Integral Ad Science (Nasdaq: IAS), one of the leading global media measurement and optimization platforms, released its 20th edition of the Media Quality Report (MQR).
The MQR, which captures insights from over 280 billion digital interactions daily worldwide, provides advertisers and publishers with essential benchmarks for display and video ad formats on desktop, mobile web, mobile app, and connected TV (CTV) environments, in order to measure the quality and effectiveness of their campaigns and digital media inventory. This year's report highlights the evolving dynamics of the digital advertising landscape with a focus on the open web. The main highlights include a significant increase in fraud rates in unoptimized ads, a rise in the proportion of brand risks related to offensive language and hate speech, and a stabilization of ad visibility rates as marketers adopt new metrics, such as attention.
As digital media complexity accelerates, IAS remains committed to 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 highlights the critical need for proactive media quality strategies to ensure marketers can drive performance, safeguarding their brands from the evolving and multifaceted risks in the programmatic advertising landscape.
Main global findings of the 20th edition of the MQR:
- Fraud rates for ads are 15 times higher for non-optimized campaignsThe MQR reveals that fraud rates for campaigns without fraud mitigation strategies (non-optimized) increased by 19.0% year over year – reaching a four-year high of 10.9% by the end of 2024. The fraud rate in non-optimized campaigns was 15 times higher than in campaigns that used anti-fraud technologies. Despite the increasing sophistication of fraudulent agents, campaigns that implemented fraud protection remained largely protected, with optimized campaign fraud rates decreasing by 9.8% year over year globally to a stable 0.7%.
- Offensive language, controversial content, and hate speech on the riseWhile the 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 amount of content marked by offensive language, controversial content, and hate speech on the open web has increased to the highest levels seen since 2020. Globally, the share of offensive content increased by 72% year over year, highlighting the evolving nature of online risk.
- The overall visibility rates stabilizeAfter years of consistent increases, global visibility rates stagnated in 2024, rising by only 1.6% year over year. Notably, desktop video visibility increased by 5.4%, reaching a record of 83.9%, reflecting the continuous growth of digital video consumption across all channels – both emerging and more traditional. Although overall visibility remains high, marketers are beginning to prioritize additional ad effectiveness measures, such as attention. By considering situational factors, such as the environment of an advertisement, along with interactions like clicks or eye movements, attention can approximate the extent to which impressions drive the brand message, allowing advertisers to optimize for business outcomes.
Brazil Highlights from MQR:
- Fraud mitigation strategies work well in the countryDespite the increase in fraud incidence for unprotected campaigns, ad fraud optimization strategies have proven to be highly effective. Performance in Brazil was slightly better than the global average, with a fraud rate of 0.7% for optimized campaigns in the country compared to a global average of 1.1%.
- Engagement tends to be higher in Brazil, especially in mobile formats: The visibility rates of ads and the time spent viewing ads in Brazil were above global averages for both indicators.The most significant difference, in both cases, occurs in Mobile App Display ads, which in Brazil had an average visibility of 82.8% throughout 2024, compared to the global average of 74.2%.The ad display time in Brazil, in the same format, was 17.96 seconds for the country's campaigns and 13.11 seconds worldwide.
- Violence, offensive language, and illegal downloads lead brand risk incidents in Brazil.The overall incidence of content flagged as risky for brands in Brazil decreased by about 20% compared to the rate observed by IAS in 2023, ending the past year at a rate of 1.2%. Compared to global indicators, the most interesting findings are regarding discrepancies in content categories.
- Greatest Risk in Brazil:
- Violence:Brazil presents a significantly higher brand risk for "Violence" (59.0%) compared to the global average (42.7%), with a difference of16.3 percentage points.
- Offensive Language and Controversial ContentBrazil also has a notably higher risk in this category (13.3%) compared to the global average (8.2%), showing a difference of5.1 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 of4.4 percentage points.
- AdultBrazil shows a slightly higher risk for "Adult" content (16.8%) compared to the global average (14.8%), with a difference of2 percentage points.
- 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 substantial 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 into digital media quality. As the digital ecosystem rapidly evolves with advances in AI, changes in consumer behavior, and a shift toward performance-driven strategies, these insights continue to help advertisers, publishers, and platforms navigate these challenges and achieve superior results. The IAS Research team analyzed over 280 billion digital interactions captured daily by IAS at the impression level to create the Media Quality Report.
Download the IAS Media Quality Reporthere
