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Connected TV fraud traffic rates increase 161% finds DoubleVerify report

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

August 19, 2020 | 3 min read

Digital marketing measurement provider DoubleVerify has outlined a surge of fraud in connected TV platforms in a report detailing the state of the market so far in 2020.

Connected TV

CTV fraud traffic rates increase 161% finds DoubleVerify report

Here we dig into the key findings from its 2020 Global Insights Report which analysed data from advertisers representing over 2,000 brands across 80 countries, from May 2019 to April 2020.

CTV fraud

  • DoubleVerify claims to have found 1,300 fraudulent apps in CTV since March 2019 (60% were detected in 2020 alone).

  • It measured a 161% increase in fraudulent CTV traffic rates in Q1 2020 vs Q1 2019.

  • CTV ‘incidents’ are more likely to be driven by bots, against 'overall fraud incidents' (78% vs 26%). It said server-side ad insertion (SSAI) was enabling bots to mirror SSAI traffic to commit fraud at scale.

  • Compared to those transacted through DV-certified marketplaces, it claimed that the fraud rate was 11 times higher on CTV, nine times higher than publisher-direct buys.

Further findings

  • EMEA was also the only region that experienced an increase in the post-bid fraud rate, with an EMEA-wide rate of 2.0%, rising slightly to 2.3% in the UK.

  • It claimed that there was a 9% increase in display viewability and 8% increase in video viewability.

  • It found that fraud was highest in media & sports, travel, financial services and technology industry verticals, following a trend from previous years, as these verticals are typically targets for bot fraud.

Conclusion

“Brands need clarity and confidence in their digital investments,” said Tanzil Bukhari, managing director, EMEA at DoubleVerify.

“This report shows that while brands in EMEA have been working hard to boost suitability and targeting capabilities, emerging channels with unestablished standards like CTV present a growing challenge when it comes to ad fraud and brand safety.

"Moving forward, advertisers and publishers must challenge the status quo and collaborate on driving standards, building best-practices and embracing technology to set a solid baseline which is underpinned by quality and can exceed performance.”

Ad Fraud Advertising Connected TV

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