Snapchat enhances brand safety after Meta steps back

The news: Snapchat updated its brand safety features with a tiered Brand Suitability Suite to give advertisers more control over ad placements and let them tailor campaigns to align with brand values, the company announced this week.

The suite includes three tiers—Full, Standard, and Limited—that allow marketers to select a content sensitivity level best suited to specific campaigns. Machine learning technology will automatically categorize content within these tiers.

• The Full tier shows ads near all content that adheres to Snap’s Community Guidelines and is set as the default.
• The Standard tier includes content that is considered brand appropriate but that may include sensitive themes.
• The Limited tier excludes even mildly sensitive themes.

The suite also includes third-party Brand Safety Integration for post-campaign analysis via partnerships with Integral Ad Science, Zefr, and DoubleVerify.

Meta steps back: Snapchat’s decision to reinforce brand safety measures comes as Meta is ending fact-checking and opting for an X-style Community Notes feature.

The change could aid Meta’s business interests, but brands might start reassessing their Meta platforms spending over worries that less moderation will translate to less brand safety.

Our take: Snapchat’s decision to prioritize brand safety could attract more advertisers, allowing the platform to grow its ad business. Marketers feel that social media presents the most challenges for brand safety of any format, making Snapchat’s move that much more enticing.

Meta’s decision could hurt overall ad spending and how advertisers approach marketing on its platforms. While it might not have a significant impact on Meta’s massive ad revenues and enormous reach, it could make Snapchat look appealing in comparison and draw more attention to the platform, whose ad revenues are lagging behind competitors.