Where digital advertising spend goes, fraudsters often attempt to follow. This has been seen with the rise of Connected TV (CTV), which represents one of the biggest opportunities for advertisers to reach TV consumers in an increasingly targeted way. Along with this increase in spend, DoubleVerify estimates a 69% rise in CTV ad fraud in 2022. With further growth of the Connected TV ad market predicted to more than double from around £800m in 2021 to over £1.8b by 2026, our ability to counter ad fraud must also grow to raise the credibility of advertising across CTV.
Why CTV is so vulnerable to ad fraud
The fragmented nature of the CTV landscape offers a unique opportunity for fraudsters, allowing several points for ad fraud to occur in the process of serving a single impression. Impressions delivered across CTV environments often go through several layers and take different paths from advertisers through providers and finally to users. This limits the transparency of each impression served and makes it more complicated to verify impressions. Furthermore, device spoofing fraud means that other smart devices, such as smart fridges and watches, can impersonate CTV devices, making it difficult to prove whether CTV ads are really being served on CTV.
Using existing tools to combat ad fraud
At the7stars, we take several precautions to mitigate the risk of CTV ad fraud by implementing common-sense brand safety initiatives. This includes working with reputable suppliers and collaborating with ad verification partners to verify CTV ads whenever possible.
We can go a step further by ensuring that our CTV suppliers comply with IAB standards on supply chain transparency to ensure that every impression is accounted for. Collaborating with CTV providers that own their inventory mitigates the risk of CTV ad fraud, reducing the number of paths and layers that any given impression must travel to be delivered.
Remaining challenges to verifying impressions across CTV
Nevertheless, there is still progress to be made before we can safeguard CTV advertising against the risk of ad fraud. Stronger integration between CTV providers and ad verification companies can help bridge the existing gap, allowing fresh solutions to come forward and making trading CTV inventory more transparent. Further technological upgrades to reduce device spoofing across CTV devices will make it more difficult for other smart devices to impersonate CTV devices.
While we are utilizing existing solutions that can help mitigate the risk of ad fraud across CTV inventory, further improvement in ad verification technology is required to verify CTV ads as the market continues to expand. Connected TV is a great opportunity to combine TV advertising with a personalized, data-driven approach, and as advertisers, we must take the necessary steps to ensure that our brands can continue to utilize this space in the most effective way possible.
