Current Situation
There still exists a lot of fraudulent activity with respect to advertising taking advantage of situations to make false claims or commit identity or financial theft. Topics such as brand safety, suitability, viewability and geotargeting should be carefully managed and protected from fraudulent claims or misuse for monetary gains or threats.
Goals and Objectives
The advertiser verification program comprises a series of steps that advertisers will be required to follow and complete. Under this program, advertisers will be asked to provide basic information about their business and identity. The four core pillars of ad verification are:
Fraudulent activity
Brand safety and suitability
Viewability
Geotargeting
Technology Deployed
Ad verification to verify that the designated attributes of a served ad match the specified terms laid out in the ad campaign settings (e.g., site, geographical, or content parameters) by deploying verification tags, or beacons, along with the ad (inside the ad markup) to analyze the content of the publisher’s page and ensure that the site is appropriate for the ad
Use Case Summary
The ad-verification vendor sends reports back to the advertiser or agency so they can analyze data about placement, performance, and so forth. Typically, the agency/advertiser will have a separate log-in to the ad verification vendor, although some may be more seamlessly integrated with a DSP, for example. The whole point of ad verification is to have a third party that is impartial and can independently verify the delivery of the campaigns.
Ad verification is not meant to prevent suspicious ads from showing altogether, especially since when the ad is displayed, the RTB auction has already happened, but it can help fend off the publishers with low viewability or high-fraud traffic early in the campaign by excluding (or blacklisting) them in the DSP.
The typical use case process is as follows:
A user accesses a website, app, or CTV video stream containing an ad slot.
An ad request is sent to multiple DSPs via SSPs, ad exchanges, and ad networks. In the case of a direct deal between the publisher and advertiser, the ad markup consisting of the ad creative, impression-tracking pixel, and an ad verification code would be configured directly in the publisher’s ad server.
The winning ad (from the DSP that had the highest bid) is sent to the publisher via the ad markup (ad creative, impression-tracking pixel, and an ad verification code).
When the ad loads on the page, the ad verification code collects data about the website and user.
The ad verification vendor then provides the advertiser with performance reports, including details about the ad placement, audience, engagement, and so forth.
Ad markup containing the ad verification tag is returned to the browser by the SSPs, ad exchanges, and ad networks or is configured directly in the publisher’s ad server if the media transaction is a direct deal between the advertiser and the publisher.