Commentary

Google AdX Leads RTB 'Trust Index' To Begin 2015

In its second edition of the “Global Seller Trust Index” -- and the first of 2015 -- analytics platform Pixalate has deemed the Google AdExchange to be the most trustworthy seller in programmatic. Google AdX led the inaugural “Trust Index” as well.

The “Trust Index” ranks 400 sellers by quality of ads sold via real-time bidding (RTB), based on network score, quality of inventory, viewability rates, fraud rates, engagement rates and masking.

Google AdX landed an overall score of 95, followed by OpenX (93), Rubicon Project (92), Q1Media (87) and Centro Brand Exchange (87). To clarify, all seller scores were normalized on a scale of 1-99. In other words, 95 does not indicate 95% trustworthiness -- it indicates their score relative to peers.

The top five companies are the same in this edition as they were in the first, but others in the top 20 changed.

Social Game Media jumped from 11th to 8th, while Zedo went from 16th to 10th. LinkedIn Network Display ranked 9th after not being in the top 20 last month. Similarly, Sovrn checked in at 13th this month after not being in the top 20 last month.

OpenX was tops among all companies in terms of fraud prevention, followed closely by Google AdX, Collective Exchange, Microsoft AdExchange and Criteo.

Google AdX tied with LinkedIn for best viewability score. That does not speak well of the state of viewability for the industry as a whole, however, as Google last month noted that over half (56.1%) of the impressions served on its display platforms are not viewable.

“What we are seeing is a paradigm shift to a quality-based standard,” stated Jalal Nasir, founder and CEO of Pixalate. “Quantity-based metrics -- such as reach, for instance -- tell brands a limited story. We believe that full transparency will bring trust to our industry.”

See the top 20 sellers below. The full report can be found here.

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