TAG and ad fraud: How we protect local media investments

Ad fraud is one of the biggest concerns for digital advertisers today, and it’s especially painful for local businesses and SMBs that must account for every dollar spent. Assuming a certain percentage of their budget will be lost to fraud is just not an option when an advertiser is only spending a few thousand to begin with. 

Thankfully, organizations like the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) are taking a meaningful stand against fraud. TAG is the leading global initiative fighting to stop criminal activity and increase trust and transparency in digital advertising.

Madhive has been certified with TAG as an Intermediary since 2020, and this year’s assessment included a review of Frequence as well as a Direct Buyer. 

We’re proud to have both our Workflow and DSP tools approved for TAG’s 2025 list, and with this expansion, Madhive is pushing to ensure that businesses of all sizes have the same access to stringent anti-fraud protections.   

What does it mean to be TAG certified?

The Trustworthy Accountability Group launched its Certified Against Fraud Program in 2016 to combat invalid traffic in the digital advertising supply chain. Achieving this TAG certification shows your brand is actively fighting fraudulent and criminal activity in the digital advertising industry.

The community of TAG certified organizations includes the world's largest and most influential brands, agencies, publishers, and adtech providers — and they provide a TAG registry to help advertisers find trustworthy vendors

Why advertisers should care about TAG certification

The 2024 US Ad Fraud Savings Report — issued by TAG on behalf of the ANA, IAB, and 4A’s — demonstrated that buying through certified companies saved the industry over $10 billion annually.  

In other words, campaigns that run through TAG-certified Buyers and Technology are at much lower risk of ad fraud than those that are not. 

This is especially important for media sellers that service SMBs and local markets, since ad fraud has an outsized impact on advertisers with smaller budgets. 

How does TAG certification work?

There are two ways to get TAG certified:

1. Self-attest that you adhere to TAG’s requirements
2. Prove that you adhere to the requirements through an independent audit

Many companies choose self attestation to achieve their TAG certification (especially new applicants), which means they simply verbally commit that they are working within TAG’s guidelines.

We take our commitment to ad fraud detection and prevention seriously. We earned our seal by completing the more rigorous process of independent validation with an external auditor.

That means we’ve independently proven we meet TAG’s specific requirements, meaning we:

• Have been verified by TAG and maintain membership in good standing
• Have a designated TAG compliance officer and verified third-party auditor
• Employ invalid traffic detection (IVT) and removal in every monetizable transaction
• Employ domain threat filtering of any domains that have been identified to have a high risk or origin of invalid traffic
• Employ data center IP threat filtering of data centers that are known to have invalid traffic
• Employ app threat filtering

We are also part of TAG’s Anti-Fraud Working Group, which develops and enhances anti-fraud standards, protocols, and tools in digital advertising.

TAG certified — and beyond

This certification reinforces our commitment to transparency and industry accountability. We believe in the power of open source standards and solutions, and in the importance of industry-wide initiatives such as TAG, SOC, and the IAB Tech Lab.

While we’re proud to be TAG certified as an Intermediary DSP and now as a Direct Buyer, it’s just one of the ways we protect our customers' media investments from ad fraud and waste. 

Check out this post for more details about ad fraud today: CTV Ad Fraud—What Advertisers Need to Know