Comcast, Verizon and Telaria rank high in OTT ad seller trust index

Comcast’s FreeWheel, Verizon Media and Telaria all ranked high in Pixalate’s first-ever Connected TV/OTT Seller Trust Index, which is designed to rank the overall quality of programmatic sellers.

Pixalate, which has sunset its Video Seller Trust Index, is now measuring how connected TV and OTT programmatic ad sellers perform across three platforms: Amazon, Roku and Samsung. The rankings are based on household reach; channel share, based on each seller's access to inventory and popular apps; invalid traffic; SSAI transparency, based on each seller's IVT-free Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) inventory; and channel integrity, based on each seller's inventory that originates from the declared OTT/CTV apps.

Using those criteria, Pixalate determined that in the first quarter, Telaria, FreeWheel and Xandr Monetize were the top programmatic sellers on Roku; FreeWheel, Verizon Media and Amazon were the top programmatic sellers on Amazon; and Verizon Media, SpotX and FreeWheel were the top programmatic sellers on Samsung.

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"CTV is a complex, fundamentally different media environment with fragmentation, ad fraud, and a lack of transparency that deteriorates trust in the supply chain," said Pixalate CEO Jalal Nasir in a statement. "Advertisers need help navigating CTV and, as the pioneers of global programmatic trust ratings, we believe CTV accountability represents a critical breakthrough for the industry."

Pixalate has also updated its Global Seller Trust Index for video and display programmatic advertising across desktop and mobile web environments and its Mobile Seller Trust Index for video and display programmatic advertising across mobile in-app environments.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. households are reachable by OTT/CTV programmatic advertisers, according to Pixalate's second quarter 2020 data — which the company said is up from 50% in the fourth quarter of 2019. The company cited data from eMarketer that suggests connected TV ad spend will grow by 28% in 2020 before eclipsing the $10 billion mark in 2021.