Target Regional and Industry Efficiency!
The 21st edition of the IAS Media Quality Report, prepared using 300 billion digital interactions daily and recognized as the industry’s most actionable benchmark, has been published.
Its 2025 findings show that brand safety and suitability improved globally, but global averages don’t tell the whole story: risk varies by region and industry.
Brand Safety and Suitability Improved Globally
As the technologies deployed have become increasingly proactive, global brand safety rates declined from 3.7X in January to 1.0X in December throughout 2025.
During the same period, the brand suitability fail rate, which measures reputational risks beyond absolute safety thresholds, also decreased from 1.3X to 1.0X.
Regional Risk Profiles Differ
Unlike the improvement seen globally, risk rates vary significantly depending on the geographies where campaigns are served.
High Suitability Risk in EMEA: Due to the high volume of multilingual content, the EMEA region had the highest rate of brand-unsuitable content at 1.5X, compared to North America.
Spain, in particular, had the highest suitability risk among the top 10 markets, at 2.5X.
Fraud Threat in North America: Although North America had the lowest brand suitability risk (1.0X), it had the highest Invalid Traffic (IVT) rate at 1.36% and the highest MFA rate at 1.5%.
Risks Vary Across Industries
Media quality varies significantly not only by region but also by the verticals in which brands operate.
Retail Takes More Risks: By using broader content targeting in pursuit of reach and scale, the Retail sector had the highest rate of ads appearing in brand-unsuitable environments among major sectors, at 1.6X.
Finance Is the Safest: In the Finance vertical, which adopts strict suitability controls and protection strategies, the brand suitability fail rate remained at the lowest (reference) level of 1.0X.
Multidimensional Threat in Travel and Entertainment: Although the Travel sector remained at average levels in terms of brand suitability (1.2X), it had the most challenging overall risk profile among all sectors, with an Invalid Traffic (IVT) rate of 1.4% and an MFA rate of 1.6%.
Conclusion
The data clearly shows that while global standards provide a starting point, they are not sufficient to achieve the targeted “optimum” performance.
To fully maximize the return on their investments in 2026, brands need to develop their media quality protection strategies in much greater detail, taking into account both their target region and the specific risks of their industry.
Contact us to direct your digital advertising investments toward the most efficient environments!
