Acquisition immediately provides advertisers new levels of protection at scale with operational efficiencies

Flashtalking, the leading global independent platform for ad management, data-driven creative, and unified insights, has acquired anti-fraud innovator Protected Media. The deal will enable Flashtalking to provide comprehensive verification capabilities across Desktop, Mobile Web and In-App, at scale, to the rapidly growing APAC media sector. It will also see the company become the only MRC accredited independent ad server for Sophisticated Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration in OTT. 

By bringing advertisers and agencies unprecedented levels of protection from fraud and improvements in viewability, at scale and with operational efficiencies, Flashtalking is reinforcing its commitment to providing independent evaluation of media quality across all channels, including the growing CTV market. 

The acquisition establishes a unique and vital set of operational benefits:

Complete suite of verification tools 

The company now offers fraud detection and viewability services globally across Desktop, Mobile Web, In-App, CTV/OTT, and is able to fill any verification gaps. 

Operational Efficiency 

Flashtalking and Protected Media provide accelerated speed to market for verification set-up and management by eliminating the manual, error-prone shared spreadsheets in favor of a fast, automated, errorless workflow. 

Business Simplification 

As with everything Flashtalking brings to market, the offering simplifies the ad tech stack. By bundling verification services with an advertiser’s ad serving globally, the company provides the opportunity to reduce the administrative burden of managing multiple vendor relationships across regions. 

MRC Accreditation for OTT

As the only independent ad management platform that is MRC accredited for Sophisticated Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration in OTT, the company finally fills a critical gap for advertisers who may have charged ahead into the OTT segment but have yet to implement the necessary verification safeguards. 

“The marketplace knows that Flashtalking is wholly committed to quality in all channels and on all platforms where we support and serve our clients. That’s who we are at our core,” said Flashtalking CEO John Nardone. “This incredibly beneficial acquisition signals that we are all-in on combating ad fraud, from the most powerful position to do so at scale. As the only independent ad server that the MRC has accredited in this arena, Flashtalking is positioned to be the most objective third-party evaluator of OTT/CTV media quality on behalf of advertisers and their agencies.”

“We’ve long been recognised as the industry’s boldest innovators in the fight against fraud in the digital advertising supply chain,” said Asaf Greiner, Founder and CEO of Protected Media. “Given the company’s overarching philosophy on ensuring quality and their operational commitment to the OTT/CTV space, our coming together with Flashtalking could not be a more helpful union and proposition for advertisers. The new offering stands alone in its ability to serve advertisers at the interface where it matters most.” 

Dominic Powers, Head of Business Growth, Solutions APAC Dentsu, said of the news: “While verification has become a standard requirement for global brands, the complexity and cost of implementation across channels has until now prevented its growth in APAC; and it only really started to gain momentum in 2020, when we saw a 40-50% drop in post bid fraud in the region. That being said, market data would suggest that only around 10% of brands are using verification for channels such as CTV. At Dentsu, we are firm believers in aggregation and automation in media, and this acquisition is the next step in making sophisticated analytics more accessible and providing operational efficiencies that will help brands of all sizes, and their agencies, drive real growth.”