We’re spending more time online, and marketers are blowing more stacks to capitalize on our eyeballs. By the end of 2021, ad spending is projected to reach $154 billion for social media alone, according to an IAB report. The broader digital advertising market is expected to reach $786.2b. by 2026 – a compound annual growth rate of 14%.
That’s a lot of money, and while it indicates a healthy industry, it also comes at a cost. Increased spending opens the door to bad-faith actors looking to snag a slice of the pie for themselves. They have not let the opportunity slip, with losses from digital ad fraud having now overtaken global annual credit-card fraud ($27b.), amounting to $35b., according to Cheq. And with the pay-per-click (PPC) model inspiring the first wave of scammers in the space, bots have become the most potent ad-fraud threat as more advertising campaigns go digital.
Bots are deployed to persistently click on ads automatically, draining billions in advertising spend within digital PPC campaigns. It has now reached the point that Imperva’s Bad Bot Report estimates bots account for approximately 45% of all web traffic.
Bringing transparency to the US market
Headed by Alon Carmel, New York-based Aniview is leading the charge in tackling the challenge of digital-ad fraud, recently having expanded throughout the US in its year of sustained growth throughout the pandemic. The video-ad platform maintained over 200% year-on-year growth since 2019.
Aniview is currently one of the few platforms available on the market that supports a pre-bid server and server side ad insertion (SSAI) in conjunction with connected TV/over-the-top TV (CTV/OTT) capabilities that allow Internet connections over a television. Having a pre-bid server and SSAI on top of the other available integrations generates more demand opportunities for publishers across multi-screen OTT solutions. It’s easy to use and adds another step towards seamless integrations for OTT/CTV publishers, as the integrations themselves are developed and maintained by the supply-side platforms (SSPs). Aniview facilitates and orchestrates these connections.
The platform provides transparency with innovative ad serving solutions including their own SSAI and client SDK, in order to make sure that there is no third-party SSAI that has already delivered impressions to. For the small amount of inventory allowed without the complete solution, the verifying is done on a case-by-case basis for better coverage in the grey areas.
A holistic approach to preventing bad actors
To prevent such unnecessary losses, Aniview takes a holistic approach to preventing bad actors from trying to infiltrate its platform. The company tackles the multi-pronged exploits of fraudsters with a multi-layered approach, providing publishers and advertisers with a wide range of tools in it’s end-to-end ad-serving solution.
Established in 2013, Aniview has now matured its understanding of the industry’s landscape and shaped its platform to serve as a one-stop-shop for both niche websites and globally recognized large-scale publishers. Aniview teamed up with White Ops, a leading bot-mitigation platform, last year by fully integrating its technology to fend off bot attacks. In September, Aniview was awarded the TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal from the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), a badge of honor for platforms taking the fight to digital fraud. Further still, an exciting partnership announced in June with India’s flagship media group Jagran Prakashan Limited yielded a twofold surge in the client’s advertising revenues.
In addition to the achievements, the company announced earlier this year the launch of a content management service (CMS) within its online video distribution platform, and expanded its store for video advertising. The new CMS system allows users to add unlimited videos, create playlists, create video carousels, host commercials, and seamlessly manage everything in their featured video units.
Aniview represents just the latest Israeli ad-tech company to expand into the US market. The Jerusalem Post will continue to keep an eye out for other unicorns making waves at home and abroad.