DV News AcceleratorTM Update: Introducing New Tools to Maximize Publisher Revenue and Ad Scale While Mitigating the Impact of Keyword Avoidance

Since joining DV last year as Head of News, Mark Zagorski, our CEO, has empowered me to connect directly with the web’s leading publishers, listen to their concerns, and understand how DV can enable advertisers to engage with their audiences more effectively. Over the past few months, I’ve been focused on gathering feedback and shaping a vision for DV’s News Accelerator, which we launched last October. I’ve spent much of my time listening to dozens of publishers, advertisers, and platform partners and having frank, open discussions on the challenges and opportunities they see and how DV can help them address both. Here’s what I’ve learned and our preliminary action plan:

When misused, tools like keyword lists can limit advertiser scale and hinder publisher monetization. While they play a role in brand safety, they are neither a one-size-fits-all solution nor as foolproof as advertisers might hope. To address this, DV is enhancing its keyword capabilities and developing complementary solutions that drive better results for media buyers and sellers.

Ongoing collaboration between publishers, advertisers, and measurement partners like DV is essential for better alignment between buyers and sellers. To support this, DV is launching formal working groups for regular discussions and feedback.

It’s crucial to showcase the positive impact of quality news content on brand equity and ad performance. DV is committed to highlighting the value of news for advertisers.

These learnings will shape DV’s News Accelerator efforts and ensure a meaningful impact.

1. Product Innovations and Enhancements: As we continue to refine and enhance DV’s solutions to support the effective monetization of news, one key challenge we continue to hear from publishers is the unintended impact of overly broad keyword lists. Advertisers use these lists as part of their brand suitability strategy to protect brand equity and address specific concerns. However, if applied inaccurately, keyword avoidance can lead to unintended consequences, limiting advertisers’ reach and negatively impacting revenue opportunities for publishers. Furthermore, brands sometimes take a ‘set it and forget it’ approach to keyword lists, which can become outdated over time, reducing effectiveness and unintentionally limiting valuable inventory.We’ve listened to publishers and advertisers, and we’re taking action to drive meaningful change. Today, we’re announcing a significant improvement in how our keyword solution will operate and a first-of-its-kind AI-powered upgrade.

• Refining Keyword Lists for Greater Flexibility and Scale: DV will enable advertisers to apply keyword avoidance only to the URL paths of site pages that have not yet been classified into one of DV’s content categories. This update empowers brands to prioritize DV’s 100+ content categories, which account for context and nuance, helping advertisers access inventory at scale while ensuring their brand-specific suitability needs are met.
• AI-Powered Keyword Optimization: In addition, DV is introducing an innovative AI-powered feature that allows advertisers to optimize keyword lists and identify stale keywords based on historical data insights and broader media trends. This first-of-its-kind capability helps ensure that advertisers achieve optimal reach while preventing overblocking, particularly alongside news content, ultimately supporting the monetization of news publishers. DV will also send clients recurring reminders, prompting advertisers to review and update their keyword lists to keep them relevant. 

With these updates––available in the coming months––DV is pioneering smarter, more precise keyword controls and delivering better outcomes for advertisers and publishers in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. To that end, we are thankful to all industry partners supporting these changes. 

“As a news publisher, we recognize that advertisers need a level of control over how their ad dollars are spent, and brand suitability is important,” said Anthony Roque, VP, Ad Operations, The Daily Beast. “However, the broad application of keyword blocklists, which have been the norm, have had unintended consequences limiting advertisers’ reach and significantly impacting publisher revenue, particularly for news organizations navigating today’s complex and polarizing political climate. DV’s changes provide a much-needed solution by ensuring that classified, suitable content isn’t unnecessarily blocked. We appreciate DV’s commitment to working directly with publishers to refine these tools.”

This enhancement to DV’s keyword controls is just one of many ways we’re working to better align advertisers and publishers. Last year, we introduced News Plus: News and News Plus: News Lite—contextual segments that help advertisers tap into premium news inventory by placing ads alongside professionally produced news content in the open marketplace. Available across major DSPs, these segments can be activated by all advertisers, including those who are not DV clients. We remain committed to collaborating with industry partners to refine our offerings and develop new solutions that drive value for advertisers while supporting publisher needs.

2. Close Collaboration with Publishers

DV has long maintained strong relationships with the publisher community. We will continue to forge stronger ongoing feedback loops with news publishers to maintain a deep, nuanced understanding of their perspectives, challenges, and priorities. To anchor this collaboration, we are launching DV’s News Accelerator Publisher Council, a formal working group to facilitate regular roundtable discussions where publishers can share insights on news monetization, discuss challenges, and provide direct feedback on DV’s tools and strategies.

“Now more than ever, it’s critical to support and ensure a suitable future for quality journalism,” Roque continued. “Companies like DoubleVerify are uniquely positioned to refine the tools that shape brand suitability strategies, ensuring they evolve in a way that protects advertisers while also fostering a sustainable future for publishers. We are excited about DV’s approach to providing a valuable forum for open dialogue, allowing us to share insights, address challenges, and help shape solutions that support both monetization and media integrity.“

See Also

DoubleVerify unveils a report on factors influencing brand safety and suitability

3. Industry Research and Education

DV data shows that advertising on news content generates nearly 10 percent more engagement than non-news content, and 99.99 percent of content across the 500 most trafficked news sites is brand safe. By strategically investing in news, brands can enhance reach and campaign effectiveness without sacrificing brand safety. 

We will continue to work on highlighting the positive impact of news content on brand equity—not just behind the scenes but publicly. We will continue our work to emphasize and highlight news opportunities for advertisers. Our goal is to educate advertisers on how to engage with news content effectively while meeting their suitability needs. To support this pillar, we will focus on several key research initiatives, including:

• Case Studies: Demonstrating from an advertiser’s perspective how premium news content drives tangible business results.
• Consumer Research: Exploring the value and demographics of news audiences, along with consumer attitudes toward news as a suitable environment for brands.
• DV Data Research: Leveraging DV’s proprietary data to answer critical questions for advertisers and publishers about news monetization and engagement.

Our Commitment to Maximizing Monetization & Performance

I joined DV because I believe advertising is essential to the success of news publishers and to fostering an open, informed society. Over the past few months, I’ve had countless conversations with publishers, brands and platform partners that are deeply committed to improving digital advertising for everyone.  These updates reflect DV’s ongoing commitment to supporting the evolving needs of the news community. DV will keep listening, refining, and improving to ensure that advertisers and publishers can thrive together. I look forward to advancing these productive discussions and driving meaningful change with our industry partners, and I am excited to share our progress throughout the year.