• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 28, 2024

The programmatic ecosystem is far from secure, judging by a new study from Pixalate: The Programmatic Ad Seller Misrepresentation Report: Web Traffic. 

Of all ad traffic containing the SupplyChain Object (SCO), 11% failed Pixalate’s SCO verification in Q3 because of unauthorized sellers. 

Moreover, “5% of all desktop and mobile web open programmatic ad impressions are sold by unauthorized ‘direct’ sellers,” the study states,

And, 94% of invalid traffic (IVT), including ad fraud, involved an unauthorized direct seller. 

What all this means is that the digital advertising ecosystem is vulnerable to unauthorized selling despite ads.txt, the tool meant to enable buyers to check whether sellers are authorized by the publisher. 

The findings prove a “critical need for stricter enforcement of ads.txt and SCO verification checks,” the study argues. 

And, they challenge the industry assumption that ads.txt has "secured" digital advertising, it continues. 

In addition to the 11% that failed, 63% of the traffic was verified and 25% suffered other verification failure.  

Pixalate's data science team analyzed 9 billion open programmatic ad impressions containing the OpenRTB SCO during Q3 2024, the study says.  

In addition, the analysis includes “a set of SCO verification checks as defined by Pixalate, utilizing IAB Tech Lab’s ads.txt/app-ads.txt standards, along with SCO data from the OpenRTB bid stream.”