--- title: ‘Reference’ category has nearly 50% ad fraud (IVT) rate on smartphones description: Pixalate examines the smartphone web publisher categories that had the highest ad fraud (IVT) rates in display and video advertising. image: https://www.pixalate.com/hubfs/Blog_Media/Blog%20photos/smartphone-web-ivt-trends-q2-2018.jpg --- [![pixalate-full-logo](https://www.pixalate.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Pixalate_Logos/pixalate-full-logo.jpg?width=150&height=60&name=pixalate-full-logo.jpg "pixalate-full-logo")](https://www.pixalate.com) Search **Menu** ** ** ![](https://www.pixalate.com/hubfs/Blog_Media/Blog%20photos/smartphone-web-ivt-trends-q2-2018.jpg) [Mobile](https://www.pixalate.com/blog/topic/mobile) | [Research Reports](https://www.pixalate.com/blog/topic/research-reports) | 2 min read # ‘Reference’ category has nearly 50% ad fraud (IVT) rate on smartphones Written by [Pixalate](https://www.pixalate.com/blog/author/pixalate) Aug 21, 2018 6:52:00 AM In this post, Pixalate examines the smartphone web publisher categories that had the highest ad fraud (IVT) rates across display and video advertising. For more insight, download the full[Q2 2018 Programmatic Quality Report](https://info.pixalate.com/q2-2018-programmatic-traffic-quality-report). **Key takeaways:** - The ‘Reference’ category (e.g. dictionaries, thesauruses, directories) has a display ad fraud rate of 43% for smartphone web programmatic advertising — highest among the 15 domain categories Pixalate tracked for this study - The ‘News & Media’ category has a display ad fraud rate of 10.8% and a video ad fraud rate of 8.6% - ‘Computers & Internet’ has the second-highest display ad fraud rate (13.5%) and the highest video ad fraud rate (13.3%)   ### **‘Reference’ category has a display ad fraud rate of 43% on the mobile web** The ‘Reference’ category had an invalid traffic (IVT) rate of 42.9% in the time period we investigated for smartphone display programmatic advertising in North America. This was by far the highest IVT rate among all smartphone web publisher categories we examined.   - ‘Reference’ is over 3x more susceptible to display ad fraud - ‘Entertainment’ has over 10% IVT ### **'Computers & Internet', ‘News & Media’ have over 12% video ad fraud rate** The ‘Computers & Internet’ category had the highest programmatic video ad fraud rate (13.3%) among all smartphone web publisher categories in the time period we investigated.   - ‘News & Media’ has second-highest video ad fraud rate (12%) - ‘Entertainment’ has slightly lower video ad fraud rate compared to display ### **Get more insights in our Q2 2018 Programmatic Quality Report** Pixalate analyzed billions of programmatic ad transactions to update you on the current state of invalid traffic (IVT) and ad fraud in the marketplace. To learn more about our methodology and insights, download your copy of the [Q2 2018 Programmatic Quality Report](https://info.pixalate.com/q2-2018-programmatic-traffic-quality-report) here. 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Any proprietary data shared is grounded in Pixalate’s proprietary technology and analytics, which Pixalate is continuously evaluating and updating. Any references to outside sources should not be construed as endorsements. Pixalate’s opinions are just that - opinion, not facts or guarantees. 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. 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