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Your ads might run alongside a breaking news story, a social video, or a streaming program. As elections take place in different markets, the content around those ads can change quickly. An article about an election or public policy isn’t automatically outside your brand’s comfort zone; its suitability depends on the context and your criteria. How do you keep track of where your brand appears while staying focused on the people you want to reach?
At IAS, we look at media quality across the places your ads run so you can make placement decisions with more information. The details of an election cycle differ by market, and the same is true of your media plan. For one example of the scale involved, AdImpact projected in June 2026 that U.S. political ad spending would reach $11.6 billion across the 2025–2026 cycle.
Here are six questions to ask as you get your brand ready.
1. Do your suitability settings reflect what your brand needs today?
You probably already have guidelines for the types of content your ads can appear near. Do they still fit this campaign? Do the people buying media and the people reviewing results have the same understanding of those rules?
Confirm your content categories and risk settings, who owns changes, and how your team will handle an unexpected placement. With IAS Context Control, advertisers can apply pre-bid suitability segments and use post-bid measurement or blocking where supported. IAS Social Optimization lets advertisers tailor pre-bid suitability controls to their brand on supported social platforms, including content block lists and video exclusions where available. An article about an election or public policy is not automatically outside a brand’s comfort zone. Its suitability depends on the brand’s criteria and the context.
2. What can you see across your social campaigns?
People don’t always go looking for news; sometimes it finds them in a feed. The platforms and formats your audience uses will vary by market, so review the places where your ads may meet people as they browse.
Ask what each social platform can tell you about nearby content and which controls are available for your placements. IAS Total Media Quality brings together brand safety, suitability, viewability, and IVT insights across supported social platforms, helping you assess where your ads appeared after they ran. Social Optimization, mentioned above, helps you apply suitability controls before ads run, where supported.
3. Are your exclusions doing what you intended?
A keyword exclusion can filter out pages you would otherwise consider suitable. An election-related term may appear in a news report, an opinion piece, or something else entirely. Those placements might not call for the same decision.
Look at a sample of pages your rules excluded. If the results aren’t aligned with your expectations, consider IAS Context Control which analyzes page context beyond individual keywords, giving you another way to set avoidance criteria. If suitable environments are being filtered out, see whether a more specific setting fits your goal.
4. Are you checking performance by content quality?
Placement quality is worth examining alongside campaign performance. In an IAS analysis of more than one billion impressions served May 14–17, 2026, inventory not classified as low-quality AI-generated content had a 49% higher success rate — clicks and conversions per impression — and a 24% lower cost per success than inventory classified that way.
On the open web, IAS Low-Quality GenAI Avoidance helps advertisers identify and avoid AI-generated content we classify as low quality. The solution currently covers English-language text content on desktop and mobile web, including display and video placements. We have also introduced low-quality GenAI avoidance on YouTube, with pre-bid avoidance and post-bid reporting through IAS’s YouTube solutions, available globally.
Compare results across your placements and check which quality controls are available for each channel. Your IAS representative can help you review the low-quality GenAI controls available for your campaigns.
5. Have you checked delivery quality, too?
Suitability helps ensure your ads appear in appropriate content environments. In contrast, Invalid Traffic (IVT) measurement protects your campaigns from fraudulent or non-human impressions—so your ads are seen by real people, not bots or fake users.
Confirm which IVT measures are in place for each channel. IAS offers pre-bid IVT avoidance and post-bid detection for supported buys. If you see a change in results, investigate the placements and traffic behind it before drawing a conclusion.
6. Does your connected TV plan have its own checks?
CTV may involve a different mix of apps, location settings, and placement detail than your web buys. In the same U.S. cycle, AdImpact projected $2.7 billion in CTV political ad spending, or 23% of its forecast total. That channel estimate is also a projection, not a figure for other countries. Ask what you can verify before the campaign starts and what you can review afterward; the answer may vary by market and publisher.
Confirm the apps and locations in scope, the IVT information available, and the level of detail your partners will report. IAS Total TV can provide aggregated show, program, genre, rating, and other content insights from participating publishers, alongside verification options. Ask which of those details are available for your specific buy.
There isn’t a single setting that settles every placement decision. Keep your criteria clear, check what happened, and make room for context. IAS brings independent measurement and practical controls to that review, so your team has a clearer picture of where ads ran and which settings to revisit.
Want to get your brand ready for an upcoming election cycle? Reach out to your IAS representative.
We can help you review your suitability settings, discuss the measurement and optimization options available for your channels, and identify where an additional check may be useful.
