Pre-screen brand safety is an independent, third-party verified safety solution available for Search Partner Network. This safety solution offers curated exclusion lists for your verification needs.
How it works
Pre-screen brand safety for Search Partner Network is an additional safety layer. It offers you the ability to use exclusion lists curated by third-parties for your Search Partner Network-enabled campaigns.
These third-parties include DoubleVerify (DV), Integral Ad Sciences (IAS), and Zefr. They perform independent assessments and classification on Search Partner Network inventory. These third parties then use established industry brand safety and suitability standards to create bespoke exclusions lists. You can then use these lists to ensure your brand is safe and aligned with appropriate environments across the Search Partner Network.
Benefits
- Layered protection: Pre-screen brand safety synergizes with AdSense’s safety standards and measures to protect you and your brand.
- Network wide coverage: Third-parties who help create the exclusion lists have access to the entirety of the Search Partner Network.
- Independent assessment: Third-parties can independently assess inventory to curate their exclusion lists. This ensures the lists meet a wide and diverse range of standards and measures.
- Curated lists: Each list created by third-party partners is bespoke, thanks to their independent assessments. This means you can use a list that fits your needs and brand standards.
This most recent offering is in addition to the many SPN advancements implemented over the past 18 months:
- Performance enhancement through enhanced Smart Bidding: By opting into SPN and using the Smart bidding strategies (tCPA, tROAS), advertisers can expect better ROI with targeting accuracy, and improved performance.
- Safety upgrades: These include enhanced sampling and measurement of the network. Updates were also made to SPN monetization requirements for publishers and ads from adult domains were blocked.
- Suitability: Default opt-out of Parked Domains for new campaigns. Gradually by the end of 2025, to all campaigns.
- Suitability and simplification enhancement: Advertisers can exclude placements within the Content Suitability Center and those exclusions will apply to Display Network, YouTube and SPN
- Transparency enhancement: Advertisers receive full placement reporting on where ads showed across SPN domains for PMax campaigns
To learn more about the SPN pre-screen solution, you can reach out to these partners directly at [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected]. You can also review the following press releases from these partners.
[April 2025] Geo targeting product enhancement
Search Partners Network (SPN) recently implemented improvements to its location-targeting experience. We no longer use area-of-interest and only use location-of-presence targeting. You can expect better allocation of advertiser spend, that eliminates scenarios of undesired spend caused by clicks from unexpected user locations.
[February 2025] Smart bidding upgrade
Google Ads' Smart Bidding system has been enhanced to improve the bidding process and achieve better results on SPN. By opting into SPN and using the Smart Bidding strategies (tCPA, tROAS), you can expect a better ROI and targeting accuracy, and improved performance for bids related to inventory constrained traffic.
[July 2023] Manual bid strategy improvements
If your campaign uses SPN and manual bidding bid strategy, Google Ads uses either Sunscreen or Smart bidding to optimize bids. This will depend on your campaign settings and conversion data.
Sunscreen is a bid-lowering system for campaigns with manual bidding and no conversion tracking or very low conversion volume. Manual bidding includes Manual CPC, Enhanced CPC, Maximize Clicks, and Target Impression Share. Sunscreen protects advertisers from overspending on Search Partners traffic that may not convert well.
Smart Bidding is for campaigns with manual bidding and conversion tracking turned on. These campaigns need sufficient conversion volume. Manual bidding includes Manual CPC, Enhanced CPC, and Maximize Clicks. This system helps you get a similar cost-per-conversion (CPA) on the Search Network and Search Partners. Some clicks on Search Partner sites may cost more or less than your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid on the Search Network.
