Stop Wasting Money on Social Media Ads

Social media is now the world's biggest advertising media channel.

WARC now forecasts global spend on social at $306.4 billion in 2025, a 14.9% increase on 2024.

Social media’s growth is so explosive that Meta alone is expected to generate more ad revenue than the entire global linear TV by the end of the year.

That’s how big paid social media has become.

But here’s the problem. More than half of marketers now admit social media is also the riskiest channel. And they’re right.

Because while social can build your brand in seconds, it can also destroy it just as fast.

One unlucky placement next to the wrong piece of content, one viral news story, and suddenly your logo is sitting in a context you’d never want it to be in.

The latest report from IAS (Integral Ad Science) makes it very clear: this isn’t just a theory. It’s happening every day. And it’s costing advertisers millions in wasted ad spend.

The good news? The brands who fix it are not only protecting themselves. They’re actually driving stronger ROI.

This article breaks down the findings of the IAS report and shows you why brand suitability on social media is now the number one driver of performance.

The Double-Edged Sword of Social Media

Social media has changed everything.

It is no longer just a place to share holiday snaps or keep up with friends. It’s where news breaks. Where products are discovered. Where purchases happen in a single click.

And it all happens in real time.

That’s great when the context is positive. It’s a disaster when it’s not.

Imagine you’re an auto brand.

If there’s a sudden surge of stories about car thefts, or headlines about vehicle safety failures, and your ad shows up right next to that! It’s bad news. Consumers will make the connection whether you like it or not.

But imagine the opposite. Your ad sits alongside trending conversations about the safest times to travel during the holidays, or about new car safety technology. Suddenly, you’re in the right place, at the right time, in the right context.

That’s the game. Suitability is about avoiding the bad and capturing the good.

The IAS report makes one point crystal clear: advertisers who can’t control where they appear on social are playing with fire.

The Hidden Cost of Wasted Spend

Marketers talk a lot about efficiency. But when it comes to social media, most don’t realise just how much money they’re throwing away.

IAS calls it the brand suitability fail rate, i.e. the percentage of impressions that appear next to content your brand doesn’t want to be associated with.

On average, a fail rate of even 5% can waste millions when scaled across billions of impressions. That’s not “bad luck.” That’s bad governance.

The IAS report shows that brands who take suitability seriously can slash fail rates dramatically. And the financial benefits are huge.

Let’s look at the evidence.

• Retail brand: Within two months of implementing suitability controls, they reduced unsuitable placements by 65%. 
• Telecom brand: By customising their suitability profile, they reduced fail rates by 57%. The ROI? Nearly three times the cost of the solution.
• Insurance brand: By avoiding posts about accidents and disasters, they cut fail rates by 38% and lowered CPMs by 18%. 
• Entertainment brand: With different films needing different levels of protection, they used customised filters. The result? 16% more suitable impressions and a 6% drop in CPM.
• Financial brand: By cutting adjacency to high-risk content like “arms and ammunition,” they reduced fail rates by 23% and saved an estimated $700,000 annually.
  
  

These aren’t marginal gains. These are significant improvements that change the economics of campaigns.

The takeaway? Suitability isn’t a cost. It’s a multiplier.

Why Advertisers Can't Afford to Ignore This

The global giants already know this. They’ve built teams and systems around brand safety and suitability.

But mid-sized and emerging advertisers are often the most exposed. They have smaller budgets. Less tolerance for waste. And every impression counts.

Here’s the reality: relying purely  on platform filters is not enough.

• Strict filters: You block too much. You pay more and lose scale.
• Relaxed filters: You open the floodgates. You get scale but risk your brand.

Neither option is good enough.

What the IAS data proves is that customised suitability profiles beat platform filters every single time.

For mid-sized advertisers, this is where the real opportunity lies. You don’t need to outspend the giants. You just need to be smarter with what you’ve got.

At Abintus, we see suitability as part of your media governance framework. It connects directly into:

• Your agency contracts (suitability needs to be written in).
• Your PRF design (your agency’s incentives should align with suitability goals).
• Your media audits and reviews (suitability should be measured, not assumed).
  
  

Four Steps to Stop Wasting Money on Social

The IAS report outlines a sensible path forward. Here’s how we translate it for advertisers who want to act now:

Step 1: Audit your current suitability strategy

• Do you know your brand suitability fail rate today?
• How much of your budget is being wasted on unsuitable placements?
• If you don’t know, start there.

Step 2: Test and refine

• Don’t just rely on platform defaults.
• Experiment with relaxing filters and adding custom block lists.
• Measure the impact on fail rates, CPM, and engagement.

Step 3: Measure and validate

• Use independent measurement tools.
• Track suitability pass rates, adjacency to high-risk categories, and ROI.
• Don’t assume. Prove it.

Step 4: Eliminate waste and reinvest

• Ad spend wasted on unsuitable impressions is gone forever.
• Reinvest that money into contexts that actually build your brand.

The Bigger Picture

Suitability is about more than social ads. It’s part of a bigger shift in how advertisers need to manage their media.

At Abintus, we talk a lot about media transformation. Suitability is one of the levers that makes it real.

It links directly into:

• Holistic Media Auditing: finding waste and inefficiency.
• Media Agency Pitch Management: ensuring your agency is equipped and incentivised to deliver suitability.
• Media Performance Tracking: monitoring suitability in real time alongside cost and quality.
  
  

The Bottom Line & Next Steps

The IAS report leaves no room for doubt.

• Suitability reduces waste.
• Suitability lowers costs.
• Suitability increases ROI.

And all of this matters more than ever during the holiday season, when engagement peaks and risks multiply.

So the question isn’t whether you should act. The question is whether you can afford not to.

If you want to know whether your media investments are truly brand-suitable and delivering the ROI they should, contact us today or schedule a call with our team.

Stop wasting money in social media ads. Start taking control.