Write the floor before you look
Vetting goes faster and argues less when the rules exist before anyone watches a video. Two documents do the work. The suitability floor lists content the brand will never appear next to. The thresholds list content the brand accepts with a condition, such as strong language in a comedy channel as long as the read sits outside it. The IAB’s buyer checklist asks buyers to state both and to choose the vendor that will score content against them (IAB, 2023-10).
Brands used to borrow these categories from GARM. The World Federation of Advertisers discontinued GARM on August 9, 2024 (WFA, retrieved 2026-10-05), so the floor now needs to come from the brand’s own policy, with the scoring vendor’s framework named where one is used.
Step 1: Review the back catalog
Watch the six most recent videos in full, then the five most-viewed videos of the past twelve months. The recent ones show what the channel is now. The most-viewed ones are what most of its audience has seen, and many are still drawing views. For everything else in the past year, read the transcripts and score them against the floor and thresholds.
Log every finding with the video and the timestamp. A finding without a timestamp cannot be checked by anyone else, including the brand’s legal team.
Step 2: Check the audience in the creator’s own analytics
Public subscriber counts say little about who watches. Ask the creator for their analytics for the past 90 days: age, country, device, returning viewers and traffic sources. Compare that with the customer the brand sells to. A channel can have a large audience in the wrong country or the wrong age band for the product.
If you buy through YouTube Creator Partnerships, its eligibility rules give a minimum filter: creators must be 18 or older, in the YouTube Partner Program, in an eligible country and free of active Community Guidelines strikes (YouTube Help, retrieved 2026-10-05). Passing those rules says nothing about fit, so the rest of the review still applies.
Step 3: Look for bought engagement
Plot views per video against subscriber growth over twelve months and look for jumps that the content and its timing do not explain. Read a sample of comments on recent videos for repeated wording and accounts that only post links.
Bought engagement is now a legal issue as well as a pricing one. Under the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, it is unlawful to buy or sell fake indicators of social media influence, followers and views among them (16 CFR Part 465, 89 FR 68077, 2024-08-22). Evidence of it should end the review with a decline.
Step 4: Read the disclosure history
Open the channel’s past sponsored videos and check three things: whether the paid promotion label was on, whether the creator disclosed the sponsorship out loud or on screen inside the video, and whether the disclosure came before the endorsement or at the end. YouTube requires the label for paid content (YouTube Help, retrieved 2026-10-05), and the FTC’s guidance prefers an early disclosure to one left for the close (FTC, retrieved 2026-10-05).
A creator who has disclosed well in the past is easier to brief. A creator who has disclosed only in descriptions needs the disclosure written into the contract, and a check after publishing.
Step 5: Check the category rules
Fintech, insurance and health brands carry extra risk, because a host can repeat a claim the brand cannot make. Search the transcripts for claims about returns, rates, cover or treatment, especially inside past sponsored reads. A host who told a previous sponsor’s audience that a product was “guaranteed” may say it again about yours unless the brief and the script review prevent it.
Step 6: List sponsors and conflicts
List the channel’s sponsors over the past twelve months. Direct competitors are an obvious conflict, and adjacent categories may matter too. The IAB recommends defining exclusivity campaign by campaign: which competitors, which ad types, which content and for how long (IAB, 2023-10). Knowing the sponsor history before the negotiation lets you put a price on exclusivity.
Step 7: Record the outcome
End every review with a written memo and one of three outcomes. A pass means the channel can be booked on the standard brief. A conditional pass means it can be booked only with a stated condition, such as a legal review of every script or an excluded content type. A decline means it is not booked, and the memo records why.
The memo is what lets a brand defend the booking later. It shows what was reviewed, what was found, against which rule, and who decided.
What platform settings do not cover
Google Ads gives advertisers three inventory types for video campaigns (Expanded, Standard and Limited) and lets them exclude content such as live streams (Google Ads Help, retrieved 2026-10-05). Those settings decide where paid ads appear. They do not review a creator’s channel before a sponsored integration, which is why the steps above happen before the booking and not after it. That is our reading of how the controls work; no platform document says it in those words.