Driving reputation and ROI on social: A smarter path for advertisers

As Q4 peaks, Indian social feeds cascade with cultural signals, shopping triggers, and viral moments that move faster than a swipe. AI-assisted movie poster designs, influencer drops, unboxing moments, and familiar memes—"just looking like a wow"—are no longer filling timelines; they’re reshaping how consumers discover, trust, and transact with brands. 

Indian shoppers are now fluidly traversing celebrations and checkouts, scrolling for tailored recommendations, meaningful gifting cues and monumental 70%-off deals – all in one go. 

Social media accounts for 40–45% of India's digital ad budgets, with millions of consumers tuning into reels daily. The mobile-first audience spends nearly five hours a day on mobile phones, with social media usage spanning 2.5 hours across seven or more apps.

The stakes are high, and if ads aren’t optimised, it costs you losing reputation, trust and returns. 

How does optimisation safeguard your brand on social? 

A brand today is built, shaped, and nurtured on social media, between discovery and conversations. Therefore, measuring the impact of campaigns on real people has become vital for brands, making optimisation crucial to bring about transparency and maximise interactions with the right audiences.

A substantial 32% of users plan to shop via social media, e-commerce, and video channels in Q4, with over half (53%) preferring to engage more with ads in premium, brand-aligned environments.

As social media investments rise, advertisers demand transparent, brand-suitable solutions to optimise campaigns and protect reputations. 

Along with identifying relevant environments on social media, they want the ability to avoid adjacency to low-quality, non-human and risky content. 

With advanced suitability detection and content-classification intelligence, brands gain precise control over placements, enabling them to understand audience intent and deliver relevant messaging, such as inspiration for meaningful Christmas gifting. 

Optimisation is a powerful tool for safeguarding brand reputation and enhancing the returns on investments on social media. One of the case studies we saw was from a major entertainment advertiser who aimed to optimise its media spending and improve the effectiveness of its advertising campaigns. 

Efficiency benefit of optimisation

Optimisation is a breakthrough for enhancing efficiency, going beyond reducing costs to drive strategic growth. On social platforms, where content scrolls and streams endlessly, pre-bid solutions prevent ads from appearing in unsuitable environments before an impression is served, increasing efficiency and shielding spends. 

By classifying content signals, including videos, text and audio, in real time, these solutions expand reach and scale while lowering both cost per conversion and cost per quality impression to maximise engagement on social media platforms. 

For instance, a leading insurance brand achieved a 23% decrease in brand failure rate and a 37% reduction in proximity to high-risk content. It also helped in enhancing attention metrics, with a 14% increase in view time and a 46% rise in viewable completions on social media.

Maximise Q4 performance

For safeguarding brand reputation, the shift from a reactive to a proactive approach is crucial. Marketers can take three immediate actions to build adaptive strategies for enhancing campaign effectiveness, reducing failure rates and improving engagement. 

1. Robust Brand Suitability Framework – Leverage cognitive semantic technology for nuanced content classification, customise brand suitability settings and implement pre-bid filtering for precise exclusion of unsuitable content before impressions are served. 

2. Reduce Waste – Identify and collaborate with sophisticated measurement and optimisation providers for real-time brand safety, suitability, viewability, and contextual relevance.

3. Test, Learn, and Optimise – Proactively monitor campaign contexts and refine strategies to stay aligned with shifting context. 

As social ad spending is projected to surge from $1.76 billion in 2025 to $2.95 billion by 2030, brands embracing predictive strategies to future-proof their strategies will better navigate emerging trends and consumer shifts for sustained success. 

(Saurabh Khattar serves as the Country Manager for Integral Ad Science in India. With a strong background in building relationships and managing marketing and content strategies, he excels in business development and exploring new market opportunities.)