Pixalate’s Global Q4 2023 SupplyChain Object (SCO) Validation Report: 25% of Open Programmatic Traffic Fails to Meet Validation

According to Pixalate’s research, traffic on SupplyChain Object (SCO) that fails Pixalate's validation check has a 64% higher invalid traffic (IVT) rate, including ad fraud

LONDON, UK, 21 February 2024 -- Pixalate, the global market-leading ad fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform, today released the Q4 SupplyChain Object (SCO) Validation Report. The analysis contains insights from Pixalate’s OpenRTB SCO validation process, which examines programmatic advertising supply paths across Connected TV (CTV), mobile apps, desktop as well as mobile web and measures Invalid Traffic (IVT) rates, including ad fraud, across all the supply paths analyzed. 

SCO enables buyers and intermediaries to view all parties selling or reselling open programmatic advertising inventory. Numerous partners are often involved in open programmatic supply paths, which causes fragmentation and makes the ecosystem vulnerable to ad fraud attacks. Pixalate's latest report benchmarks the state of supply paths and brings transparency on managing risks within the programmatic supply chain.

Key Findings:

• 25% of traffic with SCO in Q4 2023 did not pass Pixalate’s validation check
• Traffic with SCO that did not pass Pixalate's validation check had an IVT rate that was 64% higher
• 34% market share decrease in SCOs marked as ‘incomplete’ from Q1 to Q4 2023
• 32% market share increase in SCOs that do not pass validation from Q1 to Q4 2023
• SCOs with longer chains (3 nodes of more) had an average IVT rate that was 80% higher compared to shorter chains (1-2 nodes)
  
  

“Our latest SCO report highlights the importance of transparency in the supply chain and the need for vigilance when depending on SCO,” said Amit Shetty, the VP of Product at Pixalate. “Our research found that 25% of traffic with SCO in Q4 2023 did not pass our validation check, demonstrating the need to perform further validation and ensure that all the sellers involved are approved by the publisher.”

Pixalate’s SCO validation process evaluates whether the supply path legitimately originated from a publisher and whether that publisher has a direct relationship with the first seller in the supply chain. Pixalate performs this validation by utilizing IAB Tech Lab’s ads.txt and sellers.json standards, along with SCO data from the OpenRTB bid stream. 

Explore the complete Q4 2023 SupplyChain Object (SCO) Validation Report:

About Pixalate

Pixalate is a global market-leading ad fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform. Pixalate works 24/7 to guard your reputation and grow your media value by offering the only system of coordinated solutions across display, app, video, and CTV for the detection and elimination of ad fraud. Pixalate is an MRC-accredited service for the detection and filtration of sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) across desktop and mobile web, mobile in-app, and CTV advertising. www.pixalate.com

Disclaimer

The content of this press release, and the SupplyChain Object Validation Report (the “Report”), reflect Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes can be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate's opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees. Pixalate is sharing this data not to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but, instead, to report findings and trends pertaining to programmatic advertising activity across mobile apps in the time period studied.