TAG study sees progress in limiting invalid traffic, including in China

Source: The fourth 2023 Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) Asia Pacific Fraud Snapshot is an annual analysis of fraud in APAC markets. Conducted by The 614 Group, the study measured invalid traffic (IVT) rates in TAG Certified Channels by analysing 183 billion ad impressions from January to December 2022 from three of the largest advertising agency holding companies across Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. 
 
Key findings

• There is sustained industry success in holding IVT under the industry target of 1% in TAG Certified Channels, where multiple supply chain participants have adopted high anti-fraud standards. 
• There is 0.56% rate for invalid traffic in TAG Certified channels, where multiple entities involved in the transaction, such as the media agency, buy-side platform, sell-side platform, and/or publisher, have achieved the TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal. In Non-Certified Channels (NCC), the rate was more than 66% higher at 0.93%.  
• China had an overall IVT rate of 5.93%, which is approximately 50% lower than the estimated global average of 11.88%, based on published IVT rates from MRC-accredited vendors, including DoubleVerify, Human, Integral Ad Science and Pixalate. 
• The China analysis included 1.66 trillion ad impressions provided by measurement vendors in China. The impression data submitted reflects only the Chinese customers participating in these four companies’ monitoring businesses and therefore not the entire market.  

More from this source:

• In addition to the data analysis, the 2023 TAG APAC Fraud Snapshot also included qualitative research based on interviews with senior executives at Publicis Groupe, Omnicom Media Group, GroupM, and DoubleVerify. 
• The interviews found the costs for fraud detection may still be seen as too high in some APAC markets, given the low CPM rates and the substantial premium for low-fraud inventory in those markets. 
• Advertisers and their consultants in APAC markets are increasingly asking for hard metrics around fraud and IVT, including estimates and even guarantees during the pitch process to hire an agency. 
• Some brand advertisers have an expectation that their agencies are already buying low-fraud inventory, when the agency may still be purchasing lower-cost and lower-quality inventory.