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How to be COPPA compliant when advertising on YouTube

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Important privacy laws like COPPA, GDPR-K, and AADC have completely changed the landscape when it comes to advertising to children. 

Advertising and compliance bodies, including the IAB and the FTC, have issued very clear guidelines around advertising to children under 13. In 2000, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) became Federal law in the U.S. to protect the privacy of children from online sites that are designed to claim their data.

However, the staggering impact of COPPA was only fully realized when the FTC fined Google and YouTube $170M in 2019 after both companies were found to have violated COPPA. As a result, in 2020, the platforms issued their own regulations to users about advertising to kids.

If you were a brand running ads against children’s content on YouTube before COPPA came into play in 2019, you were simply encouraged to practice an ethical mindset. Post the 2019 ruling the below lists how you can be COPPA compliant. 

How can advertisers continue to comply with these standards and regulations in 2023 and beyond? We have some simple, yet incredibly effective suggestions.  

1. Brands, Agencies and COPPA Compliance Assurance

COPPA prohibits advertisers from collecting cookie data and using retargeting to reach young audiences, so working with a trusted third-party expert who understands how to maximize your advertising budget within the constraints of COPPA regulations is an incredibly effective, safe and sure-fire winning strategy. 

2. Use Contextual Advertising Intelligence to Engage Kids and Families

By using contextual advertising to deliver brand-safety and privacy-compliant video campaigns you can ensure your ads don’t end up being served against the wrong videos or to an incorrect audience. To give you an example, we removed 48% wastage by improving contextual targeting for a leading toy company. . 

You'll have insight into what you’re buying in the pre-bid phase which is a vital step to ensure you have the control necessary to ensure peak brand safety.

Contextual targeting works using a combination of natural language processing, human intervention, and AI. This allows brands to advertise at an individual video (rather than channel) level. A massive advantage of contextually-driven video-level targeting is that it avoids a high percentage of media wastage that is almost inevitable when one practices channel-level targeting. 

Brands and agencies can easily avoid any uncertainty over navigating a post-COPPA advertising ecosystem by teaming up with a skilled, experienced third-party team of experts who provide exceptional ROI with an unwavering commitment and passion to brand safety and compliance.  

At Precise TV our goal is to help toy companies sell more products.

For further insights into just WHY knowing about this will benefit your ROAS, please download PARK USA 2023. The complete picture of video consumption for US kids aged 2-12. 



Topics: coppa, youtube, kidsafe, contextual targeting, youtube kids, report