Report: As CTV commands advertiser interest, fraud grows nearly 70%

• Bot fraud on connected TV (CTV) grew 69% year-over-year in 2022, in response to a report from measurement and analytics firm DoubleVerify. 
• The number of CTV schemes detected by the corporate annually has also tripled since 2020. This encroachment follows a surge in advertiser investments within the channel, which became more popular with consumers amid the pandemic-driven shift to streaming.  
• DoubleVerify’s findings follow an upfronts season that is anticipated to see brands and media buyers focus much more on CTV with recent offerings in the marketplace from Netflix, Disney+ and others. 

DoubleVerify’s latest global insights report digs into an unsightly truth that has long dogged digital promoting channels: The greater the recognition, the more likely an area can be targeted by bad actors. A necessity for CTV to scrub up its act could change into pressing because the channel climbs in priority for advertisers, with marquee programming soon making the jump to the streaming arena.

CTV has emerged as a rare shiny spot in an otherwise down ad market. Consumers have expressed a powerful preference for streaming, ditching linear TV in droves. Streaming platforms and traditional networks, meanwhile, have increasingly turned to ad-supported plans as the main target shifts from growth to profitability in an oversaturated market. Netflix last week held its first-ever upfront, though the presentation pivoted to a virtual format on the last minute as a consequence of the entertainment author’s strike. 

Even with investments flowing in and interest on the rise, CTV stays a comparatively immature channel with vulnerabilities that might be off-putting to advertisers which can be watching their budgets closely and looking out to chop down on wasteful spending. 

“[With] growth come growing pains,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify, in a press statement. “As CTV becomes a top channel for consumers and advertisers alike, it also becomes a goal for fraud, making measurement and protection a critical a part of validating the efficacy of campaigns.”

DoubleVerify provides verification and brand safety solutions and used the research to trumpet its products. The firm compared the outcomes of a “protected” campaign to at least one where verification was not in place and located the unprotected campaign experienced fraud rates roughly 18 times higher, or at about 11.2%. The report’s broader findings were based on an evaluation of over 5.5 trillion media transactions conducted by 1,000 DoubleVerify customers across the globe.

While DoubleVerify has a transparent motivation for calling out CTV fraud, it is a subject advertisers can be paying closer attention to as they test the channel’s waters in greater numbers. The upfronts, a media-buying bonanza that has historically been dedicated to linear and broadcast TV deals, has put digital within the highlight in recent times. Well over half of this 12 months’s upfronts market is forecast to be made up of digital media buys, in response to Insider Intelligence. The researcher expects brands will commit $8.66 billion to CTV ads for the present period.