Brand risk has dropped across the board, as advertisers enter their final preparations for life after cookies.
That’s according to Integral Ad Science (IAS), which has released its Media Quality Report for H1 2021. The report, which analysed trillions of data events from around the world, found that brand risk was lower across all formats and environments for H1 2021.
This was a reflection of advertiser’s increased efforts to optimise ad placements toward contextually relevant content, says IAS.
The worldwide brand risk dropped below 4 per cent across all formats and environments.
In Australia, display was the safest format, with an average brand risk of 1.8 per cent on desktop and 2 per cent in mobile web environments in H1 2021.
However, the report highlights a key vulnerability in the Australian market, with the highest ad fraud on desktop video globally.
In Australia, the average optimised-against-ad-fraud level for desktop video impressions more than tripled from 0.7 per cent in H1 2020 to 2.4 per cent 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 per cent, up from 0.7 per cent a year earlier. The worldwide average was 1 per cent.
Australia also registered the highest desktop video ad completion rates, as well as the largest drop-off (-10pp) of any market worldwide.
Jessica Miles, Country Manager ANZ at IAS [pictured], 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 per cent growth compared to the same quarter last year and now dominates the market with a 55 per cent 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.”
