According to the 2023 TAG US Fraud Benchmark Study, the digital advertising industry has agreed on a single criteria to measure its effectiveness in delivering a predictable, consistent, and low fraud rate.
For the third year in a row, the study discovered that invalid traffic (IVT) in TAG Certified Channels (TCCs) in the United States was held at less than 1%, while interviews with executives from major agency holding companies validated that sub-1% level as the new de facto standard for the industry, with most agencies stating that it is included in their client contracts. (TCCs are ad channels where various companies participating in the ad transaction, such as the media agency, buy-side platform, sell-side platform, and/or publisher, have earned the TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal.)
“If you’re batting .300, shooting 20 points per game, or passing your way to a 100+ QB rating, you’ve proven yourself among the best of the best at those sports,” said Mike Zaneis, president and chief executive officer of TAG “The advertising industry has now agreed on a unified metric to validate the success of our own all-stars in fighting fraud.”
According to the interviews from this year’s US Fraud Standard Study, our sector has agreed on a sub-1% IVT rate as the proper standard to verify the effectiveness of a company’s anti-fraud operations. Fortunately, the survey also demonstrates that TAG Certified Channels have reached that milestone in the United States for the previous three years, which is cause for both commendation and continuous vigilance against crooks attempting to perpetrate ad fraud.”
The IVT rate in TCCs was 0.82% in the first six months of 2023, according to the survey, which was lower than the 0.98% rate reported in the previous year’s study. In Non-Certified Channels (NCCs), where just one entity was certified, the IVT rate was 46% higher, at 1.19%.
Annual Summary of US Fraud Benchmark Reports
The 614 Group performed the 2023 benchmark study, which included interviews with leaders from major agency-holding firms to provide more first-hand context and information. The following are some of the conclusions from those qualitative interviews:
- Agency executives verified that their clients utilize the sub-1% benchmark as a success metric and that it is contained in their contracts. They also stated that they shared the TAG US Fraud Benchmark Report with around 1,500 of their clients from significant holding companies in order to increase participation and assist with planning.
- The industry surrounding Made for Advertising (MFA) sites, according to interviewees, still has to do a lot of work, especially on definitions and measurement, to identify reputable publishers from bad ones.
- Agencies are also focused on the opportunities and risks associated with the rapid use of AI. While several emphasized that it was too early to forecast the entire impact of AI, there was general agreement that greater education was needed for agency executives and that the technology has significant potential for both good and bad.
TAG also announced that the 2024 TAG US Fraud Benchmark Report will conduct a deeper investigation of IVT rates among the industry’s key Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) to provide a more holistic view of IVT both at the endpoint of the agency buy and upstream in the supply chain.
“It’s a truism in research that where you measure matters, and we suspect that may prove true when measuring fraud in the digital advertising supply chain,” said Rachel Nyswander Thomas, chief executive officer of TAG. “One would assume that there is more fraud or IVT as one moves downstream in the supply chain towards publishers and SSPs due to fewer rounds of filtration, and the rate decreases upstream with buyers as campaigns are filtered through MRC-accredited vendors and platforms in TAG Certified Channels, but this issue has not been thoroughly investigated or quantified to date.” TAG plans to verify this hypothesis in 2024 to investigate if – and how much – IVT varies at different points in the supply chain.”
“Over the last seven years, we’ve seen tremendous progress on both the quantitative and qualitative fronts in our research,” said Rob Rasko, CEO of The 614 Group. “In 2023, we saw a significant increase in the amount of data reviewed overall and specifically, given our first foray into China earlier in the year.” As a result of the “where you measure matters” campaign, more data and new partners will be added to the mix, and I am happy to give even more detailed results and viewpoints on the levels of IVT throughout the supply chain.”
To counteract illegitimate traffic in the digital advertising supply chain, the TAG Certified Against Fraud Programme was introduced in 2016. Companies that demonstrate compliance with the Certified Against Fraud Guidelines are awarded the Certified Against Fraud Seal, which they can use to publicly indicate their commitment to fraud prevention.