Mobile web display emerges as digital advertising's biggest quality risk

Mobile web display has emerged as the biggest source of media quality risk for advertisers despite broader improvements across the digital advertising ecosystem, according to new research from Integral Ad Science (IAS).

The findings, published in the 21st edition of IAS' annual "Media quality report", come as marketers continue shifting budgets towards video, social media and connected TV while placing greater emphasis on attention and campaign performance.

Drawing on more than 300 billion digital interactions analysed daily, the report found that mobile web display accounted for 45.1% of all open web impressions in 2025, yet generated a disproportionate share of media quality issues. The format was responsible for 54.9% of brand suitability violations, 71.5% of global ad clutter and 71.9% of all made-for-advertising (MFA) impressions.

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According to the report, the environment's structural characteristics, including higher ad density and faster scrolling behaviour, make it more susceptible to low-quality inventory. The report also noted that the MFA rate on mobile web display is now four times higher than on desktop.

While overall media quality improved throughout 2025, two key metrics moved in the opposite direction. Invalid traffic (IVT) remained broadly stable at 1.1%, reflecting the continued challenge of advertising fraud, while ad clutter rose steadily from 0.3% in January to 0.8% in December as advertisers increased ad loads during the holiday season.

The report added that fraudsters are increasingly leveraging AI to create fraudulent inventory that resembles legitimate publisher environments, with the threat also expanding into connected TV.

At the same time, video continued to outperform display across key performance metrics. Global video viewability reached 79.7%, compared to 67.9% for display, giving video an 11.8 percentage-point advantage.

The report said the gap reflects growing consumer engagement with video across social platforms, streaming services and connected TV, positioning video as a stronger environment for capturing attention.

It found that campaigns using attention-based strategies in these environments recorded a 56% increase in attention scores and a 76% reduction in cost-per-click, while high-attention video ads generated household-level sales lifts that were up to 313% higher than lower-attention placements.

Beyond channel performance, the report found that global brand safety and suitability improved throughout 2025. Brand safety fail rates fell from 3.7 times the baseline in January to 1.0 by December, while brand suitability fail rates also declined over the same period.

However, the report cautioned that media quality risks continue to vary significantly across regions and industries. In APAC, the region recorded lower MFA rates than North America and EMEA, although its suitability fail rate remained above the global average.

Across industries, retail recorded the highest brand suitability fail rate among major verticals at 1.6 times the finance baseline, while travel and entertainment faced the highest levels of invalid traffic and MFA, suggesting advertisers in the sector require broader media quality controls beyond brand suitability alone.

The report also highlighted a growing link between sustainability and campaign quality. Advertisers measuring and reducing carbon emissions in partnership with Good-Loop achieved stronger media quality outcomes, with green-certified campaigns in EMEA recording a 3.9 percentage-point improvement in quality impression rates. Travel and entertainment campaigns saw an even larger lift of 8.7 percentage points.

Looking ahead, the report noted that marketers will need increasingly granular quality controls as media investments continue shifting towards social platforms, connected TV and streaming audio.

It added that AI-powered tools are expected to play a growing role in helping advertisers identify campaign risks, surface optimisation opportunities and improve media performance in real time.

"In an era of AI-accelerated content, buying massive scale is no longer enough; winning brands are optimising for verified attention that drives business outcomes," said Lidiane Jones, CEO of IAS.

She added, "Our latest MQR shows that navigating this new landscape requires more than just defensive guardrails. Marketers need proactive, AI-driven intelligence to cut through the synthetic noise, eliminate invisible waste, and transform media quality into a true performance engine."

The findings build on IAS' 2026 "Industry pulse report", which found that digital video and social media remain marketers' biggest investment priorities.

According to the study, 88% of industry experts ranked digital video among their top investment channels, while 84% said the same for social media. At the same time, concerns around AI-generated content, creator environments and transparency are increasingly shaping how brands evaluate media quality and campaign performance.

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