DoubleVerify (DV) has released its 2022 Global Insights Report, analysing media quality and performance trends from more than one trillion impressions delivered across over 2,100 brands in 80 markets.
This fifth-year anniversary report by the software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics, explores how far the industry has come since 2017.
Mark Zagorski, CEO, DoubleVerify, said: “The good news is that verification is working. DV’s first-ever Global Insights Report, published in 2017, reported display viewable rates at 52% and video viewable rates at 59%. Now, they are near or above 70%.
“Additionally we saw brand safety violations decrease for the second year in a row, while the number of fraud schemes we were able to protect our clients from increased. Based on our stats, it is clear that verification technology is making the internet stronger, safer and more secure,” he added.
The report provides a market-by-market analysis for North America, LATAM, EMEA and APAC across video and display impressions measured year-over-year (YoY) from January-December 2021, including desktop and mobile web, mobile app, and connected TV (CTV). Key takeaways from our analysis this year include:
Record Spike in Fraud Schemes, Driven by CTV and Video — The number of fraud schemes uncovered by DV spiked by over 70% year-over-year from 2020 to 2021. This year, an unprecedented number of schemes targeted CTV and video – the most complex and sophisticated of which included OctoBot, SneakyTerra, ViperBot and SmokeScreen. We estimate these schemes alone attempted to steal more than $6-8 million each month from advertisers – and are costing publishers, too. DV estimates show that these CTV schemes alone may have siphoned $140 million from publishers in 2021.
Brand Safety Violations Decrease for 2nd Year in a Row — The post-bid brand suitability violation rate continues to fall, and is now 9% lower than last year for an overall rate of 7.1% – meaning advertisers see brand suitability violation rates decrease as their verification strategy matures. DV also saw momentum for a brand safety and suitability floor. In 2019, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and the 4A’s released the brand safety floor and suitability framework. The brand safety floor identifies topics and content that are considered unsafe and never appropriate for monetisation. Ninety-three percent of the advertisers DV analysed leverage at least one brand safety floor category for avoidance, blocking and or monitoring, and 61% use all floor categories.
Video Ads See Impressive Growth in Attention, Driven by CTV — Video Completion typically refers to the number of times a video plays to the end, often broken up into quartile metrics to indicate levels of video performance and attention (e.g. 25% Complete, 50% Complete, 75% Complete, 100% Complete). DV has seen moderate, steady improvement in quartile-level completion rates for quartiles 1, 2, and 3 over the last three years. However, Video Completion Rate (VCR) has drastically improved from 62% in 2019, to 67% in 2020, to 71% in 2021. This increase is likely due to increased measurement on CTV, where VCR climbed 3% year-over-year and is now at 95.6%.
Post-bid Quality Violations Decline for Second Year — Increased adoption of pre-bid verification is driving declines in post-bid violations (brand safety/suitability, fraud and geo infractions). Pre-bid activation of verification solutions allows advertisers to reduce blocks by evaluating whether a programmatic impression will be brand-suitable, fraud-free, and in geo before the bid takes place. Advertisers deploying pre-bid verification through the media transaction are seeing marked improvement in the quality of their buys, with post-bid violation rates falling 6% year-over-year. Overall, DV advertisers now experience an average of just 10% post-bid violations across all quality measurement criteria.
Experience is Driving More Sophisticated Verification Strategies — The number of years a brand has worked with a verification provider typically equates to greater sophistication and understanding of the value of such verification tools, ultimately resulting in lower violation rates, greater campaign quality, and efficiency. DV found that long-standing verification users are most likely to adopt a wider set of verification tools, preventing fraud and brand suitability infractions before an ad is served. These advanced advertisers saw a 9.4% post-bid violation rate in 2021–6% below the global average and 28% below more recent adopters.
Key findings in Australia include:
• Australia’s post-bid fraud rate is 1.4% – the second highest in APAC, behind Hong Kong (2%).
• Australia brand suitability violations dropped by 17% to a 8.2% violation rate, the third highest in APAC behind New Zealand (9.5%) and Malaysia (8.6%).
• Although comparatively high on a global basis, Australia video viewable rates are down 8% to 72%, the second lowest in APAC, behind Hong Kong (64%).
• Australia display viewable rates are joint-third highest in APAC, up 6% to a display viewable rate of 69%, equal to Indonesia (69%) and behind Malaysia (71%) and Philippines (75%).
Imran Masood, country manager of DoubleVerify, AUNZ, said: “The report demonstrates that actions like pre-bid controls, cleaning up keyword lists and implementing Authentic Brand Suitability targeting is having a real impact on the performance of brand campaigns across Australia and the rest of APAC.”
“We are also seeing the effects of brands and their agencies deploying more sophisticated verification strategies which is driving lower violation rates, greater campaign quality, and efficiency.”
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Top image: Imran Masood