Brand suitability violations in APAC drop by 25% in one year: Report

Asia-Pacific witnessed one of the largest reductions in brand suitability violations around the world over the past year and had the lowest overall sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) rate, according to a report by verification firm DoubleVerify, which believes the data points represent a maturation of digital advertising in the region.

The 'Global Insights Report' analysed more than 1 trillion impressions in 80 markets across more than 2,100 brands. Video and display impressions were measured year-over-year from May 2020 to April 2021 across platforms such as desktop and mobile web, mobile app, and CTV.

The research discovered that APAC and Latin America recorded the biggest drops in brand suitability violation rates, down by 25% and 26%, respectively. The more established markets of EMEA and North America witnessed more modest decreases of 1% and 6%, respectively.

APAC's brand suitability violation rate is now 8.5%, which is better than EMEA (9.8%) and LATAM (9.2%) and trails only the mature North America market (6.9%). The violation rate reduction tallies with an increase in brand suitability blocking and incident rates, which increased in APAC by 90% the prior year, according to the same report for 2020.

The region also experienced the lowest overall sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT)/fraud violation rates, at 0.8%, compared to North America (1.5%), EMEA (1.6%), and LATAM (1.1%). 

Globally, post-bid fraud/SIVT violation rates are down 30% year-over-year, from 2.0% to 1.4%, the report found. However, DoubleVerify said that the overall volume of fraud/SIVT, when it comes to the number of schemes detected and the devices and impressions those schemes impact, has not meaningfully changed year-over-year. DV detects 500,000 new fraudulent device signatures every day,

All devices witnessed a decrease in fraud/SIVT violation rates, led by decreases on desktop and mobile web. However, certain pockets of inventory did see an increase. One of those was mobile app video, with a rise of nearly 50% year-over-year.

In APAC, 88% of video impressions are delivered through mobile devices, almost doubling that of the rest of the world at 45%.

The report found that quality in mobile in APAC has improved. App fraud dropped from 12% to 3% of total fraud/SIVT, and mobile app video viewability increased by 26%, giving APAC an 80% mobile app video viewability rate.

Overall video fraud went down by 42% in APAC, but display increased a modest 1%.

Video impressions are incresingly being bought programmatically in APAC. Last year, just under half (49%) of APAC video impressions were bought programmatically, rising to 62% in 2021.

Over 60% of video ads in APAC are delivered to mobile apps, which has positively impacted overall video performance, when measured for audibility and in-view on completion (AVOC). APAC’s overall AVOC rate of 34% across all environments is 2.5 times higher than the global average of 11%. North America, which delivers the smallest share of video impressions to mobile app, has the lowest overall AVOC rates and the lowest rates across desktop and mobile web.

Viewability improved across all regions, the report found. Emerging markets APAC and LATAM recorded the strongest increases in video viewable rates, up 12% year-on-year. EMEA witnessed a 3% drop in video viewable rates. North America is the only region still shy of the 70% IAB target viewable rate threshold.

LATAM also recorded the biggest increase in display viewable rates, up 9%. APAC achieved the smallest growth of 4% year-on-year, with a 62% viewable rate trailing behind other regions.