Integral Ad Science (IAS), the global leader in digital ad verification, today released its Media Quality Snapshot for the year of 2019 providing transparency into the performance and quality of digital media in Singapore and Indonesia. Among the findings, the report cites improved scores for viewability, anti-fraud efforts and brand risk in these fast-growing media markets.
Programmatic viewability for desktop display crosses 70% mark for the first time.
Singapore posted strong viewability performance across platforms and buy types, dominated primarily by programmatic inventory. Publishers have responded positively to advertiser’ calls for making premium inventory available in programmatic and the results have been impressive. Overall desktop display viewability rates rose 2.4 percentage points to 68.8% in 2019 (66.4% in 2018). Viewability rates for programmatic desktop display crossed the 70% threshold for the first time to stand at 70.4%, indicating 7 out of 10 impressions are in view in Singapore. Meanwhile, mobile app display demonstrated the largest improvement in absolute terms in viewability rates, rising 12.7 percentage points between 2018 (53%) and 2019 (65.7%).
Indonesia saw a rise in viewability across buy types on desktop display with an overall increase to 62.7% in 2019 (from 54.3% in 2018). The viewability rates for publisher direct have also increased, with publishers responding to local digital ad buyers’ requests for premium inventory. With increasing advertising spend going to programmatic, local publishers are shifting to premium inventory with improved viewability rates. In Indonesia, desktop display viewability rates continued to rise, reaching new heights at 62.7% compared to 54.3% in 2018. Viewability rates for programmatic desktop display reached 71.0% (an increase of 2.0 percentage points in 2018). Publisher direct inventory was the key driver for increased desktop display viewability, with a jump of 11.3 percentage points to 59% in 2019.
Viewability in mobile app display is on an upward swing in Indonesia across all buy types. Overall app display viewability stood at 61.9%, programmatic viewability at 59% and publisher direct at 63.1% in 2019. In mobile-first Indonesia, mobile app platforms provide a better user experience, translating to positive viewability rates. With increased mobile user consumption and mobile ad spend investment from local digital ad buyers, this has translated to greater demand for viewable inventory and publishers to deliver inventory with higher viewability rates.
Overall ad fraud rates increase in Singapore across desktop and mobile, while ad fraud remains stable in Indonesia.
In Singapore, overall fraud rates for optimised campaigns running on desktop display have increased from 1.7% in 2018 to 3.3% in 2019. This increase in the fraud rate is across programmatic and publisher direct inventory. With premium online content and audience segments, Singapore is a lucrative market for fraudsters, and stricter data privacy regulations in Europe such as GDPR have increased the appeal of Singapore to fraudsters.
Similarly, for mobile web display, Singapore saw an overall increase in ad fraud from 0.3% in 2018 to 0.6% in 2019. Programmatic inventory increased by 0.4 percentage points and publisher direct inventor increased by 0.2 percentage points.
In Indonesia, campaigns optimised against ad fraud saw stable fraud rates year-over-year in 2019 with desktop display inventory at 0.6% in 2019 (0.6% in 2018). Ad fraud rates for Indonesia’s mobile web display inventory remained stable in 2019 across programmatic and publisher direct, dipping slightly by 0.1 percentage point respectively. For non-optimised campaigns, the global ad fraud average increased to 12.8% in 2019 (12.4% in 2018) in desktop display and increased to 12.3% in mobile web display (9.6% in 2018)
Campaigns for which none of these protections are present tend to encounter greater levels of fraud by a factor of 10x and higher, depending on the device and format.
Indonesia reports a steep reduction in brand risk across platforms, while Singapore sees marginal reduction and an uptick on desktop and mobile respectively.
Content creation is accelerating at an unprecedented rate and scale, posing new challenges for protecting overall brand reputation. Singapore saw overall brand risk levels fall in desktop display to 1.4% in 2019 from 1.7% in 2018. Brand risk in programmatic inventory fell to 1.5% in 2019 from 2.0% in 2018. Publisher direct desktop display brand risk in 2018 was at 1.5% and it fell to 0.1 percentage points in 2019 to 1.4%
On the other hand, brand risk levels on the mobile web increased marginally across buy types, with an overall increase of 0.3 percentage points (2.3% in 2018 and 2.6% in 2019). Programmatic brand risk reached1.8% in 2019 and publisher direct inventory posed the highest risk at 3.1% in 2019, up from 2.7% in 2018.
Indonesia saw steep brand risk reduction across platforms and inventory with publisher direct inventory leading the way. The overall brand risk in desktop display declined to 7% in 2019, down from 19% in 2018. Brand risk in publisher direct fell to 6.9% in 2019, down from 24.8% in 2018. The steep drop in brand risk continued in mobile web display too, with overall brand risk standing at 7.7% in 2019 down from 19.7% in 2018. Publisher direct brand risk saw sharp reductions at 7% in 2019 down from 22.9% in 2018.
The reduction in brand risk could be driven by tighter controls from premium publishers around offensive language and controversial content. This shows the benefit of digital buyers being vigilant to ensure that ads in Singapore and Indonesia remain protected from non-brand safe placements.
“We are seeing great improvements in viewability in Singapore and Indonesia, with programmatic inventory exceeding 70% viewability in desktop display. This can be attributed to increased adoption of programmatic buying for premium inventory and the use of verification technology to ensure the highest inventory quality possible,” said Laura Quigley, Managing Director, SEA, Integral Ad Science.
“These benchmarks are a real testament to the work the industry has been doing as a whole to improve trust and transparency across all digital ad buys. Advertisers need to continue to ensure they are reviewing their brand suitability strategies regularly and deploying ad fraud mitigation tools across desktop and mobile”.
