TAG and ad fraud: Why we got TAG certified (again)

$68 billion — that’s how much advertisers around the world can expect to lose to ad fraud this year (according to Juniper Research). In the U.S. alone, the cost is likely to come in at around $23 billion.

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.

And we’ve just re-upped our TAG certified status.

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 2021 US Fraud Benchmark Study (conducted by The 614 Group) showed that invalid traffic detection in TAG certified channels fell to a record-low 0.86%. This represents a fourth straight year of improvement — and almost a 50% drop from 2018.

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

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 so seriously that we went a step further than nearly all of the other TAG certified companies in OTT advertising. We earned our seal by completing the more rigorous process of independent validation.

We engaged an independent auditor to validate that we have successfully implemented the MRC’s guidelines for general invalid traffic (GIVT) into our own product, so you can be sure we’re offering the most secure advertising experience possible.

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

• 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 in CTV advertising 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, the IAB, and AdLedger.

While we’re proud to nab a TAG certificate for the second year in a row, it’s just one of the ways we protect our customers from CTV ad fraud and waste.

Check out this post for more details:How to Prevent Ad Fraud in OTT (4 Methods We Use)