Meta has partnered with Zefr to make it easier for advertisers and brands to control the content placed next to their advertisements.
The tech giant, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and the third-party verifier are working together to develop a tool that reports, measures and verifies the suitability of adjacent content to ads in Facebook’s Feed.
The goal is to start with small scale testing in the third quarter of this year, before moving to limited availability in the fourth quarter.
Co-founder and co-CEO of Zefr, Rich Raddon, said: “The future of the ad industry is moving towards transparent and accurate measurement for brand safety and suitability in complex environments, based on the GARM [Global Alliance for Responsible Media] standards.
“Zefr is thrilled to partner with Meta to develop the first suitability measurement product for Feed, giving advertisers deeper transparency into their content adjacencies across Meta.”
Rob Rakowitz, GARM initiative lead, World Federation of Advertisers, said: “In our quest to eliminate harmful content from ad-supported digital media, we need controls on where ads appear and measurement to verify the accuracy of those placements.”
“Meta and Zefr’s partnership is a welcomed step that gives advertisers and agencies post-campaign transparency for Feed – a format that has been hard to measure for some time. This is a welcomed cornerstone for more work to come, and we are excited to see two GARM members address marketplace needs for transparency and accountability together.”
Ben Hovaness, SVP marketplace intelligence, Omnicom Media Group, said: “With this announcement, Meta is demonstrating its commitment to core goals of both OMG’s CASA (Council for Accountable Social Advertising) initiative, and GARM — giving advertisers control over — and insights into — where their ads appear.”
“It’s a significant step forward in assuring a transparent and brand-safe environment for advertisers to connect with their customers,” he added.
Meta is also continuing the development of its new content-based controls that will allow businesses to better manage the way ads appear in the Feed, which are already in the development process and expected to start testing in the second half of 2022 for English languages.
Next year, content-based controls are set to include Facebook and Instagram Stories, Reels, Video Feeds and other features within both social media platforms and encompass more languages.