February 2026

• TAG's Strategic Priorities
• Impact & Compliance Report: Fireside chat
• ANA Q4 2025 Programmatic Transparency Report
  
• 4A's Decisions
• ADvocacy Day: Save the Date!
• Where in the world is TAG
  
• One More Thing

TAG Impact & Compliance Report Documents Progress in 2025, Including €3.45 Billion in European Ad Fraud Savings, Safer Ad Placements, Elevated Threat Intelligence

Earlier this month, TAG released its second annual Impact and Compliance Report, a comprehensive data-driven assessment of the effectiveness and progress of TAG’s global initiatives over the past year.

The 2025 report built on TAG’s inaugural Impact and Compliance Report last year, while offering a program-by-program analysis of the impact from TAG certifications and tools across its core program areas of ad fraud, brand safety, malvertising, and transparency.

Highlights from the 2025 Impact and Compliance Report included:

• Global scale and adoption drive success: More than 434 member companies have joined TAG’s worldwide community, demonstrating TAG’s broad influence and reach across the global digital advertising supply chain.

• Rigorous industry standards result in billions in European ad fraud savings: Broad adoption of anti-fraud standards helped European advertisers save €3.45 billion from potential ad fraud losses, a 69% reduction compared to the amount that would have been lost without those programs in place.

• High-value threat intelligence critical for fast-changing threats: TAG’s Malvertising Threat Exchange (MTX) increased the sharing of high-value intelligence around adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures by 82% over the prior year, strengthening the industry’s ability to identify and disrupt sophisticated threats.

• Better transparency means better results: According to the ANA’s Programmatic Transparency Benchmark, industry progress helped marketers reclaim $13.6 billion in value, while Made-for-Advertising (MFA) spending fell below 0.5% for the first time.

• Data supports confidence in low-risk ad environments: Ongoing brand safety initiatives resulted in 99.1% of ad spend occurring in low-risk environments, enabling scale without compromising brand integrity.

• TAG expands and strengthens industry tools: TAG’s Data Center IP (DCIP) List grew to nearly 68 million IP addresses, while anti-piracy and malvertising tools were refined to improve accuracy, usability, and real-world enforcement.

• Going on offense against CSAM: To help elevate the fight against Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM), TAG organized and hosted a first-of-its-kind briefing by a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) representative to educate the advertising industry and share best practices for the reporting of such materials.

“TAG’s programs have always been based on transparency and measurement, so member companies can utilize verifiable metrics to improve their standards and drive better results,” said Mike Zaneis, CEO of TAG. “From billions in fraud savings for European advertisers to increased sharing of high-value threat intelligence and reduced waste through MFAs, TAG’s 2025 Impact and Compliance Report shows that accountability at scale works. At the same time, the report shows the work that remains to be done and the critical importance of building an even broader community of companies that adopt those high standards worldwide.”

Want to Learn More About the Impact & Compliance Report? Just Ask Rachel and Mike!

For a deeper dive into the findings of the 2025 Impact & Compliance Report, join TAG CEO Mike Zaneis and COO Rachel Nyswander Thomas as they focus on the highlights and key takeaways from a busy year!

ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark Tracks Tangible Business Results From Focus on Media Quality

The most recent quarterly ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark found that advertisers who operationalize their transparency data and focus on media quality can drive significant improvements in business results.

Developed in partnership with TAG Trustnet and Fiducia, the Q4 2025 benchmark found that advertisers who enforced disciplined quality governance converted 56.7% of their programmatic spend into benchmark‑qualified programmatic impressions in Q4, while lower‑performing advertisers converted just 37.5% of spend into benchmark‑qualified impressions. (The benchmark defines the share of total programmatic investment that delivers impressions that are fraud-free, measurable, viewable, and MFA-free as “TrueAdSpend”.)

In addition, advertiser case studies showed that optimizing toward quality‑adjusted metric delivered nearly 40% reductions in cost per conversion compared to CPM alone, even when nominal CPMs increased.

The findings demonstrated that advertisers who invest in log‑level transparency, multi‑signal quality frameworks, and disciplined governance can convert more programmatic spend into benchmark‑qualified impressions and achieve stronger results.

More Rachel? More Rachel!! Rachel Nyswander Thomas Moderates 4A’s Panel on Strengthening Trust and Integrity in Media Ecosystems

Also in February, TAG COO Rachel Nyswander Thomas joined top ad agency executives at the 4A’s Decisions conference in Washington, DC to discuss emerging challenges and opportunities facing the industry.

At the event, Rachel moderated an all-star panel of leaders from Attention Arc, OMD, and MRC to discuss ways the media, data and technology ecosystem can strengthen integrity through transparent governance, responsible innovation and accountability. The panel focused on emerging frameworks for managing synthetic media and deepfakes, building oversight standards and ensuring credibility and how evolving business models can support a more resilient, trustworthy media ecosystem.

Advertising Day on the Hill: Hear from the Director of FTC Consumer Protection Bureau in DC This May!

Want to know what’s on the agenda for the Federal Trade Commission in 2026? Find out in person on May 12 when Chris Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, speaks to TAG members and their peers from the ANA and 4A’s at Advertising Day on the Hill, in Washington, DC.

The following day, TAG will join with other trade organizations and their constituent companies for in-depth policy briefings meetings with members of Congress and their staff to discuss the digital advertising industry and timely policy issues.

What’s Advertising Day on the Hill? It’s a two-day public policy event held in collaboration with the ANA and 4A’s on the policy issues that matter to the advertising and marketing industry. In addition to Hill meetings and VIP speakers, TAG members will also get access to expert-led deep dives on issues ranging from privacy to AI, taxes, and self-regulation.

For more information or to RSVP for this year’s event, please email info@tagtoday.net. Sign up today!

Team TAG are always looking to connect with the TAG Community wherever they are! In 2026, are planning to be at the below listed events:

Advertising Week Europe
March 24th-26th
London, UK

IAB Public Policy & Legal Summit
March 31st
NYC, NY

Possible
April 27th - 29th
Miami, FL

IACC Annual Conference
April 28th - 30th
Orlando, FL

INTA London
May 2nd - 6th
London, UK

ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference
May 3rd - 6th
Orlando, FL

Advertising Day on the Hill
May 12th - 13th
Washington, DC

Cannes Lion
June 22nd - 26th
Cannes, France

Keep Up-To-Date With The Working Group Brief

TAG's working groups are a crucial source point of conversation and collaboration for digital advertising. Make sure you stay up to date with the latest progress and developments with the Workin Group Brief. 

Read the latest Working Group Brief 👉 tagtoday.net/working-groups

Leverage TAG Research into Your Everyday!

From APAC Fraud Snapshot reports, to UK Brand Safety Consumer reports, to Best Practices whitepapers, TAG's research is here to support our member's day-to-day compliance as well as strategic planning. 

Visit our Data and Insight page 👉 tagtoday.net/insights

Let's Make Some Noise Together 🤝

We love it when TAG members highlight our work together to fight digital ad crime and improve transparency. Please send any TAG-related press releases, blogs, or other announcements to Andrew Weinstein at andrewwstn@gmail.com for review before release.