Report: 80% of Roku & 62% Fire TV apps have app-ads.txt

Pixalate, a global ad fraud intelligence and marketing compliance platform, has released its first Connected TV App-Ads.txt Reports for Roku Apps and Amazon Fire TV Apps, reviewing app-ads.txt adoption trends in 2020.

The reports analyse the state of app-ads.txt adoption among Connected TV (CTV) apps in the Roku and Amazon Fire TV Channel Stores (Roku app and Fire TV apps) in 2020. The IAB Tech Lab’s Ads.txt / App-Ads.txt programs aim to “increase transparency in the programmatic advertising ecosystem” by allowing “to publicly declare the companies they authorise to sell their digital inventory.”

Key Findings: 80 per cent of the top 500 Roku apps and 62 per cent of the top 500 Fire TV apps had app-ads.txt by the end of 2020

Roku apps:

• 9 per cent increase in total number of Roku apps with app-ads.txt (Q1 to Q4 2020)
• 80 per cent of top 500 Roku apps had app-ads.txt in Q4 2020
• 66 per cent increase in ‘Kids & Family’ apps w/ app-ads.txt in 2020
• 31 per cent of top 500 Roku apps list Google on their app-ads.txt files

Amazon Fire TV apps:

• 10 per cent increase in total number of Fire TV apps with app-ads.txt (Q1 to Q4 2020)
• 62 per cent of top 500 Fire TV apps had app-ads.txt in Q4 2020
• 34 per cent of Fire TV apps in the ‘News’ category had app-ads.txt in 2020
• 49 per cent of top 500 Fire TV apps list Google on their app-ads.txt files

The reports also looked at the top 20 apps with app-ads.txt on both Roku and Amazon Fire TV in 2020. Hulu and Sling TV led the way on Roku, while Sling TV and Tubi led on Amazon Fire TV.