TAG Certified Channels Have Under One Percent Ad Fraud in Germany

Mike Zaneis, CEO of TAG

Tackling fraud is one of the digital advertising industry's greatest challenges. As brands continue to invest in digital channels, they want to ensure that they do not give a portion of their ad campaign money to criminals who generate ad impressions that are never seen by real people. The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) – a cross industry self-regulatory organization – was established to tackle this very issue, as well other areas of criminal activity in the digital advertising supply chain, such as malware and piracy.

Today (Thursday September 12, 2019) at DMEXCO in Cologne, Germany, TAG publishes a report, compiled by The 614 Group, which finds that digital advertising fraud in the German market is under one per cent when using TAG Certified Channels (i.e. when advertisers buy through companies that are meeting the obligations of TAG's Certified Against Fraud standard, explicitly supported by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) in its Global Media Charter). 

The TAG figure is significantly lower than other industry statistics reporting the state of ad fraud in the German market, such as the broader IVT rate measured by Oracle Data Cloud’s Moat Analytics[1], an anti-fraud vendor, demonstrating the effectiveness of the TAG anti-fraud standard in the German market.

The new report - published specifically for the German market and analyzing over four billion impressions in the first half of 2019 - builds on previous research by The 614 Group which has found that the TAG standards are effective in reducing ad fraud in Europe and the US. In January 2019, a study of the largest digital advertising European markets (UK, Germany, France, The Netherlands and Italy) found that there was a dramatic reduction in fraud rates across these markets from an industry average of 8.99 percent to just 0.53 percent when companies adopted TAG’s Anti-Fraud Standards. And research in the US found that fraud rates were held to less than two per cent in TAG Certified Channels in both 2017 and 2018, stopping the flow of money to criminals who profit from it.

In detail this snapshot finds that:

• The Invalid Traffic (IVT)* rate on media within TAG Certified Channels, measured across all media channels (Desktop, Mobile and Video), was 66 per cent, compared with 2.37 per cent as reported by Oracle Data Cloud’s Moat Analytics, a Media Rating Council (MRC) accredited vendor, a significant reduction of 72%[2].
• The IVT rate on media within TAG Certified Channels, aggregated across Desktop Display Media only, was 05 per cent – an 86 per cent reduction on the industry rate measured by Moat Analytics (14.21%)[3].

TAG will be speaking more about the new report and discussing the issue with industry leaders at DMEXCO at 11am CET on Thursday 12 September. Please see here for event details.

For further information about TAG and its self-regulatory standards please contact info@tagtoday.net.

* Combined Sophisticated and General Invalid Traffic (SIVT / GIVT) Fraud Rates.

[1] Oracle Data Cloud's Moat Analytics IVT measurement data from January to June 2019, provided to TAG/614 Group. Measured IVT rates include both General Invalid Traffic (GIVGT) and Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT). For additional Oracle benchmarks see: https://blogs.oracle.com/oracledatacloud/how-much-ad-traffic-is-invalid-moat-quarterly-benchmarks-break-it-down.