Tappx teams with Pixalate for industry-first OTT fraud solution

As interest in connected TV (CTV)/over-the-top (OTT) advertising grows, so does the risk of ad fraud in this growing market. To combat this risk — and potentially save advertisers big money on their ad spend — Tappx and Pixalate have unveiled an OTT fraud solution that it says is an industry-first.

OTT refers to content delivered via the internet through a device such as Roku or a service such as Netflix. OTT advertising spend is skyrocketing —  last fall, Magna forecasted OTT ad spend to jump 40 percent in 2018 to $2 billion.

There’s fraud in OTT? As OTT evolves, so have smaller content platforms and apps proliferated, creating a fragmented ecoystem with fewer standards in place, leaving those involved vulnerable to fraud.

“Higher CPMs, a decentralized app ecosystem, a lack of widely-adopted industry standards and other factors have turned the OTT/CTV landscape into a hotbed for ad fraud,” said Fernando Saiz, CMO at Tappx. “As of Q3 2018, Pixalate measures OTT traffic across over 55 million OTT device IDs monthly. Pixalate data is showing global OTT fraud rates averaging 19 percent, with U.S. OTT fraud rates close (18 percent). This leads to the forecast that marketers may lose up to $10 billion annually in OTT spend by 2020.”

OTT ad fraud can escape detection. Saiz said that while OTT fraudsters use similar techniques as they do on desktop and mobile, OTT schemes have a much greater chance of avoiding detection due to the spotty adoption of OTT-specific IVT detection solutions, central app repositories with quality assurance processes and standard naming conventions for app/bundle IDs.

Why you should care. As OTT advertising opportunities scale, advertisers worry about access to inventory and transparency in the process. Ad fraud is also an inevitable byproduct, but solutions that help mitigate it will do a lot to allay advertisers’ fears and give them the peace of mind they need to explore the full potential of the medium.

“The importance of trust and transparency, combined with the ability to control anti-fraudulent activities, directly correlates to a ‘maximum priority’ for advertising and content service providers,” said José Manuel González Pacheco, advanced TV & audio advertising strategist at Tappx. “Pixalate has helped Tappx implement strategies that reduced IVT by blocking fraudulent apps and increasing app scale.”

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About The Author

Robin Kurzer

Robin Kurzer started her career as a daily newspaper reporter in Milford, Connecticut. She then made her mark on the advertising and marketing world in Chicago at agencies such as Tribal DDB and Razorfish, creating award-winning work for many major brands. For the past seven years, she’s worked as a freelance writer and communications professional across a variety of business sectors.