Allow lists and block lists are both ways for publishers to manage the brand safety of their email monetization efforts. Simply put, an allow list allows you to make a list of approved advertiser who are allowed to bid on your inventory, and a block list is a list of advertisers or categories that are not allowed to bid on your inventory.
While many publishers opt to maintain an allow list, it’s not always the most efficient strategy, for two reasons. One is that allow lists are difficult to maintain and keep up-to-date, and the other is that it can be difficult to know which brands to add to your allow list with more advertisers coming online on a rolling basis. Switching from an allow list to a block list allows you to block advertisers by category or domain, and enables more bid density on your inventory, driving up CPMs.
Client Use Case
One of the world’s leading travel sites monetizes their email inventory with LiveIntent, and was managing their approved advertisers using an allow list for brand safety reasons. When they audited their allow list, however, they discovered that 104 of the top 150 advertisers on the LiveIntent platform were not on their allow list. By switching to a block list from an allow list, they saw their CPMs increase 64% and their overall revenue increase by 174%.
To learn more about switching to a block list from an allow list, contact your LiveIntent account team or contact us here.
