DoubleVerify is a leading software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics. TVision provides second-by-second analysis of how viewers are watching TV and currently maintains viewing panels in the U.S., UK and Japan. DoubleVerify’s ad exposure data, including viewable time and screen share will be combined with TVision’s viewer presence and eyes-on-screen ad attention signals.

“Our alliance with TVision is a significant stride towards comprehensive and reliable attention measurement in CTV,” says Daniel Slotwiner, SVP of Attention at DoubleVerify (DV). “By aligning TVision’s viewer presence and eyes-on-screen attention data with our own ad exposure and user engagement data, we are establishing a new standard for assessing the true impact of CTV advertising – ultimately driving superior outcomes for brands across the globe.”

Technical integration between DV and TVision will be ongoing over the next few months and the aim is to offer U.S. customers a closed beta in the second half of 2023. Broader market release will follow.

TVision is DV’s only partner currently for holistically measuring attention in connected TV. A spokesperson said DV will continue to work with TVision, and explore other enhancements and partnerships, as it expands geographical coverage beyond the U.S.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with DoubleVerify to advance the adoption of attention measurement across CTV environments,” declares Yan Liu, CEO & Co-Founder of TVision. “Our partnership enables marketers to gain deeper insights into where and when they get the most value in CTV.”

DV already measures ad exposure globally across devices including CTV.  It analyses over 50 data points related to exposure and consumer engagement for digital ads and devices.

The companies have said they will be working on the technical integration over the coming months and expect viewability and Invalid Traffic verification solutions to be available for customers in Q1 2023, followed by brand safety and suitability solutions later on.

Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify, said: “Over the past decade, the team at Netflix has done a tremendous job building one of the most popular streaming services in the world.

“As we continue to expand our coverage across premium video and CTV environments, DV is thrilled to extend our third-party verification solutions across their platform, ensuring campaigns meet key quality criteria while maximizing performance and outcomes for advertisers.”

Jeremi Gorman, President of Worldwide Advertising at Netflix, commented: “We’re thrilled to partner with DoubleVerify. As we introduce the Basic with Ads plan – our new ad-supported tier – we recognize the importance for brands to measure how their ads perform. DoubleVerify will provide viewability and IVT verifications that will be valuable for their marketing goals.”

ViperBot works by verification stripping – fraudsters removing the verification tags previously set by a measurement provider. DoubleVerify notes that while this approach to ad fraud can normally be identified by advanced measurement companies, in this case the fraudsters have “taken verification stripping to the next level.” By stripping the code that verifies ad impression and then hiding and redirecting this code through cheap ad slots on real devices, ViperBot was able to hide its fraudulent activity.

DoubleVerify has called this technique ‘verification redirection’ and has blocked the falsified impressions and ad requests for customers of its platform.

Mark Zagorski, CEO at DoubleVerify, said: “ViperBot is one of the most sophisticated fraud schemes that DV has ever identified. The dynamic nature of fraud schemes underscores the fact that advertisers need a partner who is laser focused on protecting their interests – and who operates independent of the media transaction to remain neutral when determining the quality of inventory.

“Efficient and transparent media buying leads to better outcomes for brands. By uncovering ViperBot, we are able to give brands greater confidence in their digital investment while ensuring campaign performance.”

Jack Smith, Chief Product Officer at DoubleVerify, said: “As fraudsters continue to evolve and aggressively target high-value inventory types, measurement providers need to catch up. We’re seeing this happen in CTV and mobile inventory, where higher CPMs make it a more attractive target, but this new redirection tactic can be applied across many environments.”

The company, alongside other ad verification companies Human and Oracle Moat, previously helped shut down other multimillion-dollar ad fraud schemes such as ParrotTerra, StreamScam and ICEBUCKET.

Both FOX and Discovery have said they will use Roku’s watermark solution to verify their inventory, and ad technology providers Google, HUMAN, Basic Technologies, Innovid and Magnite, have announced they will be integrating the technology after it is rolled out. Roku-owned OneView will be the first ad buying platform to offer inventory automatically validated by the solution.

Louqman Parampath, VP of Product Management at Roku, said “As America’s No. 1 TV Streaming Platform, we are uniquely positioned to help the industry preempt device spoofing. This is powerful and free technology that will help advertisers accelerate their shift to TV streaming with even more confidence.”

Bill Murray, Vice President of Programmatic Solutions, Discovery, commented “Roku’s Advertising Watermark assures our advertiser clients that they are buying genuine Discovery inventory on Roku devices. We’re excited that Roku has brought its data, operating system, and ad technology together to easily prevent ad spoofing.”

Ad verification platform DoubleVerify analysed over a trillion CTV ad impressions across 80 markets between May 2020 and June 2021, and found significant adoption of spoofing scams over bot scams by fraudsters. Bot scams experienced a 44% drop, and over the period observed 36% of all CTV fraud was conducted through spoofing. DoubleVerify reports that, in Q4 2021, 18% of unprotected CTV ads traded programmatically were either invalid traffic or fraud.

LeoTerra – an SSAI fraud scheme – falsified 20.5 million unique CTV devices per day during the period – over 20x more than the equivalent figure for the previous year and 40x more than the average figure for the three months leading up to October. CelloTerra – a mobile fraud scheme which was uncovered by DV in March 2020 – has also tripled its volume of fraudulent CTV impressions in the quarter. Shockingly, DoubleVerify reports that 18% of unprotected CTV ads traded programmatically during the period were actually invalid traffic or fraud.

DV’s Fraud Lab leverages a team of data scientists, mathematicians and analysts working in cyber-fraud prevention, and has previously uncovered new forms of fraud, pinpointing the sites, apps and devices responsible for fraudulent activity.

Another report published last year by DoubleVerify found a dramatic shift in the tactics deployed by scammers. Analysing over a trillion impressions across 80 markets from May 2020 to April 2021, DoubleVerify noted a 44% drop in bot scams as fraudsters began turning to data center traffic and carrying out “spoofing” scams on a larger scale. These latter fraud schemes work by using server-side ad insertion to create fake CTV inventory across a large number of devices, apps and IP addresses. The ad exchange is unable to differentiate between legitimate users and signals from ad scammers and therefore sells impressions to both, allowing scammers to collect revenues from advertisers. DoubleVerify reports that 36% of all fraud in the above mentioned period was conducted this way.

Mark Zagorski, CEO at DoubleVerify said, “As advertisers shift budgets to CTV inventory and platforms, the need to understand performance and measurability across the channel is now more important than ever. Given the growing complexity of these schemes — with fraudsters continuously employing new techniques, the entities representing or selling fraudulent inventory may not be directly responsible or even understand that fraud is taking place.”

Alongside other ad verification companies Human and Oracle Moat, DoubleVerify previously helped shut down similar multimillion-dollar fraud schemes called ParrotTerra, StreamScam and ICEBUCKET. In April of last year, Human uncovered “Pareto” – a bot scheme infecting a million Android devices which artificially simulated Smart TV ad impressions and impressions on other devices.

A 2020 survey of 230 U.S. industry experts conducted by Integral Ad Science – an ad tech and verification company – found that 26% believe CTV is more vulnerable to ad fraud than other media. 38% of respondents were media agencies, 24% were publishers, and another 8% advertisers.