• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, February 11, 2016

Integral Ad Science released its Q4 2015 Media Quality Report on Thursday and found a sharp improvement in media quality in digital advertising over the course of 2015. In fact, the amount of purchased fraudulent inventory decreased all four quarters of 2015.

Programmatic display inventory had the largest change, with a 33.3% decrease in fraud, while display inventory sourced directly through publishers saw a 25% decrease in fraud. Video fraud decreased 28.6%. The steady decrease throughout the year indicates an increased effort across the industry to implement fraud prevention technology.

Where viewability is concerned, the report found positive movement. Display inventory sourced directly from publishers saw the greatest improvement, increasing from 46.3% in the third quarter to 53.7% in the fourth quarter. Viewability sourced through networks and exchanges increased from 39.8% to 41.5%.

The overall significance and implications of the subtle changes from the third to the fourth quarter may be attributed, in part, to a digital advertising ecosystem that’s evolving into a cleaner and more transparent environment.

“While there still is fraudulent activity online -- and that is not likely to go away anytime soon -- we care more about the quality of media and are becoming smarter in how we buy and sell media. Deploying more sophisticated habits is leading to transacting on less and less fraud over time, as the trends from 2015 indicate,” Kiril Tsemekhman, Integral Ad Science’s senior vice president and chief data officer, explained to Real-Time Daily via email.

"The steady decrease throughout the year indicates an increased effort across the industry to implement fraud prevention technology that helps provide a cleaner ecosystem,” Tsemekhman explained.