Programmatic advertising has been a game-changer for many online retailers. The ability to automate the buying and selling of ads saves time and streamlines marketing campaigns. However, this modern convenience soon gave rise to another problem: advertising fraud. In other words, unauthorized resellers found ways to claim and spoof inventories as their own, even when they weren’t authorized to sell it.
Enter Ads.txt, a fraud-fighting program released by IAB Tech Labs in 2017. Two years later, the research and development consortium has released a newer version, called App-Ads.txt, that cuts down on mobile advertising fraud within apps themselves.
Benefits
As an app publisher, adopting this specification allows your in-app advertising inventory to remain eligible and verifiable to programmatic buyers, allowing you to successfully reach your monetization goals. It reduces fraudulent in-app inventory from marketing campaigns, as well as identifying and blocking instances of unauthorized developer impersonation.
Implementation
Implementing the app-ads.txt specification primarily relies on the following steps, though details may vary depending on your own infrastructure.
How to authorize Tapjoy as a Digital Seller
All four parameters must be separated by a comma and a separate line must be used for each authorized partner. Be sure to proofread your file as errors can be costly.
For example, for Tapjoy, and Rubicon Project as our programmatic demand provider, the two entries in the file are:
This IAB-recommended best practice of specifying resellers of your inventory keeps your reach at its fullest potential and helps prevent domain spoofing against your app.
For more information on all things mobile advertising, reach out to the experts at Tapjoy today!