Coming soon: Updates to Display & Video 360 brand suitability experience

Key dates

Content Categories

• Starting June 2025, the content category settings (Expanded, Standard, and Limited) will no longer be modifiable at the line item level for YouTube & Partner Line Items,
  • New line items will inherit the content category configured at the advertiser level.
  • Existing line items will continue to use their current content category setting, regardless of if this setting is the same or different than the advertiser-level setting).
    • For an existing line item, if it has not already inherited the advertiser-level setting, you can duplicate the line item or create a new one.
• Before June 2025, please review your advertiser-level content category setting so that all new line items are using the suitability setting that best aligns with your brand’s needs.

Digital Content Labels

• From September 2024, digital content labels, currently available in the Brand Safety settings, will no longer apply to ads served on YouTube across all buying doors, including Google Ads, Display & Video 360, and Connect Reserve. Digital content labels will continue to apply to the Google Display Network (including App inventory) and content suitable for families (CSF).

Updates coming to Display & Video 360 brand suitability experience

• In 2025, Display & Video 360 will update the brand suitability experience to better enable you to effectively implement your suitability strategy. The final suite of brand suitability controls that will be available are:
  • Inventory modes (renamed from "Content categories")
  • Content themes exclusions
  • Content types (renamed from "Other content types" and only applies to YouTube and Demand Gen)
  • Third-party verification (renamed from "Other verification services" and available at the line item level)
  • Keywords and Channels & URLs (still available at the advertiser level and line item level).
• The important upcoming changes are the following:
  • "Brand safety" on Display & Video 360 and "Category exclusions" on YouTube will be renamed "Brand suitability".
    • Note: This renaming is meant to better align with industry-wide terminology. These changes are unrelated to how Google deploys its own mechanisms to ensure brand safety.
• All brand suitability controls (except third-party verification, keyword exclusions, and channels or URL exclusions) will be located at the advertiser level only. Advertiser level controls will apply to all line items automatically. Third-party brand suitability verification (only available on line item level), keyword exclusions, and channels or URL exclusions will be available at the advertiser-level and line item level.
• A new control that allows for brand suitability settings to be bypassed for deals in non-reservation type line items will be introduced for Google Ad Manager and third-party exchange inventory.
• Display & Video 360, YouTube, and Demand Gen inventory will all be controlled by the same suitability controls. This means that "Inventory modes" and "Content themes exclusions" will become available for non-Google O&O inventory.

Later updates will include the sunsetting of digital content labels and sensitive categories. These functionalities will be managed through "Content categories" and "Content theme exclusions".