• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, December 7, 2016

Pixalate, a provider of ad fraud protection and data insights, on Wednesday launched a cross-platform rating system for video advertising dubbed Video Seller Trust Index (VSTI). In releasing the findings from its new (VSTI), Pixalate found that 44% of programmatic TV inventory is invalid, exposing advertisers to a high risk of ad fraud.

VSTI, which will cover desktop video advertising, joins Pixalate’s Global Seller Trust Index (GSTI) and Mobile Seller Trust Index (MSTI), an in-app rating standard for programmatic advertising.

Then new system will track the movement of video advertising spend from traditional direct channels to programmatic sellers, allowing advertisers to plan their campaign spend on platforms optimized for both inventory quality and cross-screen audience reach. The VSTI  which covers October 2016 benchmarks, presently offers just U.S. data, but will expand to international market data early next year.

Pixalate said its VSTI evaluates nearly 200 distinct per-impression metrics based on an analysis of more than 100 billion impressions to determine reputation. It determines seller quality ratings by machine-learning to analyze and score sellers for overall effectiveness assessing fraud, as well as metrics including comparative Gross Rating Points (GRPs), reach, player size, and engagement in compliance with recognized industry standards.

Pixalate described its new metrics in the following way:

xGRP: The xGRP formula, which has a cross-screen focus, builds on the traditional GRP standard by capturing the potential of an ad to reach the largest possible volume of users as distributed by device and through a specific  programmatic seller, with one common metric.

xReach: This cross-screen measurement focuses on a seller’s ability to capture an advertiser’s desired audiences across multiple video platforms as a percentage of the total available population.

Player Size: This metric is based on the percentage of large player (480 x 320 and higher), mid-player (301 x 251 to 479 x 319), and small player (300 x 250 and smaller) video content optimized for device and screen size using industry standard sizes for each player class.

Engagement: This metric is based on user interaction with video content as measured by user interaction and other relevant video session data.

Pixalate noted key observations from the VSTI:

--Invalid traffic rates for connected TV and over-the-top TV (OTT) showed that 44% of all traffic coming from connected TV/OTT devices is invalid. The index found that mobile had the highest rate of invalid traffic at 37%; desktop came in at 35%, and tablet at 32%.

For connected TV/OTT devices, Roku devices had the highest rate of invalid ad impressions (59%), followed by Sony PlayStation (38%), and the Nvidia Shield (31%). The high invalid traffic rates for OTT wasn’t surprising to Pixalate. “While 44% is very high, as the ad dollars flow into OTT, it’s the platform that the perpetrators of ad fraud think is likely to garner the most ad impressions,” said Tony Casson, Pixalate’s director of product strategy.

Among mobile devices, the LG Risio saw the highest ad fraud rates for mobile video at 57%, followed by the ZTE Grand X3 at 56%, and the LG G Stylo also at 56%, according to Pixalate. All three branded mobile devices are specific to Cricket Wireless which tends to target a younger, mobile-first consumer.

--Small player video, which includes desktop and mobile and is considered to be any video player size 300 x 250 and smaller, represented 40% of all video impressions, and its ad fraud rates exceeded 56%. Most of this inventory consisted of in-banner video traffic on desktop, according to Pixalate.

On the new VSTI, SpotX landed in the No. 1 spot with a final score of 90, BrightRoll Exchange was No. 2 with 88, and Tremor Video was No. 3 with 87 in the top 10.

“With the VSTI, you’re seeing more of the long-standing supply-side platforms that have been focusing on video for a while and have amassed a large network of publishers. They know that keeping the system clean is part of their responsibility,” Casson said.

Pixalate is a Media Rating Council-accredited vendor for display ad viewability.