Pixalate, the global market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for connected TV (CTV) and mobile advertising, today released its Ad Trust & Safety API suite, a set of self-service APIs and SDKs that give app developers the ability to secure their apps against ad fraud from the beginning of the development process. In the past, these tools have been out of reach for most, potentially costing thousands of dollars. For the first time, app developers and small companies have self-service access to the tools necessary to bake fraud prevention into their apps from the ground up—enabling them to compete with larger competitors.

In the rapidly growing app development space, with more than 12 million CTV (Roku, Amazon Fire TV) and mobile app (Apple App, Google Play Store) developers globally, the majority still don’t have access to resources to help them prevent fraudulent ad activity. Many developers are not even aware of the fraudulent traffic flowing through their applications. According to the World Federation of Advertisers, this is a significant problem, as global losses to ad fraud exceeded $35 billion last year, a figure expected to rise to $50 billion by 2025. Second, only to the drug trade, ad fraud is one of the largest criminally impacted industries.

When fraudulent activity is discovered, an app is typically delisted from the ad exchanges and/or the major app stores. Roughly 813,000 apps, over 15%, were delisted in the first half of 2021 alone. In this scenario, developers are left with little or no recourse, facing clawbacks where ad commissions must be returned to marketers (on top of being delisted from the major app stores).

In an effort to halt fraudulent traffic before it enters the supply chain, Pixalate’s Ad Trust & Safety API suite helps developers avoid this situation by integrating its industry-leading fraud protection platform into apps from the beginning of the development process to stop fraudulent traffic at the outset and prevent profit loss. This enables millions of developers worldwide to take a similar approach to privacy-by-design when building and publishing apps on mobile and CTV platforms, including Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, and the major gaming consoles. The suite is available for a free trial, with enterprise and “freemium” pricing tiers.

“We believe fraud prevention technology should be accessible to all—because no one is safe from ad fraud until everyone is safe. Our Ad Trust & Safety API suite attacks the root of the problem by making fraud protection technology available to all developers using a self-service approach, with a free version available,” said Jalal Nasir, founder and CEO of Pixalate. “Developers now finally have the fraud prevention tools they need to protect their apps, preserve their brand reputation, and help eliminate widespread fraud.”

"Having to return revenue to advertisers through clawbacks due to fraudulent traffic can be extremely damaging to app developers, but thankfully Pixalates's Ad Trust & Safety API Suite can help that from happening," said Kevin Cooper at AdColony. "Utilising the API and SDKs creates a double win - they get to keep the ad revenue they have earned and help build trust with advertising partners."

Empowering developers to protect their apps

Key features of the Ad Trust & Safety API Suite include:

• Self-serve platform: Easy integration of Pixalate APIs with a few lines of code.
• Ad fraud visibility: The ability to quickly check and evaluate if a user is fraudulent.
• Freemium access: With a few lines of code, users can implement Pixalate’s anti-fraud capabilities.
• MRC Accreditation: Pixalate is an MRC-accredited service for sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) detection and filtering across desktop and mobile web, mobile in-app, and OTT/CTV advertising.
• SDK access: SDKs that enable you to instantly integrate fraud prevention capabilities directly into your apps.
• Recourse against service providers: Quick access to data to see how service providers evaluate the app on various risk criteria.

 
For more information and to try the Ad Trust & Safety API suite, visit https://developer.pixalate.com.