Pixalate, the market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising, today released the February 2024 Connected TV (CTV) App Spoofing Reports for Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, and Apple TV. 

This report covers CTV App Spoofing numbers in February 2024 on apps found in the Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, and Apple TV app stores. For background information, methodology and definitions related to CTV App Spoofing, please visit our inaugural CTV App Spoofing Report and view the FAQs there.

Global Open Programmatic CTV App Spoofing Numbers: February 2024

Pixalate’s data science team found that 4.6% of global traffic in CTV was “spoofed” in February 2024. The breakdown by platform is as follows: 

• Roku: 2.8%
• Amazon Fire TV: 10.1%
• Samsung Smart TV: 3.4%
• Apple TV: 4.6%

Fraudulent actors can utilize app spoofing - a form of invalid traffic (IVT) - to misrepresent the true origin of the traffic. For example, a fireplace screensaver app may masquerade as “ESPN” to lure advertisers. (See Pixalate’s ‘Monarch’ CTV ad fraud scheme discovery for an example.)

Top 10 Roku CTV apps with the highest volume of spoofed impressions in February 20241. Classic Movies Plus - Free (13%)2. Joycraft (50%+)3. How to Travel (50%+)4. Getreel Fireplaces (50%+)5. Tastyland (50%+)

Top 10 Amazon Fire TV CTV apps with the highest volume of spoofed impressions in February 20241. Fubo: Watch Live TV & Sports, Shows, Movies & News (46%)2. TVBAnywhere North America (50%+)3. FOX Sports: Stream live MLB, NFL, Soccer and more. Plus get scores and news! (11%)4. ESPN for Fire TV (12%)5. HGTV GO (12%)Top 10 Samsung Smart TV CTV apps with the highest volume of spoofed impressions in February 20241. ESPN (14%)2. Xumo Play (10%)3. The Weather Channel (17%)4. WeatherNation (43%)5. OnDemandKorea (50%+)

Top 10 Apple TV CTV apps with the highest volume of spoofed impressions in February 20241. Nat Geo TV: Live & On Demand (13%)2. ABC 7 (20%)3. Univision Now (19%)4. Cineverse - Stream Movies & TV (20%)5. ABC 10 News San Diego KGTV (19%)

Download Pixalate’s CTV App Spoofing Reports Per PlatformDownload to see more apps - the top 15 per platform - with the highest volume of spoofed impressions in February 2024.

• Roku 
• Amazon Fire TV
• Samsung Smart TV
• Apple TV

MethodologyTo compile this research, Pixalate’s data science team took the following steps:

1. Identify “Highly Impacted” CTV apps: On each respective platform, Pixalate identified apps with the highest rate of spoofed traffic (e.g., the percentage of all traffic purporting to come from the app that does not actually come from the app). In the context of this research, “Highly Impacted” apps are apps that have an app spoofing rate of 10%+ or apps that have an app spoofing rate in excess of 90% of other apps on a given platform, whichever rate is lower.
2. The “Highly Impacted” apps are then ranked by volume of spoofed impressions.

About Pixalate

Pixalate is a global platform for privacy compliance, ad fraud prevention, and data intelligence in the digital ad supply chain. Founded in 2012, Pixalate’s platform is trusted by regulators, data researchers, advertisers, publishers, ad tech platforms, and financial analysts across the Connected TV (CTV), mobile app, and website ecosystems. Pixalate is MRC-accredited for the detection and filtration of Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT). www.pixalate.com

Disclaimer

The content of this post, and the App Spoofing Report (the “Report”), reflect Pixalate’s opinions with respect to the factors that Pixalate believes can be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate’s opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees; and neither this post nor the Report are intended to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but instead, to report findings and apparent trends in the time period studied. Per the MRC, “'Fraud' is not intended to represent fraud as defined in various laws, statutes and ordinances or as conventionally used in U.S. Court or other legal proceedings, but rather a custom definition strictly for advertising measurement purposes. Also per the MRC, “‘Invalid Traffic’ is defined generally as traffic that does not meet certain ad serving quality or completeness criteria, or otherwise does not represent legitimate ad traffic that should be included in measurement counts. Among the reasons why ad traffic may be deemed invalid is it is a result of non-human traffic (spiders, bots, etc.), or activity designed to produce fraudulent traffic.”

Nina Talcott
Pixalate Inc.
ntalcott@pixalate.com