By Andrew Goode, COO of Project Sunblock

At the moment, online advertising is all about numbers. How many people are going to see your advert, and how much of that will turn into sales. The global advertising industry is worth $438bn, with online adverts forming the fastest growing part of the market. With this in mind, it’s no wonder brand owners are looking to get the most from their investment. But as it stands, the pursuit of the big numbers is coming at the risk of the brand integrity.

You would think marketers would be in control of where their adverts get placed, but that’s not currently true.  Once an advert is sent out from the database, it’s difficult to fully track where it appears. Yes, for the initial round, you can place the ads on national websites or key media pages, but after those first deployments of your ad, it then gets murky.

For example, a broadband provider can plot where its advertising appears originally. But after that first stage, the collateral is then served via the database to any number of other websites. A broadband provider promoting speeds on a peer-to-peer site? Seems bizarre, but that’s exactly what’s happening.

As online campaigns become more sophisticated, not to mention expensive, advertisers need to have more control over where their online campaigns are appearing during every step of the way. At some point marketers are going to be held accountable for the collateral they produce appearing on illegal peer-to-peer sites and challenged to do something about it.

Using content verification tools, such as Project Sunblock – think of them as digital pasta strainers – marketers can now sieve through the enormous advertising networks and block out sites if the advertiser doesn’t want to appear on them. This can be done on a predetermined or reactive basis. It’s helping to take the headache away from digital campaigns and allowing brand owners and agencies to come up with better campaigns that are focused on the audiences and customers they want to reach. Quantity of views will always be important, but now marketers can feel reassured they’re the right kind of numbers they’re generating.