This week's review of ad fraud and quality in the digital advertising space.
Pixalate this week released the December 2017 Programmatic Seller Trust Indexes. The indexes rank the overall quality of programmatic sellers across desktop and mobile web (GSTI), mobile in-app (MSTI), and video (VSTI). Download the latest indexes here.
According to new research from Pixalate, conducted in conjunction with OpenX, the 300x250 video ad unit has an invalid traffic (IVT) rate 31% higher than the average of all other video ad sizes. Additionally, MediaPost reports: "According to a first-of-its-kind analysis, the postage stamp-like 300x250 banner ad now represents nearly a third of all video ad units sold programmatically." MediaPost added: "As part of the release of that data, OpenX is also announcing today that it will no longer trade 300x250 video ad units on its exchange."
According to eMarketer and MediaPost, citing research from Pixalate, ads.txt adoption has continued steady growth. The IAB-led initiative has now been adopted by over 50% of the top 5000 programmatic publishers. "Adoption of ads.txt was slow at first, but it has really taken off over the past five months," wrote eMarketer. "In September 2017, just 8.5% of the top 5,000 websites worldwide selling programmatic ads had adopted ads.txt, according to Pixalate," the article noted. "But by the end of February 2018, more than half of these sites were using ads.txt."
The IAB Europe this week released a new framework for the pending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Digiday summarizes the framework, writing, "In a nutshell, participating publishers would get to select which ad tech vendors they wish to continue working with for programmatic trading from a centralized list of global vendors that have applied — and paid a nominal fee — to appear on the list. Once publishers have chosen vendors from the list, they must then get consent from the consumer on those vendors’ behalf."
"A survey of digital marketers worldwide reveals that many are faced with a variety of video advertising concerns—particularly fraud and the ability to measure their video investment," wrote eMarketer. According to eMarketer, citing research from YouAppi, about half (48%) of digital marketers "are concerned about fraud on the ad networks that deliver their video." That number is up from 33% in 2017, per the article.
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