In addition to blocking malicious ads, Ad Lightning's technology can also be used to block specific categories or brands.

Below is the list of our blocking categories. Each category consists of hundreds of related signatures with new additions being made daily.

Category Blocking:

Category	Definition	Examples
Alcohol	Ads for adult beverage brands, including beer wine and liquor Ads that feature alcohol consumption of any kind Ads for clothing or other products that feature images of alcohol or verbiage related to alcohol consumption Ads for alcohol delivery services
Dating Services	Ads pertaining to dating services (websites, applications) Ads promoting companionship, resources for singles, dating advice Ads for affair seeking services and sites
Cannabis - CBD/THC Products	Ads that promote cannabis in any form, including CBD and Hemp products Ads for, or that include images of, marijuana or marijuana leaves Ads for any supplements, food products or oils that contain CBD
Crisis & Controversy Marketing	Ads that ignore social norms in an attempt to capitalize by utilizing shock advertising Ads that exploit sensitive topics, including celebrity deaths (real or fake), social issues, the global pandemic and other "of the moment" topics Ads that pry on fear in order to elicit clicks (i.e. fake "Emergency Alert" ads)
Gambling	Ads promoting gambling content, including: Ads for online casinos and online, betting and bingo Ads that drive to gambling websites and apps Ads for brick-and-mortar casinos
Hate & Profanity	Ads that illustrate any form of hate, discrimination or intolerance towards another group Ads that promote hate groups of any sort or encourage hateful behaviors or feelings
Health - Dietary Supplements	Ads that promote any supplement for bodily health or enhancements, including: Vitamins Nutrition Muscle building Digestion aids Cleanses
Health - Pharmaceuticals	Ads featuring substances used to diagnose, treat, or prevent diseases and other health conditions
Health - Sexual Health	Ads containing content related to sexual health and wellness, including: STD and STI related ads Birth control and other contraceptives Teen pregnancy Ads for sexual health care providers, such as doctors, facilities and organizations like Planned Parenthood
Health - Telehealth	Ads that promote remote health care services via the use of technology.
Politics	Ads that promote political content, including political parties, candidates and attack ads Ads from candidates and PAC's Ads focused on political issues, including but not limited to, elections, legislation and judicial outcomes
Religion	Ads pertaining to any religious organization or institution, religious leadership, religious philosophies or beliefs Ads promoting sites dedicated to religious text or study
Sexualized & Adult Content	Ads that have a sexually charged theme, explicit images or depict sexual behavior. This includes: Ads for lingerie and retail brands with a heavy emphasis on lingerie Sites that promote hookups or affairs Ads for adult toys Ads showing excessive cleavage or an over emphasis on other intimate body parts
Supernatural	Ads that promote supernatural practices, teachings, or advice, including: Astrology Future Telling (psychics, tarot reading) Horoscope Ads promoting the occult (magic, witchcraft) Ads for supernatural communication (telepathy, mediums)
Swimwear	Ads for bathing suits, including retailers with a heavy emphasis on swimwear Ads that prominently feature a person in swimwear, even if that is not product being advertised. (i.e. ads for a cruise line featuring a person or persons in swimwear)
Tobacco and Nicotine Products	Ads for tobacco and cigarette brands, products and accessories Ads that promote cigarettes, cigars, tobacco pipes, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes and vapes
Unsavory Content	Overtly distasteful ads, typically featuring disturbing imagery, including: belly fat ads toe nail fungus ads ear wax ads
Weapons & Violence	Ads for weapons and firearm brands or ads that prominently feature a weapon, firearm, knife or other violent object Ads that depict dangerous, violent or harmful behavior or in any way encourage such conduct

You can reach out to the account team to get blocking set up for any of the above categories. On the back end, we'll enable the category for your account and all of the current signatures related to that category will be deployed to your denylist.

Custom Blocking

The process to set up custom blocks is similar to category blocking, but may take some additional lead time since it's more custom.

Once you've determined that you want to block a particular brand, reach out to your account team and we'll compile a list of signatures related to the brand and deploy them to your denylist.

You can find blocks against each of these categories by filtering for 'Custom' in the blocking section of the UI.

Troubleshooting

While the process outlined above will provide coverage against most ads in a category or brand, it's possible that a small number of ads may still get through from time to time. This could happen due to the following reasons:

None of the signatures in that category or brand are in the ad markup
A campaign was recently launched and has not made its way to our system yet
The signature that would have blocked on is in a cross domain frame

If this happens, we can use our scanning technology to help identify any ads that are getting through. Signatures related to the category or brand can be added to your scanning denylist to help detect any new patterns in the ad markup. In addition to scanning the ad markup, we can use Image Recognition to extract text from the ad's image. New signatures can then be extracted and added to your denylist.