
AI agents make media work harder for advertisers. They unlock inventory that used to be off-limits, accelerate campaign goals, and deliver measurable growth with more efficiency and control.

Because agents evaluate every impression with human-like discernment, they act as an extension of the marketer, bringing intention and strategy to every decision.

**What’s in this blog post:**

1. What makes agentic advertising different?
2. How do agents open up more inventory?
3. How do agents drive advertising outcomes?
4. How do agents boost control for advertisers?
5. Are agents really *revolutionary*?
6. How do I build my brand agent with Scope3?

## **What makes agentic advertising different?**

Every innovation in ad tech has promised efficiency, reach, and ROI. Most have delivered in some way. But AI agents mark a major departure from legacy ad tech innovation.

Instead of relying on broad rules or proxy signals, agents are trained to represent the marketer’s judgment in real time. They weigh each impression, taking into account content, context, ad load, audience quality, and so on, before deciding to bid. That level of discernment was never possible before.

Agentic advertising shifts the role of automation. Instead of approximating what a marketer wants, agents carry out the marketer’s intent at scale with the ability to refine over time. In other words, agents make media work harder, leading to better advertising outcomes. 

## **How do agents open up more inventory?**

For years, [legacy brand safety tools](https://scope3.com/news/how-ai-is-shaping-the-next-generation-of-brand-safety-and-suitability) have leaned on blunt filters. Words like “crisis” or “breaking news,” for example, could erroneously lock advertisers out of premium, brand-safe environments. That overblocking came at a cost: wasted reach and missed moments of high engagement, leading to lost business opportunities. 

[Agents](https://scope3.com/news/media-buyers-get-safety-and-suitability-at-scale-with-brand-standards) solve this by analyzing context at the impression level. They separate risk from relevance and allow campaigns to reach audiences where they actually are with more inventory, higher quality, and better alignment with campaign goals.

Marketers describe it as the closest thing to handpicking every impression themselves, only now it’s possible across the open internet, continuously, and at scale.

## **How do agents drive advertising outcomes?**

Agents speed up performance by [eliminating waste](https://scope3.com/news/how-ai-agents-can-make-programmatic-advertising-carbon-efficient). Spend isn’t tied up in placements that don’t meet a brand’s standards or objectives; instead, it’s constantly redirected toward opportunities that do. 

That dynamic allocation accelerates business outcomes. Efficiency-focused campaigns deliver stronger ROI as agents steer toward cost-effective impressions. Growth-focused marketers see faster scale as agents surface the highest-quality placements to drive awareness and resonance. Each decision an agent makes moves the campaign closer to its goal.

When every impression is evaluated with human-like care, media spend stops leaking. Agents catch issues such as ad clutter, low-quality content, and irrelevant context before money is committed. What remains is a tighter, higher-performing set of opportunities.

The KPIs remain the same: conversion rates, CPMs, and ROAS. What changes with agentic is the consistency, control, and ease of use. Agents apply sophisticated discernment across every impression, every second, at global scale, truly delivering superior outcomes.

## **How do agents boost control for advertisers?**

One of the most compelling parts of the business case for agents is control. Marketers can shape their agents with clear preferences:

- What to prioritize
- What to avoid
- How to balance efficiency with growth

Over time, agents adapt to marketers’ preferences. They become a faithful representation of a brand’s strategy, applying it continuously across millions of buying decisions.

That flexibility makes them goal-agnostic. Whether the objective is efficiency or brand awareness, the agent executes with the same level of intelligence and precision. The marketer sets the strategy; the agent ensures every impression reflects it, and the results are [outperforming traditional media buying](https://scope3.com/news/story-time-three-major-updates-from-the-front-lines-of-the-agentic-advertising-revolution).

## **Are agents really revolutionary?**

Marketers are no stranger to promises that new tools or platforms will deliver better ROI.

What sets agents apart is the control at scale. For the first time, marketers are able to make decisions at the impression level by bringing a human-like understanding to the quality of every impression and measuring it against their brand’s campaign goals.

Campaigns managed by agents are [already proving](https://scope3.com/news/how-scope3-brand-agents-helped-draft-digital-and-lot-of-happiness-reclaim-wasted-media-investment) to be more efficient, more performant, and more sustainable.

## **How do I build my brand agent with Scope3?**

With Scope3’s platform, marketers can build, train, and run their own brand agents that manage campaigns end to end.

Within each brand agent are tools like:

- **Brand Standards** to ensure safety and suitability
- **Brand Stories** to align targeting with a brand’s narrative
- **Media quality controls** to tune for sustainability, attention, and performance

Together, these capabilities make campaigns more performant, more controlled, and more aligned with business outcomes.

Agentic advertising strengthens the fundamentals of media buying. It opens more inventory, accelerates results, and makes every dollar deliver more impact.

Contact Scope3 to learn more about agentic advertising and start building your brand agent today.

AI agents make media work harder for advertisers. They unlock inventory that used to be off-limits, accelerate campaign goals, and deliver measurable growth with more efficiency and control.  Because agents evaluate every impression with human-like discernment, they act as an extension of the marketer, bringing intention and strategy to every decision.

The Business Case for Agentic Advertising


In agentic advertising, your brand agent is only as good as the instructions you give it. Prompting teaches your agent how to think about your values, your standards, and the kinds of media environments where you want to show up.

For brands ready to design their own brand agent, mastering prompting is critical for ensuring your agent consistently drives performance and sustainability while enforcing your standards.

## Included in this blog:

1. [What does prompting mean in agentic advertising?](#1-what-does-prompting-mean-in-agentic-advertising)
2. [What goes into an effective brand prompt?](#2-what-goes-into-an-effective-brand-prompt)
3. [What should you leave out of your prompt?](#3-what-should-you-leave-out-of-your-prompt)
4. [How do you refine prompts over time?](#4-how-do-you-refine-prompts-over-time)
5. [Why does mastering prompting give your brand an edge?](#5-why-does-mastering-prompting-give-your-brand-an-edge)

## 1. What does prompting mean in agentic advertising?

Prompting is the process of giving your brand agent clear, natural-language instructions about how to evaluate content and make media decisions. Here, you’re doing more than simply configuring a tool; you’re teaching an AI agent how to think like your brand team about what’s on-strategy, what’s off-limits, and how to interpret any gray areas.

Because prompts shape how your agent classifies and enforces standards in real time, getting them right is crucial for aligning campaigns with your brand’s voice and values.

## 2. What goes into an effective brand prompt?

An effective prompt reflects what makes your brand unique. Strong prompts should include:

- **Company and industry context** related to the spaces you operate in, how you position yourself, and who your customers and audience are.
- **Tone and values**, based in language and descriptors that capture your brand’s identity (which can be lifted from existing guidelines or other assets).
- **Content to embrace** when your agent is targeting, including topics, tones, or contexts that align with your message and campaign goals.
- **Content to avoid** for brand safety and suitability - those themes, tones, and associations that don’t reflect your brand or put your brand at risk.

A well-structured prompt also avoids vague phrases, separates positive and negative guidance, and uses complete sentences for precision.

### Effective vs. ineffective guidance:

✅ “Avoid articles highlighting product recalls in the automotive industry.”

❌ “Avoid recalls.” 

✅ “Avoid content that sensationalizes market crashes or promotes high-risk investment strategies.” 

❌ “Avoid content mentioning politics.” 

These examples show that clear, concrete language teaches your brand agent how to think in context, while vague or overly broad instructions can lead to overblocking.

## 3. What should you leave out of your prompt?

Some instructions don’t belong in your prompt because Scope3’s platform handles them automatically or through separate controls:

- **Default brand safety exclusions** block violence, hate speech, or illegal content by default.
- **Media controls** such as geo restrictions, language filters, and domain blocklists are applied separately.

Leaving these out keeps your prompts clear and focused on your brand’s unique standards.

## 4. How do you refine prompts over time?

With the Scope3 platform, calibrating an agent typically takes 1-2 weeks, during which you’ll see how it classifies real content through artifact decisioning - meaning the platform explains to you why it made a particular decision.

This feedback loop is your chance to:

- **Reclassify** edge cases and simplify concepts
- **Adjust** wording for clarity and precision
- **Strengthen** alignment by refining based on real misclassifications

Once your agent is live, you can continue to refine it as needed based on its decisions or refinements to your campaigns, but ongoing adjustments aren't necessary. This calibration process ensures your agent stays aligned with your brand's standards and goals.

## 5. Why does mastering prompting give your brand an edge?

Brands that master prompting gain a powerful advantage in the age of agentic advertising:

- **Greater precision:** Your agent enforces standards exactly as you define them.
- **More control:** You decide how your brand shows up in every impression.
- **Better performance:** Well-trained agents reduce waste and align with your KPIs.
- **Increased sustainability:** Efficient prompting reduces unnecessary AI processing, lowering emissions and costs.

Put simply, a brand agent built with strong prompts is a brand agent that delivers better outcomes.

Ready to build and train your own brand agents? Reach out to Scope3 today to discover strategies for getting started.


In agentic advertising, your brand agent is only as good as the instructions you give it. Prompting teaches your agent how to think about your values, your standards, and the kinds of media environments where you want to show up.

Why It’s Critical to Master Prompting in the Age of Agentic Advertising


## **The challenge**

For Butler/Till, ensuring their pharmaceutical client only appeared in brand-safe environments was mission-critical. But traditional brand safety tools were blocking too much, including valuable news content and nuanced but appropriate articles, and missing high-risk content that didn’t match keyword lists. Butler/Till needed a precise, intelligent solution to reduce risk while unlocking reach to key patient audiences.

## The opportunity

Butler/Till constantly seeks innovative tools to improve outcomes for clients. Scope3’s Brand Standards, powered by agentic AI, offered a breakthrough. Unlike rigid verification tools, Brand Standards uses large language models (LLMs) with human-in-the-loop supervision to deeply understand content, opening the door to greater reach and performance.

## The results

![Results](/marketing/blog/reinventing-brand-safety-with-butlertill-first-agency-to-launch-a-scope3-brand-agent/image1.webp)

Butler/Till extended their client's reach to more relevant patients without compromising safety. The campaign’s success highlighted how agentic decisioning can reshape outdated approaches to brand safety and deliver better results, including a **75% reduction** in unique incident rate. As a result, Butler/Till was named an AdExchanger Awards 2025 Finalist in the *Best Use of Technology by an Agency* category.

> *"Brand Standards surpassed our expectations, opening up new opportunities for our clients. We're now empowered to make brand-specific decisions that both protect brand integrity and maximize reach. As technology continues to evolve, Butler/Till is proud to lead the way in advancing brand safety.”* 
-Nick Morticelli, Manager, Strategy & Partnerships, Biddable Media, Butler/Till





For Butler/Till, ensuring their pharmaceutical client only appeared in brand-safe environments was mission-critical. But traditional brand safety tools were blocking too much, including valuable news content and nuanced but appropriate articles, and missing high-risk content that didn’t match keyword lists. Butler/Till needed a precise, intelligent solution to reduce risk while unlocking reach to key patient audiences.

Reinventing Brand Safety with Butler/Till: First Agency to Launch a Scope3 Brand Agent


The rapid adoption of AI will accelerate innovation, but it also presents significant new environmental challenges.

At Scope3, we’ve been considering what this means for the industry and our partners, as well as our role in creating a sustainable advertising ecosystem.

This summer, we took action and are excited to share our efforts. We developed a methodology to measure the carbon footprint and water use of generative AI, which we’ve released for public feedback this week [here](https://preview.methodology.scope3.com/overview).

We also secured $25 million in funding to bolster these initiatives — an investment that will help us advance our mission while tackling the complexities of AI’s environmental impact (read the details in [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/10/scope3-starts-tracking-the-carbon-footprint-of-ai/) or below).

**Want to learn more about what we’re building?** Subscribe to our new Substack, [Sustainable AI](https://sustainableai.substack.com/p/welcome), where we’ll share insights and updates on our journey toward sustainable AI.

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## **Scope3 Raises $25M in Strategic Funding to Expand into Sustainable AI**

**NEW YORK – 10 October 10 2024**  – Scope3, the collaborative sustainability platform decarbonizing media and advertising, today announced the closing of $25 million in a strategic funding round led by GV. The round included participation from existing investors Venrock, Room40 Ventures, and Craft Ventures, as well as from new investors Aperiam Ventures and Virgo Strategic Investments. The investment will enable Scope3 to expand its work beyond the advertising ecosystem and tackle the pressing climate impact of the booming AI industry.

Since its inception in 2021, Scope3 has been a pioneer in sustainable digital media. Through its ad campaign sustainability solutions and open-source methodology, Scope3 has supplied the media and advertising industries with tools to analyze and reduce carbon emissions without sacrificing ROI, cost or business success. Thousands of brands use Scope3 to measure and decarbonize their media – including Coca-Cola, General Motors, Mastercard, Sanofi, and more – and nearly 3,000 metric tons of carbon emissions have been avoided by using Scope3’s Green Media Products in the last 18 months. 

Decarbonization solutions are gaining serious traction across the industry — usage revenue of Scope3 has grown 12x YoY (Q2 ‘23 → Q2 ‘24). Now, as AI innovation hits an inflection point and the environmental impact is coming to light, Scope3 is taking its proven approach to decarbonizing the advertising and media supply chain and applying it to AI.

At a time when the climate crisis grows more pressing and severe by the day, the rapid adoption of AI is leaving significant environmental repercussions in its wake. The training process for a single AI model consumes thousands of megawatt hours of electricity and emits hundreds of tons of carbon. Companies across the board are increasingly facing pressure to implement AI strategies while trying to meet climate commitments, and they are struggling to find a clear solution to keep emissions under control. With the marketing industry leading the rapid adoption of AI, Scope3 is uniquely positioned to help companies balance their sustainability goals without compromising their AI ambitions that drive innovation and business success.

“AI and the media industry are soon going to be indistinguishable,” said Brian O’Kelley, Co-Founder and CEO of Scope3. “The biggest AI players are monetizing through advertising, just like the search giants before them, and every marketer is using AI to create the content that fuels their campaigns. That’s why extending our methodology to capture the climate impact of AI is imperative, both for our business and the industry as a whole.”

"The most innovative companies in the world are considering sustainable AI practices that address environmental concerns while delivering real business value. Scope3 has the talent, technology, and expertise needed to decarbonize the media and advertising industry," said Erik Nordlander, General Partner at GV.  "We've seen the impact Brian O'Kelley and the Scope3 team have had on the advertising and marketing supply chain, and we're excited to double down on our investment based on the traction we've seen. We're proud to deepen our partnership with Brian and support Scope3's mission as we move toward a more sustainable future."

Alongside the funding, Scope3 released its AI methodology to the public. This methodology sheds light on the digital waste produced by the AI supply chain by precisely tracing and measuring the environmental impacts of the entire life cycle of an AI product, process or service. This ultimately enables every company using AI to make data-driven strategies on when, how and where to apply different AI solutions to reduce their carbon footprints and maximize the efficacy of their AI investments.


At a time when the climate crisis grows more pressing and severe by the day, the rapid adoption of AI is leaving significant environmental repercussions in its wake. Scope3 has a plan to tackle it.