Digital TV ‘the next battleground’ for advertising fraud

The contentious issue of advertisers losing money to fraud will become more prevalent across digital TV, a new report has revealed.

According to a new study from Juniper Research, entitled ‘The Impact of AI for Digital Advertisers’, spend on advertising over OTT TV services will exceed US$42 billion (€37.5 billion) by 2023. This represents a significant rise from US$28 billion (€25 billion) in 2019.

However, the report found that a lack of standardisation amongst OTT TV services leaves advertisers exposed to increased levels of fraud by simplifying the process needed to spoof advertising networks via connected TVs.

Research author Sam Barker said: “OTT TV service providers must address the issue of advertising fraud if they wish to attract high value advertisers to their platforms. These players must prove the value of advertising on their services by minimising exposure to ad fraud through the adoption of fraud detection and mitigation solutions specific to OTT TV solutions”.

The study also points out that, overall, advertisers will lose US$42 billion (€37.5 billion) of ad spend globally this year to fraudulent activities committed via online, mobile and in-app advertising. This is a 21% increase from the US$35 billion (€31.3 billion) lost to advertising fraud in 2018. This growth will be driven by increasingly sophisticated techniques being implemented by fraudsters.

It also found that advertisers’ total loss to fraud will rise to US$100 billion (€89 billion) by 2023.