Sensitive categories in Brand Controls

Sensitive categories is the brand safety control that monitors websites to ensure your ads aren't displayed on pages with inappropriate content. Brand Controls determines whether a website contains sensitive categories, and reports those issues based on your criteria. You can edit the settings to configure which sensitive categories to flag.

Types of sensitive categories

Campaign Manager 360 Brand Controls categorizes websites into the following types of content issues:

• Not yet labeled: The content hasn't been classified yet.

• None detected: The content has been classified and does not match any of the sensitive categories.

• Sexual: Sexual content including text, images, or videos.

• Alcohol: Contains content related to alcoholic beverages, alcohol brands, recipes, etc.

• Derogatory: Content that may be construed as biased against individuals, groups, or organizations based on criteria such as race, religion, disability, sex, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or political affiliation. May also indicate discussion of such content, for instance, in an academic or journalistic context.

• Downloads & file sharing: Content related to audio, video, or software downloads.

• Drugs: Contains content related to the recreational use of legal or illegal drugs, as well as to drug paraphernalia or cultivation.

• Gambling: Contains content related to betting or wagering in a real-world or online setting.

• Politics: Political news and media, including discussions of social, governmental, and public policy.

• Profanity: Prominent use of words considered indecent, such as curse words and sexual slang. Pages with only very occasional usage, such as news sites that might include such words in a quotation, are not included.

• Religion: Content related to religious thought or beliefs.

• Sensitive social issues: Issues that evoke strong, opposing views and spark debate. These include issues that are controversial in most countries and markets (such as abortion), as well as those that are controversial in specific countries and markets (such as immigration reform in the United States).

• Shocking: Content which may be considered shocking or disturbing, such as violent news stories, stunts, or toilet humor.

• Suggestive: Adult content, as well as suggestive content that's not explicitly sexual content. This category includes all pages categorized as adult.

• Tobacco: Contains content related to tobacco and tobacco accessories, including lighters, humidors, ashtrays, etc.

• Tragedy: Content related to death, disasters, accidents, war, etc.

• Transportation accidents: Content related to motor vehicle, aviation or other transportation accidents.

• Violence: Content which may be considered graphically violent, gory, gruesome, or shocking, such as street fighting videos, accident photos, descriptions of torture, etc.

• Weapons: (Now merged with sensitive social issues category.) Contains content related to personal weapons, including knives, guns, small firearms, and ammunition.

If you notice any content classification issues, contact your Technical Account Manager or Support.

Edit the sensitive categories setting

1. In your Campaign Manager 360 account, go to the Verification page.
2. Click Account settings.
3. Click Blocked sensitive categories to open the section.
4. Select the sensitive categories that you want to flag for ad blocking. Click Apply.

Note that selected sensitive categories are used by ad blocking to prevent your ads from serving near content that you flagged. Ads will be blocked only if ad blocking is enabled. Learn more about ad blocking.

Language limitations

Brand safety categories (in Display & Video 360) and content classifiers (in Campaign Manager 360) are available in most languages, but if you are unsure about a specific category in a given locale you may want to contact your support representative.