SANTA MONICA, CA - (Sept. 22, 2015) - Pixalate, the leader in fraud protection and data intelligence, today announced the launch of the industry's first monthly in-app mobile Seller Trust Index (MSTI). With the new MSTI, Pixalate is providing clarity on how supply quality in mobile should be evaluated based on factors including legitimate inventory, fraud, transparency and location. The top ten sellers for the month of August include Amobee, Rubicon Project, Big Mobile Group, Millennial Media Exchange, OpenX, Airpush, Marketplace, Google AdExchange, Nexage Inc., and InMobi.
The MSTI evaluates 125 supply-side platforms with in-app mobile inventory based on analysis of more than five billion impressions to determine the reputation:
To download the full index, please visit: http://www.pixalate.com/sellertrustindex/mobile
Measuring quality for in-app mobile ad inventory poses challenges for buyers and sellers due to lack of standardized quality measurement. As spend on mobile advertising, especially in-app mobile ads, continues to grow, transparency of legitimate inventory is also worsening. This year, mobile ad spending in the United States will reach nearly $29 billion and account for 49 percent of overall digital ad spend, according to eMarketer. Today’s marketers are challenged especially with in-app mobile ads, which represents more than 70 percent of the overall mobile advertising industry. While Pixalate introduced the monthly Global Seller Trust Index for display and mobile web advertising in December 2014, the company is now introducing the MSTI to provide an index based on factors specific in-app mobile ads.
“Supply quality measurement in-app mobile ads has become a minefield for buyers. Our study revealed that more than 38 percent of in-app mobile ad inventory is fraudulent leaving buyers in the dark on which ad exchanges are trustworthy,” said Jalal Nasir, CEO, Pixalate. “We are very pleased to announce the Mobile Seller Trust Index to help the industry address this problem. The new ground-breaking index will help level the playing field for mobile ad buyers, who want verified data on how each ad platform ranks based on factors such as location and non-human traffic data.”
Other Key Observations
In addition to ranking the trustworthiness of seller-side ad platforms, Pixalate identified four key issues pertaining to the quality of in-app mobile ads:
● 10 Sellers Hold Lion’s Share of In-app Mobile Inventory: Of the 120 seller-side in-app mobile ad platforms evaluated, 10 sellers own more than 80 percent of the inventory, which equates less than seven percent of sellers.
● Device ID Missing: More than 50 percent of the in-app mobile ad inventory on exchanges did not offer device ID information.
● Lack of Hyper Location Data: While location is becoming an increasingly critical for in-app mobile advertising, the study found only 30 percent of inventory included location data and only 18 percent (or 60 percent of those with location data) provided accurate location.
● Fraud Originating from Data Centers: More than one-third of mobile in-app fraud comes from data centers indicating that there are hosted machines running highly customized mobile app simulators.
“While I’m pleased with our industry’s progress in fighting desktop fraud, mobile and video remain areas we need to be all the more vigilant,” says Jay Friedman, COO at Goodway Group. “Pixalate has the best fraud ratings and alert system we’ve seen and their entrance into the mobile ecosystem – especially in-app – strengthens our confidence about the ability to limit ourselves to quality mobile ad environments.”
“The integrity of mobile in-app inventory, data quality and accuracy is imperative,” says Rujul Patel, senior vice president of global publisher solutions at Amobee. “MSTI is a positive step forward for our industry that needs to operate with transparency and accountability to guarantee an optimal way to reach consumers on mobile.”
Methodology
Seller Ratings are based upon a weighted analysis and scoring of overall effectiveness assessing reach, fraud, transparency and location.
● Reach: Number of unique users available on seller’s platform.
● General Invalid Traffic (GIVT): General Invalid Traffic as defined by the Media Rating Council (MRC) guidelines such as data-center traffic, bots and spiders or other crawlers masquerading as legitimate users.
● Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT): Sophisticated Invalid Traffic as defined by the (MRC) guidelines such as hijacked devices, URL spoofing or falsely represented impressions.
● Transparency: Availability of device and user information, for instance a seller with high percentage of device identifier will score high on this scale.
● Location: Availability and precision of location data. A seller with accurate location information for most impressions will score high on this scale.
The Mobile Seller Trust Index is an independent industry rating based on data collected by Pixalate on the mobile in-app ad marketplace. Pixalate does not endorse any specific vendor or service ranked in the Index and is not responsible for exchange data. Rating scores are normalized to a range of 0-99. To learn more about the methodology and to download the free industry whitepaper, visit http://www.pixalate.com/sellertrustindex/mobile.
DISCLAIMER:
Pixalate's Seller Trust Indexes present ratings and rankings of programmatic advertising firms according to a number of categories. The categories reflect Pixalate's opinions with respect to the factors that Pixalate believes will be useful to purchasers of media inventory in making their purchasing decisions, and that will be of value to the advertising firms themselves. The scores or ratings in each category reflect Pixalate’s opinions regarding the performance of each company with respect to a particular category. The rankings reflect Pixalate's opinions regarding the relative performance of each firm with respect to the categories. Pixalate's opinions are just that – opinions, not facts or guarantees – but they are grounded in its proprietary technology and analytics, which Pixalate is continuously evaluating and updating.
ABOUT PIXALATE
Pixalate, Inc. is a leading global intelligence platform and real time-fraud protection provider. Pixalate is a Media Rating Council accredited vendor for display ad viewability. For more information, please visit http://www.pixalate.com.
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Press Contact:
Kristen Evans
10Fold for Pixalate
pixalate@10fold.com
(925) 523-8020
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Disclaimer: The content of this page reflects Pixalate’s opinions with respect to the factors that Pixalate believes can be useful to the digital media industry. Any proprietary data shared is grounded in Pixalate’s proprietary technology and analytics, which Pixalate is continuously evaluating and updating. Any references to outside sources should not be construed as endorsements. Pixalate’s opinions are just that - opinion, not facts or guarantees.
Per the MRC, “'Fraud' is not intended to represent fraud as defined in various laws, statutes and ordinances or as conventionally used in U.S. Court or other legal proceedings, but rather a custom definition strictly for advertising measurement purposes. Also per the MRC, “‘Invalid Traffic’ is defined generally as traffic that does not meet certain ad serving quality or completeness criteria, or otherwise does not represent legitimate ad traffic that should be included in measurement counts. Among the reasons why ad traffic may be deemed invalid is it is a result of non-human traffic (spiders, bots, etc.), or activity designed to produce fraudulent traffic.”
