyers were talking more about misinformation and false content. … What attracted us to NewsGuard is that they're very apolitical," said Eric Bozinny, senior director, marketplace quality at PubMatic. "In terms of an increase in misinformation, I wouldn't say that's the case, but there's been an increase in the topic for buyers." But according to a NewsGuard Technology report, brand safety is a growing concern, especially considering that 4,000 brands (including Pepsi, Marriott and the Centers for Disease Control) have bought ads on unreliable sites. Findings from a report by NewsGuard and Comscore reinforces the worry around misinformation among ad buyers. Although only 1.68% of the total ad spend in programmatic display is allocated to inaccurate news content globally, that percentage is equal to $2.6 billion each year, according to the report. This means brand safety technologies that only scan a site's category levels are less reliable. The pandemic has also exacerbated concerns around misinformation as users scurry to find accurate information about Covid-19. "At the beginning of Covid-19, a lot of advertisers didn't want to advertise on news sites because it was too risky of a category. … But at the same time, quality journalism was also necessary for people to stay up to date about the issue," said Matt Skibinski, general manager at NewsGuard. This Startup Uses Old-School Journalism to Expose Fake News In combatting misinformation, NewsGuard uses a team of journalists to evaluate the trustworthiness of a news site based on nine criterion. Each criteria is evaluated out of a score of 100, which, when added up, determines how the site is rated. This includes repetitive false content, disclosure of financing ownership and contacts of who provides the content, among others, all of which have different levels of importance based on a point system. Publishers must average a score of 60 or above to get a green rating. Supply-side platform clients like PubMatic have access to NewsGuard's database and detailed analysis of more than 7,000 domain ratings. So far, the SSP has demonetized and removed all red-rated news sites from its inventory. Brand safety and protection against more malicious types of fraud isn't a new concern to PubMatic. It previously partnered with The Media Trust to prevent malvertising, a strategy used to spread malware through advertising. Adopting NewsGuard's baseline of rating means that only sites with the highest rating will filter through. While the SSP has other brand safety capabilities, this is an additional assurance for ad buyers. "NewsGuard's specialty is transparency and trustworthiness," said Jonathan Gardner, PubMatic's director of marketing communications. "This is a specialized capability that further bolsters the confidence that our buyers can have." Beyond attracting programmatic buyers, this is also a push for publishers to tighten up if they want SSPs to take in their inventory. Platforms like TripleLift, Teads, and Index Exchange have already picked up NewsGuard's standards in 2021. "What's really important is that the premium publishers that we work with now benefit from the endorsement by NewsGuard and us," Gardner added. "It's almost like a PubMatic seal of approval by being on our platform."