Publisher Trust Index (PTI)

The Publisher Trust Index (PTI) is a standardized framework for evaluating and ranking websites (domains), mobile apps and CTV apps on a set of Pixalate metrics. It gives Pixalate’s view of the quality of the publishers that support programmatic advertising.

Where to find the rankings

The PTIs are on the Publisher Trust Index page on pixalate.com. They’re published monthly, and you can filter them by:

Category, based on the IAB Content Taxonomy.
Region: APAC, EMEA, LATAM and North America.
Country within each region.

The publisher rankings also include Top Grossing and Reach rankings. See Reach rankings.

Data behind the PTI

Pixalate builds the PTI from aggregated third-party data, not from any publisher’s first-party data, to give an unbiased ranking. Not using first-party data also avoids sampling bias and the chance to game the rankings.

The websites and apps listed for each region or country are based on the open programmatic advertising traffic Pixalate observes from that area, whatever the website’s or app’s country of registration. In other words, the location is where the end users generating the ad impressions are.

How publishers are scored

Each publisher gets a set of individual scores and a final score. The factors depend on the type of publisher.

Domain PTI

Score	What it measures
Popularity Score	A composite measure of the website’s popularity and the programmatic inventory Pixalate sees from it. A number from 0 to 99 showing how extensive the website’s user coverage, popularity and inventory are compared with its peers.
Invalid Traffic (IVT) Score	The percentage of the website’s ad impressions determined to be IVT, compared with other websites in the same category and geography. Includes both sophisticated IVT (SIVT) and general IVT (GIVT).
Ads.txt Score	Whether Pixalate detects an ads.txt file for the publisher, and whether it has a good mix of sellers and resellers compared with its peers. Pixalate uses a scoring curve that assigns a score to each combination of total sellers and resellers, because too many resellers can increase IVT risk.
Brand Safety Score	The brand safety risk of the website’s content, based on keywords associated with brand-unsafe categories.
Viewability Score	The overall viewability of the pages on the domain, compared with its peers.
MFA Risk Score	The website’s made-for-advertising (MFA) risk rating, based on Pixalate’s MFA methodology. MFA sites are ad-enabled websites intentionally designed to generate arbitraged traffic, putting advertising ahead of value to users.
Ad Density Score	The number of ads per minute: a trade-off between maximizing revenue and minimizing ad clutter for the user.
Final Score	Combines the individual scores above into one score.

Mobile PTI

Score	What it measures
Popularity Score	A composite measure of programmatic popularity, calculated from both reach and inventory availability. A number from 0 to 99 showing how extensive the app’s user coverage and inventory are compared with its peers.
IVT Score	The app’s IVT percentage compared with other publishers in the same category and geography.
Ads.txt Score	Whether Pixalate detects an ads.txt file for the publisher, and whether it has a balanced mix of sellers and resellers compared with its peers.
Brand Safety Score	Brand-unsafe keywords or brand-unsafe advisories the app declares on its app store page.
Permissions Score	How much more likely IVT is when the app has permissions that aren’t common for its category. A permission that’s risky in one category can be necessary in another, and the score takes this into account. Android only. See Android app permissions and IVT risk.
Viewability Score	The app’s viewability performance.
Rank	The publisher’s rank compared with its peers in the same app store, category and region.
Final Score	The average of the individual scores above.

CTV PTI

Score	What it measures
Popularity Score	A composite measure of programmatic popularity, calculated from both reach and inventory availability. A number from 0 to 99. Apps with more extensive user coverage than their peers score higher.
IVT Score	The app’s IVT percentage compared with other publishers in the same category and geography. Apps with less IVT score higher.
Ad Density Score	The number of ads per 10 minutes of video: a trade-off between maximizing advertising revenue and minimizing disruption to the viewer.
Engagement Score	User engagement in terms of time spent watching content. Apps with a higher average watch time score higher.
Rank	The publisher’s rank compared with its peers in the same app store, category and region.
Final Score	The average of the individual scores above.

For the full methodology, see Publisher Trust Index: Methodology on pixalate.com.

Reach rankings

The Reach rankings on the Connected TV and Mobile Apps pages list apps by their estimated reach for a given month, in descending order. You can filter them by region, country and category.

Estimated reach (estimated market reach) at the publisher level comes from models that predict monthly active users (MAU). The models use data points such as mappable third-party inventory across platforms, impression-level data, and composite metrics generated after removing potential sampling biases.