The short answer
An ad server decides which ad plays in which slot of which pod, applies your rules, and hands the result to insertion. A verification vendor answers a different question on behalf of the buyer: was the impression real, was it viewable, was the content around it acceptable. Integral Ad Science (IAS) is the second kind of company. It also owns Publica, which is the first kind, and that is where the confusion starts.
GoGo CTV is an independent CTV ad server. We do not measure viewability, score brand safety or classify invalid traffic, and we do not intend to. If your advertisers require third-party verification, you keep a verification partner and we carry its tags. If they do not, nothing about using us creates the need.
Two jobs, two contracts
| Question | Ad server | Verification vendor |
|---|---|---|
| Who is the customer? | The publisher | Mostly the buyer; sometimes the publisher, to prove inventory quality |
| Which ad plays? | Decides | Does not decide; may supply a pre-bid signal the buyer uses to decide whether to bid |
| Was the impression real and viewable? | Records that it was served and beaconed | Measures independently and reports to the buyer |
| Was the content brand-safe? | Enforces the publisher's category rules on the ad | Classifies the content around the ad |
| How does it connect? | Player or manifest, demand sources, the delivery record | Tags in the creative, an SDK where the platform allows one, or beacons fired by the ad server |
| Commercial model | Licence or usage fee (ours: software licence) | Usually per measured impression, paid by whoever contracts it |
The rows matter because they show why a publisher can hold each contract separately. The ad server is chosen for yield, control and data. The verification vendor is chosen, in practice, by which one your buyers accept. Bundling them makes one renewal hostage to the other.
How verification travels with the creative
On connected TV, verification mostly does not run inside the ad server. It runs through three routes, none of which depend on which ad server made the decision:
Tags inside the VAST document
The buyer's creative arrives as a VAST response that carries the verification vendor's resources: tracking pixels and, in VAST 4.x, an
AdVerificationsblock. The ad server passes these through. When the creative moves to a new ad server, they move with it.An on-device SDK, where the platform allows it
Some CTV platforms permit the Open Measurement SDK or a vendor SDK in the app. That is between the app, the platform and the vendor. The ad server is not in that path.
Server-side beacons
Under server-side insertion, the stitching layer fires impression and quartile beacons on the viewer's behalf. This is the one route the ad server does affect, and it is the reason a vendor should re-validate impression counting after a migration: see beaconing for why a pre-fetched segment and a watched one are not the same thing.
We carry verification tags through unchanged, fire server-side beacons in a way we can document, and give you the per-impression record to reconcile against the vendor's numbers. We do not offer native verification and will not sell you one. If a prospect needs it native, we say so and point them to a vendor that has it, including Publica.
If what you actually want is an IAS alternative
People searching for an "IAS alternative" usually mean a verification vendor, not an ad server, and it would be a disservice to steer that search toward us. The category has a handful of established names, of which DoubleVerify, HUMAN and Pixalate are the ones publishers most often mention to us. We name them for orientation only: this is not a certified integration list, a recommendation or a ranking, and we have no commercial relationship to disclose with any of them. Which one fits depends on which vendors your buyers accept, which platforms you distribute on, and what their measurement actually covers on each.
If instead you are on Publica and want to change ad servers while keeping IAS verification, that is a different and much simpler problem: see leaving Publica because of the IAS bundle.
Frequently asked
Do I need IAS if I use GoGo CTV?
Only if your buyers require it. GoGo CTV is an ad server: it decides which ad plays and stitches it into the stream. It does not measure viewability, brand safety or invalid traffic and does not replace a verification vendor. If your advertisers or agencies require third-party verification, you keep a verification partner; GoGo CTV carries its tags. If they do not, you do not need one because of us.
Is GoGo CTV an alternative to Integral Ad Science?
No. GoGo CTV is an alternative to Publica, the CTV ad server IAS owns, not to IAS's verification and measurement products. Publishers searching for an IAS alternative usually mean a verification vendor; the candidates in that category include DoubleVerify, HUMAN and Pixalate, which we name for orientation rather than as certified integrations or recommendations.
Does switching ad servers break third-party verification?
Not by itself. Verification vendors measure through tags carried in the creative's VAST document and through the impression beacons the ad server fires, not through the ad server's decisioning. When the creative moves to a new ad server, its verification tags move with it. What can change is server-side beaconing behaviour, so the vendor should re-validate impression counting after a migration.
Related reading
- A Publica alternative, and when you actually need one
- Server-side ad insertion, explained, including the beaconing problem
- Standards we implement: VAST, VMAP, OpenRTB 2.6
- CTV ad server alternatives, compared by who owns them