Following on from its Refresh launch last week, IAB Australia has released the first tranche of its Invalid Traffic (IVT) Benchmarks and outlined recommendations to help advertisers optimise their media inventory quality.

The report emphasises the importance for advertisers and agencies to use accredited third party Invalid Traffic (IVT) measurement services to monitor inventory quality.  It also recommends vendors are used to access human traffic; and encourages media owners to discuss the issue with their ad-serving vendors.

The IVT Benchmarks data, which was collected by PwC from third party measurement vendors including Comscore, Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Moat, indicates that over 96 per cent of all Australia inventory in November 2016 was valid human traffic.  The data showed 3.7 per cent invalid traffic was reported on desktops and 3.8 per cent on mobiles.

The IVT Benchmarks will be published twice a year to track changes in market.  Data from other vendors who have been accredited by the Media Ratings Council (MRC) may also be added to future reports

IAB Australia has committed to providing independent data on key issues impacting the digital advertising industry.   The release of the IVT Benchmarks follows on from the first IAB Australia Ad Blocking Study released in October 2016 and the Australian Viewability Benchmarks and white paper which were released in December 2016.

Jonas Jaanimagi, IAB Executive Consultant  said “Invalid traffic is certainly not a new  phenomenon but as a result of the sophistication of those actively attempting to mimic human behaviours online the IAB will be regularly providing relevant market updates for Australia, as well as generally advising members to review the related filtering capabilities with their technology vendors.”

Invalid traffic does not automatically indicate ad-fraud.  While ad fraud is considered a component of invalid traffic, the traffic can include general invalid traffic such as bots, spiders, crawlers and other routine means of filtration; as well as sophisticated in valid traffic such as hijacked devices, ad tags or creative, malware and misappropriated content.

Vendors or advertisers interested in further information should contact the IAB Executive Technology Council lead, Jonas Jaanimagi.