Exclusions & brand safety
Content-level suppression already keeps ads off content that should not carry them — see Overview. Exclusions are the layer on top, where you block specific demand regardless of how well it matches.
What publishers can block
| Exclusion type | Example |
|---|---|
| Advertiser domain | Block ads pointing to competitor.com |
| Category | Block “gambling” or “dating” |
| Advertiser ID | Block one specific advertiser |
Exclusions can be set at the publisher level, applying to all your domains, or per domain. Your Adzen account manager sets them for you — exclusions are not available through the API.
Advertisers exclude too
Advertisers can block specific publishers and apply their own content rules.
Both sides are enforced at once
If either side blocks the pairing, the ad does not serve. There is no override and no precedence question — a publisher exclusion and an advertiser exclusion have the same effect, which is that nothing renders.
Why exclusions are the smaller half of brand safety. A blocklist only catches what you thought to list. Adzen refuses content that should not be monetized at all — a fatal news story, for example — without you having to list it. Exclusions handle the commercial decisions a blocklist is actually good at: this competitor, this category, this advertiser.