Integral Ad Science (Nasdaq: IAS), one of the leading global media measurement and optimization platforms, has released the 20th edition of its Media Quality Report (MQR).
The MQR, which captures insights from over 280 billion digital interactions daily worldwide, provides advertisers and publishers essential benchmarks for display and video ad formats across desktop, mobile web, mobile app, and Connected TV (CTV) environments to measure the quality and effectiveness of their digital media campaigns and inventory. This year’s report highlights the evolving dynamics of the digital advertising landscape with a focus on the open web. Key highlights include a significant increase in fraud rates on non-optimized ads, an uptick in branded risk proportion related to offensive language and hate speech, and a stabilization of ad visibility rates as marketers embrace new metrics like attention.
“As the complexity of digital media accelerates, IAS remains steadfast in empowering our partners with the transparency, accuracy, and protection they need to succeed,” says Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS. “The 20th edition of the MQR underscores the critical need for proactive media quality strategies to ensure marketers can drive performance while safeguarding their brands from the evolving and multifaceted risks in the programmatic advertising landscape.”
Key global findings from the 20th edition of the MQR:
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15x Higher Ad Fraud Rates for Non-Optimized Campaigns: MQR reveals that fraud rates for campaigns without fraud mitigation strategies (non-optimized) increased by 19.0% year over year – reaching a four-year peak of 10.9% by the end of 2024. The fraud rate in non-optimized campaigns was 15 times higher than in campaigns utilizing anti-fraud technologies. Despite the growing sophistication of fraudulent actors, campaigns that implemented fraud protection remained largely shielded, with fraud rates for optimized campaigns decreasing by 9.8% year over year globally to a stable 0.7%.
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Rising Offensive Language, Controversial Content, and Hate Speech: While global brand risk decreased by 10.6% compared to 2023 (and 39% compared to 2021) to a record low of 1.5%, the nature of brand risk is changing. The proportion of content flagged for offensive language, controversial content, and hate speech on the open web has risen to the highest levels seen since 2020. Globally, offensive content proportion increased by 72% year over year, underscoring the evolving nature of online risk.
- Global visibility rates stabilize: After years of consistent increases, global visibility rates leveled off in 2024, growing only 1.6% year over year. Notably, video visibility on desktop increased by 5.4%, reaching a record high of 83.9%, reflecting the continued growth of digital video consumption across both emerging and more traditional channels. Although overall visibility remains high, marketers are beginning to prioritize additional ad effectiveness measures, such as attention. By considering situational factors, like ad environment, along with interactions like clicks or eye movements, attention can approximate the extent to which impressions drive the brand message, enabling advertisers to optimize for business outcomes.
Brazil Highlights from the MQR:
- Fraud mitigation strategies work well in the country: Despite an increase in fraud incidence for unprotected campaigns, ad optimization strategies against fraud proved highly effective. Performance in Brazil was slightly better than the global average, with a 0.7% fraud index for optimized campaigns in the country versus a 1.1% average worldwide.
- Engagement tends to be higher in Brazil, especially in mobile formats: Ad viewability rates and time spent on ad displays in Brazil were above global averages for both metrics. The most significant difference, in both cases, occurs in Mobile App Display ads, which in Brazil had an average visibility of 82.8% in 2024, compared to the global average of 74.2%. The time spent on ad displays in Brazil, in the same format, was 17.96 seconds in the country’s campaigns and 13.11 seconds globally.
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Violence, offensive language, and illegal downloads lead brand risk occurrences in Brazil. The overall incidence of content flagged as risky for brands in Brazil decreased by about 20% compared to the index observed by IAS in 2023, closing last year at a rate of 1.2%. When compared to global indicators, the most interesting findings are the discrepancies in content categories.
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Higher Risk in Brazil:
- Violence: Brazil presents a significantly higher brand risk for “Violence” (59.0%) compared to the world average (42.7%), with a difference of 16.3 percentage points.
- Offensive Language and Controversial Content: Brazil also has notably higher risk in this category (13.3%) versus the world average (8.2%), showing a difference of 5.1 percentage points.
- Illegal Downloads: The risk associated with “Illegal Downloads” is higher in Brazil (7.2%) compared to the global average (2.8%), with a difference of 4.4 percentage points.
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Adult: Brazil exhibits a slightly higher risk for “Adult” content (16.8%) compared to the global average (14.8%), with a difference of 2 percentage points.
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Lower Risk in Brazil:
- Alcohol: Brazil presents a considerably lower brand risk for “Alcohol” (0.9%) compared to the global average (10.7%), with a significant difference of -9.8 percentage points.
- Illegal Drugs: The risk associated with “Illegal Drugs” is also much lower in Brazil (1.0%) compared to the global average (10.4%), showing a difference of -9.4 percentage points.
- Hate Speech: Brazil has a lower risk for “Hate Speech” (1.8%) compared to the global average (10.4%), with a difference of -8.6 percentage points.
In its 20th edition, the MQR continues to serve as the trusted global standard for actionable insights on digital media quality. As the digital ecosystem rapidly evolves with advancements in AI, shifts in consumer behavior, as well as a move towards performance-driven strategies, these insights continue to help advertisers, publishers, and platforms navigate these challenges and achieve superior outcomes. IAS Research team analyzed over 280 billion daily digital interactions captured by IAS at the impression level to create the Media Quality Report.
Download the IAS Media Quality Report here (in English).
