Connected television (CTV),–that is, television that is streamed via the internet–is one of the fastest-growing and digital media environments that also attracts fraudsters in droves. With CTV fraud, malicious actors steal revenue from fraudulent interactions through many methods, including by artificially inflating ad impressions. CTV enables users to connect to streaming services, watch on-demand videos, or other content via their TV. This content is often interspersed with ads.
Consider a couple of key types of CTV fraud:
- Engagement fraud: In this scenario, malicious actors manipulate an ad engagement, click, scanned QR code, or ad impression to steal an attribution from organic and other legitimate sources and claim revenue from it. The end user, the device, and post-install activity are all real; the only fabricated thing is the engagement.
- Spoofed users: Conversely, in this scenario, engagement, the install, and any post-install activity—is fabricated. Unlike engagement fraud, users aren’t real users, and bots are unleashed to mimic real user behavior.
With CTV ads making up higher percentages of digital advertising globally each year, fraud continues to threaten publishers and inventory quality. In 2024 alone, ad fraud and invalid traffic (IVT) on CTV cost advertisers billions of dollars. And while CTV protections exist, adoption of the current standards has been less than widely accepted. As CTV becomes more and more complex, the standards will be needed to stay ahead of the complexities to keep fraud out of CTV advertisements.