Digital ad fraud is still a major problem in the programmatic ecosystem, with advertiser losses estimated in the billions of dollars annually. This report explores how advertisers, publishers and partners are protecting themselves.

The intermediation of programmatic transactions opened up a number of opportunities for fraud and data leakage in display advertising. Christiana Cacciapuoti, executive director at industry consortium AdLedger, joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to discuss the latest tests of the CryptoRTB protocol, how it will help advertisers avoid fraud, and what advertisers need to understand about cryptography in programmatic transactions.

Three in four leading publishers have implemented ads.txt, one of the most important recent developments in programmatic ad fraud mitigation.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Eric Haggstrom and principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin discuss Google's (and YouTube's) latest earnings. They then talk about how much of a concern ad fraud is within connected TV advertising, the implications of the California Privacy Rights Act, and how people interpret emotionally infused ads.

In the latest episode of "Behind the Numbers," senior analyst Nicole Perrin digs into her recent research into ad fraud. How big a problem is ad fraud, and where are the greatest vulnerabilities?

Research firms and vendors have varying methodologies and definitions for ad fraud, which creates divergent forecasts. Estimates of recent annual losses to digital ad fraud range from $6.5 billion to $19 billion. Some of the most definitive statistics come from anti-fraud vendor White Ops and advertising trade group the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

About one-third of its 50 respondents said their digital group handles CTV buying, and 23% said CTV buying was controlled by their TV group. Just one-quarter said their TV and digital groups had merged. Another 23% said their TV and digital groups collaborate when planning CTV campaigns.

eMarketer principal analyst Nicole Perrin analyzes a new study on ad fraud that contradicts other data on this topic and suggests the problem may be bigger than previously estimated.

Connected TV ad spending is increasing significantly, but it still faces issues when it comes to the fragmentation of inventory, lack of standardized measurements, frequency capping and ad fraud. In our newest report on US digital video, we looked at connected TV’s limitations and what leaders in the industry think.

For blockchain to have an impact on ad fraud, all parties to a programmatic transaction must agree to use it—and use the same system. Thus, adoption has been limited.

In this year’s Key Digital Trends report, we identify what changes are coming to the digital media and technology landscape in 2020 and why they matter to marketers.

Advertiser investment in connected TV (CTV) is ramping up quickly as more inventory becomes available, with YouTube, Hulu and Roku dominating the landscape. We estimate CTV ad spending in the US will reach $10.81 billion by 2021, up from close to $7 billion in 2019. But still, challenges remain, including fragmented inventory, ad fraud and frequency capping.

How big the CTV ad fraud problem actually is. CTV ad fraud schemes like the one Oracle exposed will become more common—but that won’t affect marketers’ spend. eMarketer and Business Insider Intelligence have joined forces to become the leading research company focused on digital transformation.

“TV gets critiqued because it’s not data-driven, it’s not user-level, and it’s not precision advertising,” said Mario Schiappacasse, head of programmatic media at digital partner Jellyfish. “But in 12 months, we may be in a world where we’re all moving away from precision advertising.

This report collection explores programmatic digital display ad spending through 2021 across Canada, China, France, Germany, the UK and the US. Reports include breakdowns by device, transaction type and more, and explore the factors driving investment.