Published on February 28th, 2023 📆 | 2881 Views ⚑
0Our commitment to fighting invalid traffic on Connected TV
Connected TV (CTV) has not only transformed the entertainment world, it has also created a vibrant new platform for digital advertising. However, as with any innovative space, there are challenges that arise, including the emergence of bad actors aiming to siphon money away from advertisers and publishers through fraudulent or invalid ad traffic. Invalid traffic is an evolving challenge that has the potential to affect the integrity and health of digital advertising on CTV. However, there are steps the industry can take to combat invalid traffic and foster a clean, trustworthy, and sustainable ecosystem.
Information sharing and following best practices
Every player across the digital advertising ecosystem has the opportunity to help reduce the risk of CTV ad fraud. It starts by spreading awareness across the industry and building a commitment among partners to share best practices for defending against invalid traffic. Greater transparency and communication are crucial to creating lasting solutions.
Collaborating on standards and solutions
But more work is needed. Players across the digital advertising ecosystem need to continue to build momentum through opportunities and initiatives that enable further collaboration on solutions.
Our ongoing investment in invalid traffic defenses
At Google, we’ve been defending our ad systems against invalid traffic for nearly two decades. By striking the right balance between automation and human expertise, we’ve developed a comprehensive set of measures to respond to threats like botnets, click farms, domain misrepresentation, and more. We’re now applying a similar approach to minimize the risk of CTV ad fraud, balancing innovation with tried-and-true technologies.
We’ve developed a machine learning platform built on TensorFlow, which has enabled us to expand the amount of inventory we can review and scale our defenses against invalid traffic to include additional surfaces, such as CTV. While machine learning has allowed us to better analyze ad traffic in new and diverse ways, we’ve also continued to leverage the work of research analysts and industry experts to ensure our automated enforcement systems are running effectively on CTV.
In addition to setting up new defenses for CTV, we’re also taking a more conservative approach with the CTV inventory we make available. This ensures that we aren’t exposing advertisers to unnecessary risk while CTV standards and best practices continue to evolve and mature, and while their adoption by the industry increases.
Evolving and adapting
We know that bad actors continuously evolve and adapt their methods to evade detection and enforcement of our policies. The tactics behind invalid traffic and ad fraud will inevitably become more sophisticated with the growth of CTV. However, if the industry pulls together, we’ll be in a better position to not only address these new threats head on, but stay one step ahead of them while building a CTV advertising ecosystem that is safe and sustainable for everyone.
Gloss