
For too long, programmatic advertising has forced marketers into difficult trade-offs: blunt brand safety filters that limit reach, opaque algorithms that hide decision-making, and targeting systems built on proxies rather than genuine audience understanding. The result? Wasted media dollars, low audience attention, and an unchecked carbon footprint.

Agentic advertising changes this dynamic. Instead of surrendering control to outside systems, you control the AI that powers your campaigns. These agents evaluate every impression in real time, where they apply your strategy, standards, and values to ensure high media quality and drive brand lift

Now, with brand agents live on the Scope3 platform, this intelligence can be activated across the open web and Meta. Brand agents form the foundation of a new media buying approach that puts marketers back in control, reduces waste, and enables advertising that's both effective and sustainable.

## Start with a guide for building your brand agent

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  <source src="/marketing/blog/introducing-brand-agents-take-control-of-every-impression/video1.mp4" type="video/mp4"></source>
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## **What are brand agents?**

Think of a brand agent as your always-on media buyer—an AI system you train to evaluate every impression against your brand's unique priorities.

Unlike black-box legacy tools, brand agents are designed by you, the brand or agency. You determine how your agent makes trade-offs, what values it enforces, and how it interprets content.

The benefits of advertising with brand agents are clear:

- **Control:** Your agent is yours. It reflects your brand's voice and evolves with your input.
- **Transparency:** Every decision can be traced back to the prompts and controls you've set.
- **Precision:** By evaluating each impression across more criteria, your agent can unlock premium inventory while eliminating waste.
- **Efficiency and Effectiveness:** Smarter decisioning drives better media performance, lowers costs, reduces emissions, and strengthens ROI.

In short, brand agents give marketers something they've never truly had before: full control over how and where their brand appears to audiences across the open internet.

## **How do brand agents work?**

Building a brand agent on Scope3's platform is straightforward - with powerful results. Rather than juggling blocklists, keywords, or rigid audience categories, you build your agent using intuitive configuration options that translate your **Brand Stories**, **Brand Standards**, and **media quality** inputs into real-time decisioning.

![overview](/marketing/blog/introducing-brand-agents-take-control-of-every-impression/image1.webp)

### **Brand Stories**

Brand Stories is targeting that helps you connect with any audience to drive brand objectives using your ideal customer profile, content inclusions, brand voice, and customer interests. By writing prompts that include these elements, you teach your agent to move beyond keywords and connect with authentic stories that resonate with your audience.

![brand-stories](/marketing/blog/introducing-brand-agents-take-control-of-every-impression/image2.webp)

### **Brand Standards**

Here you define the guardrails: brand context, target audience, content exclusions, industry concerns, and media quality standards. Every brand agent comes equipped with baseline brand safety guidelines to avoid dangerous placements like fraud and illegal content. With clear prompting, your agent can go further, distinguishing risk from relevance for your brand's specific needs. Brand Standards filters content with nuance, unlocking premium inventory that blunt keyword-based systems would block.

![brand-standards](/marketing/blog/introducing-brand-agents-take-control-of-every-impression/image3.webp)

### **Media quality**

Scope3's media quality controls allow you to define what "quality" means for your brand agent by setting thresholds for emissions, attention potential, and viewability. MFA, IVT, and unsafe content are automatically excluded by default, and you can further filter out indirect supply paths and undesirable placements.

![MQ](/marketing/blog/introducing-brand-agents-take-control-of-every-impression/image4.webp)

Together, these configuration options give you unmatched control of your brand agent. You can build multiple Brand Stories to reflect different narratives, layer them with your core Brand Standards and media controls, and guide your agent to prioritize lower-emission supply, avoid wasteful impressions, and favor placements that deliver meaningful engagement. The result is an agent that drives brand results, putting your intention into action across all your media.

## Where can I activate brand agents?

After you've built your brand agent on the Scope3 platform, you can activate it seamlessly across the media ecosystem through our partnerships and integrations.

Your agent can run in all the places you already buy media, including:

- SSPs such as Equativ, Index Exchange, [Media.net](http://Media.net), and OpenX
- DSPs like Amazon, Google, and The Trade Desk
- Social platforms, such as Meta

In these environments, your brand agent evaluates each impression in real time, applying your strategy, standards, and values to make impactful decisions at scale.

## **When can I get started?**

Brand agents are live today on Scope3's Agentic Advertising Platform. You can log in now to create your agent, write prompts, calibrate them against sample artifacts, and activate campaigns.

Or, if you'd like support, you can reach out to the Scope3 team for help designing, refining, and launching your first brand agent.


Blunt brand safety filters. Opaque algorithms. Targeting based on proxies. Programmatic advertising has forced marketers to choose between reach and protection, transparency and scale. Brand agents eliminate these trade-offs. Now live on Scope3's platform, these AI agents—trained by you—evaluate every impression, applying your Brand Stories, Brand Standards, and media quality criteria to unlock premium inventory, reduce waste, and drive brand lift. Learn what brand agents are, how to build yours using intuitive prompts and controls, where to activate them (from the open web to Meta), and how to get started today. Welcome to agentic advertising—where you're finally back in control.

Introducing Brand Agents: Take Control of Every Impression




![Frame-2049519356 (3)](/marketing/blog/brand-stories-prompt-recipe-your-step-by-step-guide-to-connecting-with-ideal-customers/image1.webp)
<a class="cta-button" href="/?authType=sign-up">Start building your prompt</a>

You know your ideal customers—now give your brand agent the tools to find them. This practical guide walks you through the essential ingredients for writing Brand Stories prompts that translate your customer insights into AI-powered targeting. Learn how to capture your brand narrative, articulate what your ideal customers care about, and structure prompts that discover the stories, themes, and contexts where your message resonates most. The result? Smarter targeting that increases relevance, unlocks quality inventory, and creates authentic connections at scale.

Brand Stories Prompt Recipe: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Connecting With Ideal Customers


![Brand Standards Prompt Recipe](/marketing/blog/the-brand-standards-prompt-recipe-your-step-by-step-guide-to-intelligent-content-filtering/image1.webp)
<a class="cta-button" href="/?authType=sign-up">Start building your prompt</a>


Stop relying on blunt blocklists and keyword filters. This practical guide walks you through the essential ingredients for writing Brand Standards prompts that protect your brand with precision—not brute force. Learn how to structure prompts that capture your brand's unique context, values, and exclusions, then test and refine them for real-world performance. The result? Smarter content filtering that reduces waste, unlocks premium inventory, and keeps your brand safe across every impression.

The Brand Standards Prompt Recipe: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Intelligent Content Filtering


We're excited to announce that Scope3's core frameworks now align with GMSF v1.2, giving users more choice in emissions measurement.

The Global Media Sustainability Framework (GMSF) serves as the industry standard for emissions reporting across advertising and media. With this update, Scope3 users can now choose their preferred framework for emissions measurement from three GMSF v1.2-aligned options.

Developed by Ad Net Zero through collaborative working groups that include over 120 advertising and media companies in over 40 markets, GMSF represents the industry's collective effort to establish consistent measurement practices. In June 2025, Ad Net Zero released GMSF v1.2, incorporating important improvements to the digital framework, updated emissions factors, and enhanced guidance on data accuracy levels.

**Enhanced Capabilities Starting October 1**

Starting October 1, 2025, these industry developments translate into enhanced measurement capabilities for Scope3 measurement users. We have aligned our default Scope3 model with GMSF v1.2, and now offer users a choice of framework to apply for both campaign and property emissions reporting.

Specifically, users can now choose from the following framework options: 

- **Scope3 (excluding consumer device)** – The default model has been updated to align with GMSF v1.2, but continues to include additional media emissions not covered by GMSF v1.2.
- **Scope3 (including consumer device)** – This optional model has been updated as above, but also continues to include consumer device emissions.
- **GMSF v1.2** – Choose this model for strict adherence to the industry framework

![](https://44188919.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/44188919/Blog%20Images/Sep%202025%20-%20GMSFv1.2-selector.jpg)

**Supporting Your Sustainability Measurement and Activation Goals**

With this release, Scope3 users have more options to measure media sustainability. The Scope3 framework includes all GMSF v1.2 framework categories in addition to other categories not yet included in the standard. More details can be found in the [October methodology notes](https://docs.scope3.com/changelog/october-2025-emissions-model#/).

All measurement frameworks on Scope3 continue to be supported by our open-source methodology and contributed data from supply chain partners – ensuring the highest depth and accuracy available. Sustainable media is higher quality, more performant media, and brands can now activate against this media through brand agents on the Scope3 platform.

Scope3 customers can select their preferred framework for campaign sustainability reporting starting October 1. You can preview the numbers from the updated models today by looking at "Latest" in any property report.

**Preparing for Industry Standards**

Scope3 has been an active participant in the evolution of GMSF, contributing our methodology expertise and real-world measurement insights to help shape the framework's development. As a global supporter and member of the charter steering group, we've worked to ensure GMSF reflects both practical implementation needs and technical accuracy requirements.

With formal GMSF compliance processes expected in early 2026, this update ensures your measurement approach will meet evolving industry standards. 

If you have any questions about this update, or want to learn more about you can drive better media performance through sustainable media, please don’t hesitate to reach out.


Scope3's core frameworks now align with GMSF v1.2 and users now have more choices for emissions measurement.

Scope3 Aligns Core Frameworks With GMSF v1.2 and Offers New Measurement Options


Connected TV (CTV) is now a centerpiece of modern media plans. It combines television’s cultural influence with digital precision, drawing billions in advertiser investment each year. But beneath the rapid growth lies a challenge: CTV buying practices often lack transparency, carry hidden carbon costs, and limit optimization opportunities.

A new report from the ANA, produced in partnership with Scope3, examines these challenges head-on and offers a roadmap for how advertisers can plan smarter, more sustainable CTV campaigns that drive results.

## **Why CTV needs a sustainability check**

The features that make CTV so appealing — premium content, packaged deals, programmatic distribution — also make it hard to manage effectively. Advertisers often buy bundled packages without knowing exactly where their ads will appear. That lack of visibility makes it difficult to enforce brand suitability, measure performance consistently, or evaluate the true environmental cost of each impression.

Carbon intensity is another hidden factor. Variables like creative length, bitrate, and supply paths all affect emissions. Without measurement, these costs remain invisible, even as they meaningfully impact both budgets and the planet.

## **What the study set out to answer**

To bring clarity, the ANA’s Media & Measurement Leadership Council partnered with Scope3 and six leading brands: Chipotle, General Motors, Honda, HP, Mastercard, and Prudential. Together, they explored three questions:

1. What is the carbon impact of CTV advertising?
2. What optimizations can reduce emissions and waste while improving performance?
3. How can sustainable practices scale across the industry?

The study applied Scope3’s carbon measurement framework alongside traditional KPIs like CPM, CPA, and video completion rate. This allowed advertisers to evaluate environmental and business outcomes in parallel.

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## **Small changes, big results**

The research tested four simple optimizations:

- **Shorter creatives.** Moving from 30-second to 15-second ads reduced emissions and often improved cost efficiency.
- **Creative optimization.** Running formats with stronger completion rates increased both impact and sustainability.
- **Inventory suppression.** Excluding high-emission, low-performing placements cut wasteful impressions.
- **Cleaner supply paths.** Prioritizing supply partners with lower average emissions created more efficient delivery routes.

Overall, campaigns lowered emissions while holding (and in many cases improving) performance. In one live sports campaign, emissions fell by 41%, eCPMs dropped 20%, and CPA improved by 92%. Another brand saw a 24% drop in eCPM alongside a material reduction in carbon intensity.

## **A new KPI for the CTV era**

The central recommendation is clear: advertisers should treat emissions the same way they treat reach, CPM, or CPA. Measuring gCO₂PM as a standard KPI uncovers waste that would otherwise remain hidden. With placement-level transparency, brands gain the ability to demand accountability from partners and make sharper buying decisions.

Just as advertisers already tier SSPs on cost or safety, sustainability can now be added to the mix. Favoring cleaner supply partners not only lowers carbon but also elevates the overall quality of supply.

## **Why this matters now**

Sustainability in advertising is no longer a “nice to have.” Consumers expect brands to lead on climate, regulators are raising the bar, and internal stakeholders increasingly want proof of progress. CTV offers a proving ground where brands can deliver both growth and responsibility.

The takeaway from the ANA and Scope3 study is simple: sustainable CTV is practical, measurable, and performance-positive. With better measurement, intentional planning, and small but powerful optimizations, advertisers can reduce waste, improve efficiency, and strengthen the entire media ecosystem.

## **Download the full report**

We’ve only scratched the surface of what the study uncovered about sustainability and CTV advertising. The full report includes deeper data, methodology, and real-world results from some of the world’s most influential marketers.

[Download the report today](#unlockingSustainableGrowthForm) to see how your brand can unlock sustainable growth through smarter CTV planning.


The takeaway from the ANA and Scope3 study is simple: sustainable CTV is practical, measurable, and performance-positive. With better measurement, intentional planning, and small but powerful optimizations, advertisers can reduce waste, improve efficiency, and strengthen the entire media ecosystem.

Unlocking sustainable growth in CTV advertising


Agentic advertising is transformative for brands. By powering more efficient campaigns, fostering deeper cultural resonance, and generating lasting ROI, brand agents deliver clear wins for advertisers.

But the impact doesn’t stop there. 

When agents direct spend toward quality media, align brand messaging with cultural nuance, and free advertising professionals to focus on strategy, the benefits ripple across the entire ecosystem. The result: advertising that is intelligent, more transparent, and more sustainable.

Read on to see how agentic advertising rewards quality, reduces waste, and creates better experiences for everyone involved.

**In this blog:**

1. Why the ecosystem needs a reset
2. How agents clean up waste and restore value
3. How agents align brand values and narratives with media richness
4. How agents enhance the human ad operations experience
5. The ecosystem-wide business case

## **Why the ecosystem needs a reset**

Digital advertising has long been plagued by inefficiency and misalignment. Too much budget disappears into fraud, bot traffic, or low-quality placements. Publishers producing trusted journalism and premium content [often lose out](https://scope3.com/news/how-scope3-brand-standards-solves-for-overblocking-of-news-content) to cheaper, less meaningful inventory due to clunky brand safety solutions. Meanwhile, brands struggle with tools that reduce nuanced, crafted strategies into rigid categories and keyword blocks.

Agentic AI offers a way to reset, restoring value to high-quality media and reconnecting brands with the environments that reflect them best — making the industry and our ecosystem better as a result. 

## **How agents clean up waste and restore value**

At the heart of agentic AI is discernment. Agents analyze every impression and filter out what doesn’t deliver value, whether that’s fraudulent traffic, low-quality content, or placements misaligned with brand values and narratives. 

This clean-up work matters at scale. By removing waste, agents redirect spend to the publishers producing journalism, storytelling, and cultural content that audiences trust. The outcome is a healthier marketplace where dollars flow more directly from advertisers to meaningful, aligned, and high-quality media.

That transparency also carries an [environmental dividend](https://scope3.com/news/how-ai-agents-can-make-programmatic-advertising-carbon-efficient). When wasted impressions and excessive processing are cut out of the supply chain, emissions for ad delivery fall too. Efficiency, performance, and sustainability are all linked — and they’re all boosted with agentic advertising.

## **How agents align brand values and narratives with media richness**

Brands are not one-dimensional. They’re built through years of creative strategy, cultural resonance, and consumer connection. Media is just as rich, shaped by journalists, editors, artists, and creators. Yet in today’s system, both are often flattened into categories that strip away this vibrancy.

Agents change that. With a more sophisticated understanding of context, they can connect brands with the media environments that genuinely reflect their values. For example, instead of avoiding “all news about climate disasters,” an energy provider’s brand agent can distinguish between fear-mongering clickbait about dormant supervolcanoes, and a thoughtful piece on the ability of Bay Area infrastructure to withstand earthquakes.

This precision creates brand-media alignment that respects the creative equity poured in by both sides. Brands retain the intent and crux of their meticulously-crafted identity, and publishers are rewarded for the quality, valuable media they create. 

## **How agents enhance the human ad operations experience**

Another ecosystem benefit is how agents reshape the work of ad professionals. Too often, skilled people spend their time managing manual controls: maintaining keyword lists, setting filters, adjusting targeting criteria. It’s tedious and — at times — fatiguing, and it distracts from the higher-value work of strategy, creativity, and connection.

Agents take on those repetitive tasks. They enforce brand standards, analyze inventory quality, and make targeting decisions. And because they’re designed to be transparent and tunable, brands can choose the right balance of autonomy and human-in-the-loop oversight. 

This flexibility frees ad ops professionals, traders, and strategists to focus on what humans do best: interpreting culture, building meaningful brand narratives, and strengthening partnerships.

## **The ecosystem-wide business case**

When agents operate at scale, the benefits are felt across the ecosystem:

- **Publishers** expand revenue opportunities as spend flows back into quality journalism and high-quality content.
- **Advertisers** run more efficient, narrative-driven campaigns that deliver growth and reduce risk.
- **Agencies** empower teams to move beyond manual operations and into strategic execution.
- **Consumers** experience advertising that feels more relevant, less intrusive, and tied to media they trust.

What emerges is an ecosystem that’s commercially, creatively, and environmentally sustainable.

By cutting waste, aligning brands with quality media, and amplifying human expertise, agents strengthen the connection between advertiser intention and publisher creativity. That connection restores balance by funding meaningful content, creating better ad experiences, and driving growth in a way that benefits the entire system.

The business case for agentic AI is clear: when the media ecosystem thrives, everyone wins.

Agentic advertising is transformative for brands. By powering more efficient campaigns, fostering deeper cultural resonance, and generating lasting ROI, brand agents deliver clear wins for advertisers.  But the impact doesn’t stop there.

The platform for agentic advertising.

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The platform for agentic advertising.

See how Scope3 can make an impact for you.

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