Why the Euros could be an own goal for the ad industry if it doesn’t sort out blocklists

As Euro 2024 rapidly approaches its climax and tensions rise with England set to meet Spain in the final this weekend, we can reflect on a number of standout performances from individual players, stunning comebacks, well-drilled teams and innovative brands. 

It's certainly been a tournament to remember for a number of reasons; not least of these is the number of own goals. With the tally currently standing at 10, we are only one short of the all-time record of 11 set at Euro 2020. 

The most calamitous own goal of all, though, may have been notched up by the advertising industry. Following England’s semi-final showdown against the Netherlands, new Mantis data reveals 56% of Reach articles published around the match would have been blocked by advertisers using keywords ‘shot’, ‘shoot’ and ‘attack’. The result? A missed opportunity for the 174 brands blocking those pages and a negative impact on published revenue. 

Blanket blocklists don't guarantee brand safety

With a bumper summer of sport – the Euros, Wimbledon, the Olympics – already underway, many consumers are searching for sports-related content from trusted sources such as premium publishers. Ahead of Sunday's football final, millions will be searching for stats, analysis, previews and other content as they seek to enhance their enjoyment of what has been an absorbing and enthralling tournament. 

But brands using blanket blocklists are missing out on inventory that is not just perfectly safe, but also contextually relevant. And for those that include football fans among their target audiences, turning down the opportunity to connect with consumers in such an environment just doesn’t make sense. While the headlines around penalty shootouts, France's misfiring attack and Scotland crashing out of the tournament have brought this issue into sharp focus, it highlights a wider problem that, still, needs to be addressed if brands want to make their own comeback.  

It’s not all about football

The recent General Election is another case in point. Many reports have included words such as 'disastrous', for example, a term that commonly appears on ad blocklists. Looking further back, the Covid pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests highlighted issues with overzealous tools and extensive keyword blocklists. But it seems some brands, frustratingly for publishers, haven't updated their blocklist strategy; our data shows that leading supermarkets are still regularly missing out on brand-safe advertising inventory, by including phrases such as ‘supermarket’ and ‘bleach’ in their blocklists.

Brand safety is rightly a concern for marketers that don't want their company or products associated with controversial and contentious subject matters. But their default keyword blocklists don't recognise nuance. 

In today’s fast moving online landscape, these tools are no longer fit for purpose. The 'if in doubt, leave it out' approach can reduce the reach of advertising and see premium publishers missing out on revenue and the chance to serve highly relevant ads to their hard-won audience. Adding further salt to the wound is the fact that the high quality of content on these sites is likely to boast increased user dwell time and engagement, making the blanket blocklist approach even more wasteful. 

It's time for advertisers to update their playbook and address brand safety in a different way. While they still need a strong defence in place, they need a strategy that can take advantage of every chance to reach their audience in premium, relevant environments. 

This involves adopting solutions that don't rely heavily on blocklists, but that actually understand the true context and sentiment of any webpage, rapidly and at scale. Using the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) guidelines as a basis, brands can harness tools that allow them to more effectively place their ads in high quality and contextually appropriate locations. 

We at Mantis have seen this in action. Brands using Mantis brand safety and contextual targeting in the Euros in our platform have achieved up to a 724% increase on their usual CTRs, by eliminating a blanket blocklist of phrases such as “killing”. This has opened up advertising inventory on safe, premium content, including this article in the Mirror titled: “England fans single out Three Lions star for 'killing them' during Switzerland clash”.

They think it's all over

We might be about to call full-time on Euro 2024 and Wimbledon, but there's still plenty more sport to come this summer. As we look towards the Summer Olympics, with reporters covering up to 32 sports across the event, there is the real opportunity for advertisers and publishers to take advantage of the increased traffic to premium news sites during this time. However, with the keyword Paris remaining on blocklists following the 2015 bombings in the city, it is already having a huge impact on Olympics content, highlighting the need for quick action. Brands that want to retain their cutting edge and publishers seeking to maximise revenues need to show legacy blocklists the red card. Instead, they must make solutions that genuinely understand the nuance and context of a webpage their star player.