Brand suitability policy template
Five sections, about twenty minutes, one page at the end. Fill it in below and copy or download the result — or just read the template and write your own.
Why a policy, and why one page
Brand safety is a floor. It is largely defined for you by law and platform policy, and the list of things that fail it is short and stable. Brand suitability is a position you take: a gambling site is unsafe for nobody in a legal sense and completely unsuitable for a debt-counselling charity. Nobody can answer that for you.
Which is exactly why most teams never answer it. The opinion lives in one senior person's head, nothing is written down, and the media team guesses — differently each time. One page fixes that, and only if it stays one page. A twelve-page policy lives in a folder while the real decisions get made by whoever is closest to the campaign that day. More on the reasoning in brand suitability for brands and advertisers.
The five sections
1. Our three non-negotiables
Three, not twenty. These are the environments where an appearance would cause a real internal problem — the ones someone would have to explain. Be specific enough to act on: "sites whose primary editorial position is political advocacy in either direction" is actionable. "Controversial content" is not.
Sites whose primary editorial position is political advocacy in either direction. Sites that publish content about our active litigation or our regulator. Sites with no identifiable publisher, author or editorial contact.
2. Our grey zone — and who rules on it
Categories you will accept in some campaigns and not others. The list matters less than naming the person who decides. If nobody is named, the decision gets made by default — which means it does not get made at all.
Grey zone: hard news, gambling, alcohol, dating, religion. Decided by: Head of Performance Marketing, per campaign, at brief stage.
3. Our position on quality, separately from safety
Safety is about harm. Quality is about whether the environment is worth paying for at all. Almost every brand says no to sites with no identifiable author, no editorial process and eight ad slots above the fold — and almost every brand buys them anyway, because nobody wrote it down.
We do not knowingly pay for impressions on made-for-advertising sites, sites with no identifiable author or editorial process, or pages where advertising dominates the content. Measured by: quarterly placement audit. Enforced by: account-level exclusion list.
4. What happens to the money
A suitability policy that only removes inventory is a budget cut in disguise, and it will get reversed the first time someone looks at the traffic chart. Say where the freed spend goes before you free it.
Budget freed by exclusions is reallocated to placements that survived the audit, and to our managed placement list. We expect volume to fall and conversion rate to rise; we judge the change on revenue per visit, not on sessions.
5. Review date
Suitability drifts, and the supply side invents new junk faster than any blocklist updates. Quarterly is realistic. A policy with no review date is a policy that will be quietly out of date within a year.
Reviewed quarterly. Next review: 1 January 2027. Owned by: Head of Performance Marketing.
Build yours
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Our three non-negotiables
Three, not twenty. These are the environments where an appearance would cause a real internal problem — the ones someone would have to explain. Be specific enough to act on: "sites whose primary editorial position is political advocacy in either direction" is actionable. "Controversial content" is not.
One per line. Stop at three.
Show a worked example
Sites whose primary editorial position is political advocacy in either direction. Sites that publish content about our active litigation or our regulator. Sites with no identifiable publisher, author or editorial contact.
Our grey zone — and who rules on it
Categories you will accept in some campaigns and not others. The list matters less than naming the person who decides. If nobody is named, the decision gets made by default — which means it does not get made at all.
Accepted in some campaigns, not others.
Optional.
A role and a person, not a committee.
At what point in the process.
Show a worked example
Grey zone: hard news, gambling, alcohol, dating, religion. Decided by: Head of Performance Marketing, per campaign, at brief stage.
Our position on quality, separately from safety
Safety is about harm. Quality is about whether the environment is worth paying for at all. Almost every brand says no to sites with no identifiable author, no editorial process and eight ad slots above the fold — and almost every brand buys them anyway, because nobody wrote it down.
Tick what applies.
A method and a cadence.
Where the decision actually lands.
Show a worked example
We do not knowingly pay for impressions on made-for-advertising sites, sites with no identifiable author or editorial process, or pages where advertising dominates the content. Measured by: quarterly placement audit. Enforced by: account-level exclusion list.
What happens to the money
A suitability policy that only removes inventory is a budget cut in disguise, and it will get reversed the first time someone looks at the traffic chart. Say where the freed spend goes before you free it.
Be specific enough that someone could act on it.
Volume will drop. Name what you expect to improve.
Show a worked example
Budget freed by exclusions is reallocated to placements that survived the audit, and to our managed placement list. We expect volume to fall and conversion rate to rise; we judge the change on revenue per visit, not on sessions.
Review date
Suitability drifts, and the supply side invents new junk faster than any blocklist updates. Quarterly is realistic. A policy with no review date is a policy that will be quietly out of date within a year.
Quarterly is realistic.
An actual date.
One person.
Show a worked example
Reviewed quarterly. Next review: 1 January 2027. Owned by: Head of Performance Marketing.
Your policy
0 of 13 fields filled · saved in this browserBRAND SUITABILITY POLICY ============================================================ 1. OUR THREE NON-NEGOTIABLES [ not yet decided ] 2. OUR GREY ZONE Accepted in some campaigns, not others: [ not yet decided ] Ruled on by: [ nobody named — the decision will be made by default ] At: [ not yet decided ] 3. OUR POSITION ON QUALITY (separate from safety) [ not yet decided ] Checked by: [ not yet decided ] Enforced by: [ not yet decided ] 4. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE MONEY [ not yet decided ] Judged on: [ not yet decided ] 5. REVIEW Cadence: [ not yet decided ] Next review: [ not yet decided ] Owner: [ not yet decided ] ------------------------------------------------------------ Template: https://www.displaygateguard.com/brand-suitability-policy-template
Nothing is uploaded — this is saved in your browser only, and clearing it removes it. Once you have a policy, the next question is whether your actual placements match it: we will audit your top 100 placements free.
A policy describes intent. Your placement report shows what happened.
Those two diverge quietly and constantly — which is the whole reason placement audits exist. Once the policy is written, the useful next question is whether your actual spend matches it.
Questions
What is a brand suitability policy?
A short written statement of where your ads may and may not appear, and who decides the edge cases. Brand safety is a floor set largely by law and platform policy. Suitability is a position you take: a gambling site is legal and completely unsuitable for a debt-counselling charity. Because suitability has no universal answer, it has to be written down or it gets decided by default.
Why does it need to fit on one page?
Because a policy nobody reads changes nothing. The point is that a media buyer can check a decision against it in thirty seconds, and that a new person can be handed it on their first day. If it runs to twelve pages it will live in a folder and the actual decisions will keep being made by whoever happens to be in the room.
Who should own it?
One named person, not a committee. In most teams that is whoever owns display or performance marketing. The single most common failure is that nobody is named, so grey-zone cases get resolved by whoever is closest to the campaign that day, differently each time.
Is anything uploaded when I fill this in?
No. The builder runs in your browser and saves your draft in local storage on your own machine so a refresh does not lose it. Nothing is sent to us, and clearing the form removes it.
How do I know whether my campaigns actually follow it?
You check your placement report. A policy describes intent; the placement report shows what actually happened. Those two things diverge quietly and constantly, which is the entire reason placement audits exist.