The Trade Desk & White Ops team up on digital ad fraud

Demand-side platform The Trade Desk and ad fraud detection service White Ops announced a new partnership Thursday to tackle ad fraud across every impression that comes through The Trade Desk’s platform.

While advertisers have had access to various pre-bid and post-bid technology providers on The Trade Desk’s platform for years, the White Ops partnership is meant to provide a uniform approach to fraud detection in programmatic ad buying. The companies say this is the first time a third party has been deployed to monitor and prevent bids on 100 percent of ad impressions on a buying platform.

The move comes amid widespread calls from brands to address ad fraud at scale. P&G’s Marc Pritchard has perhaps been the most vocal critic, pulling millions in digital ad spend the company said was being eaten up by bots, not humans. There are several industry efforts to clean up the supply chain and rid it of digital ad fraud. However,  this is “the first time that White Ops’ Human Verification technology is being used to prevent fraud across an entire buy-side platform,” said Sandeep Swadia, CEO of White Ops, in the announcement.

“The world’s largest marketers and agencies have made clear that they want to clean up the advertising supply chain,” said Brian Stempeck, chief client officer at The Trade Desk. “We think this initiative is the most powerful step yet to stop the problem at its source.”

Beginning October 1, 2017, all impressions from supply-side platforms on The Trade Desk will be scanned by White Ops. The Trade Desk’s clients will have access to reporting about non-human or Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) impressions that were blocked. Rather than issue credits to buyers for invalid traffic after the fact, the aim is to help lessen or eliminate the need for publishers to request credits in the first place.

“This is a truly unique approach to fraud prevention that will make a significant impact for our brands,” said Megan Pagliuca, Global CEO of Accuen. “Unlike other solutions, the goal here is to run all impressions across The Trade Desk’s platform through White Ops, not just sampled impressions. Additionally, the Trade Desk has collaborated with the leading SSPs to bring a unified solution to market.”