Australia sees the highest ad fraud rate on desktop video globally, which more than tripled to reach 2.4% in H1 2021

Australia registers the world’s highest desktop video ad completion at 78.3% and lowest drop-off rates

SYDNEY, 19 October 2021: Today, Integral Ad Science (Nasdaq: IAS), a global leader in digital media quality, released its Media Quality Report (MQR) for H1 2021, providing transparency into the performance and quality of Australian digital media, alongside global comparisons. The latest MQR highlights brand safety, ad fraud, and viewability trends across display, video, mobile web, and in-app advertising. 

Key highlights from the report include:

Brand risk decreased for display but increased in publisher direct bought video inventory

Brand risk worldwide was lower across all formats and environments in H1 2021, an indicator of brands’ increased efforts to optimise ad placements toward contextually relevant content. The worldwide brand risk dropped below 4% across all formats and environments. In Australia, display was the safest format, with an average brand risk of 1.8% on desktop and 2% in mobile web environments in H1 2021. 

Video impressions witnessed increased brand risk in Australia. Advertisers aligned with the increased video consumption and video ad impression volumes as a result of consumer stay-at-home behaviors. The programmatic video proved to be safer, given the increased control provided to traders. For desktop video, publisher direct inventory saw a significantly higher brand risk of 5.3% as compared to 1.7% on programmatically traded inventory. For mobile web video, publisher direct inventory had a brand risk of 4.5% compared to 1.8% for programmatic inventory. Brand risk has been on a steady decline in New Zealand after peaking in H2 2019.

Jessica Miles, Country Manager ANZ at IAS, said, “Video advertising has gained strong traction among Australian advertisers as consumers continue to spend more time engaging with video content. According to the IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report for June 2021, video experienced 73% growth compared to the same quarter last year and now dominates the market with a 55% market share. Traders of programmatic video are reaping the benefits of increased control, generating far lower risk and fraud rates across their investments through optimisation strategies such as pre-bid targeting. As video consumption increases underpinned by the rapid growth of connected TV (CTV), the control and scale provided by programmatic will become even more essential. As technology evolves, programmatic will not only facilitate investment into quality impressions but also drive value beyond verification with privacy-compliant, contextual avoidance, and targeting combined with enriched channel-level insights.”

Australia has the highest ad fraud on desktop video globally

Key markets across all regions drove up the average optimised-against-ad-fraud level for desktop video impressions. In Australia, the rate more than tripled from 0.7% in H1 2020 to 2.4% in H1 2021; this increase was driven by a spike in fraud activity targeting publisher direct video inventory that pushed ad fraud rates to 4.4%, up from 0.7% a year earlier. The worldwide average was 1%. Comparatively, programmatic drove greater efficiency generating a fraud rate of 1.6%. The average non-optmised ad fraud rate worldwide on desktop video was 7.2%.

Video viewability levels increase in Australia

Video viewability levels were up across all environments and nearly all markets worldwide. Connected TV (CTV) remained the most viewable format overall, reaching 93.2% in H1 2021.

Desktop video viewability rose 1.8 percentage points (pp) to reach 77% worldwide, with Australia showing a 2.2 pp annual improvement to register at 79.1%, the second-highest globally after Italy (85.1%). Australia reported an increase of 3.8 percentage points annual improvement for mobile web video at 74.1%, while the worldwide average stood at 79%.

Australia registered the highest desktop video ad completion rates

On average, 91.4% of viewable desktop video ads worldwide were watched through the first quartile (the first 25% of the video ad) in H1 2021, with 78.3% of these impressions remaining viewable through completion. Australia registered the highest desktop video ad completion rates, as well as the largest drop-off (-10pp) of any market worldwide. By contrast, the U.S. registered the lowest video ad completion rate of 90.1% for the first quartile, with a 13.6pp drop-off to average 76.5% full ad completions during the same period.

About Integral Ad Science

Integral Ad Science (IAS) is a global leader in digital media quality. IAS makes every impression count, ensuring that ads are viewable by real people in safe and suitable environments, activating contextual targeting, and driving supply path optimization. Our mission is to be the global benchmark for trust and transparency in digital media quality for the world’s leading brands, publishers, and platforms. We do this through data-driven technologies with actionable real-time signals and insight. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in New York, IAS works with thousands of top advertisers and premium publishers worldwide. For more information, visit www.integralads.com.