Pixalate's vMVPD November 2022 Traffic Analysis Report: Top 25 vMVPD CTV Apps Account for 70%+ of Ad Spend on Roku Devices

Pixalate debuts ad industry's first vMVPD (Virtual MultiChannel Video Programming Distributor) identification capability and finds vMVPD apps have lower invalid traffic (IVT) rates than other apps.

LONDON, Dec. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pixalate, the global market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising, today released the vMVPD Traffic Overview Report for November 2022. The report digs deep into vMVPD apps - such as Sling TV and XUMO - to surface programmatic ad insights across Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices.

Key Takeaways:

• vMVPD apps drive 57% of ad impressions on Roku and 85% on Amazon Fire TV during November 2022.
• 71% of Roku ad spend and 62% of Fire TV ad spend was on vMVPD apps
• IVT rates were measured to be higher on non-vMVPD apps:
• 14.9% for non-vMVPD apps vs 11.4% for vMVPD apps on Roku
•  25.7% for non-vMVPD apps vs 8.2% for vMVPD apps on Amazon Fire TV

Pixalate has developed a system to identify vMVPD apps in CTV environments using a combination of data science and manual reviews. Identifying vMVPD apps is an important breakthrough for the programmatic ad industry because vMVPD apps typically behave differently in three key ways:

1. vMVPD apps are usually referenced by a higher number of Bundle IDs (see our December 2022 vMVPD Bundle ID Mapping Report for more.
2. vMVPD apps often have more complicated ad inventory sharing arrangements with the various aggregated channels.
3. Advertisers are eager to receive channel and network information on ad inventory across vMVPD apps.

vMVPD stats

Pixalate analyzed programmatic CTV impressions during November 2022 and found the following:

     1. Bundle IDs

According to Pixalate's data, vMVPD apps have an average of 15 Bundle IDs, compared to 1.5 for non-vMVPD apps. This is consistent across both Roku apps (13.7 Bundle IDs for vMVPD apps vs. 1.6 for non-vMVPD) and Amazon Fire TV apps (16.6 Bundle IDs for vMVPD apps vs. 1.5 for non-vMVPD). :

     2. Programmatic Ad Impressions

In addition, the top 25 most popular vMVPD apps on Roku and Amazon Fire TV accounted for 57% of programmatic ad impressions on Roku devices and 85% of ad impressions on Amazon Fire TV devices in November 2022.

In a similar vein, Pixalate estimates that 71% of programmatic ad spend on Roku devices and 61% on Amazon Fire TV devices is flowing through these same popular apps, propped up by big names like Hulu and Pluto TV.

     3. Invalid Traffic (IVT)

Pixalate measured an IVT rate of 10.7% on popular vMVPD apps during November 2022, compared to 15.4% across non-vMVPD apps in the CTV ecosystem.

The gap is closer on Roku devices (11.4% IVT for vMVPD apps vs. 14.9% IVT for non-vMVPD) compared to Amazon Fire TV devices (8.2% IVT for vMVPD apps vs. 25.7% IVT for non-vMVPD).

Top vMPVD apps:

Roku

1. Pluto TV
2. Tubi
3. Sling TV
4. Philo
5. fuboTV

Amazon Fire TV

1. Hulu
2. Pluto TV
3. Tubi
4. Sling TV
5. FuboTV

Click here to download the full list of Pixlate's top 50 most popular vMVPD apps on Amazon Fire TV and Roku.

About Pixalate

Pixalate is the market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising. We work 24/7 to guard your reputation and grow your media value. Pixalate offers the only system of coordinated solutions across display, app, video, and CTV for better detection and elimination of ad fraud. Pixalate is an MRC-accredited service for the detection and filtration of sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) across desktop and mobile web, mobile in-app, and CTV advertising. www.pixalate.com 

The content of this press release, and the vMVPD Traffic Overview Report (the "Report"), reflect Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes may 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 press release 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 pertaining to CTV apps from the Roku and Amazon Fire TV app stores. Pixalate's datasets — which are used exclusively to derive these insights — consist predominantly of buy-side open auction programmatic traffic sources.

Media Contact:
Liz Margolis
610-613-5174
[email protected]

SOURCE Pixalate