Ad fraud
Why talk about ad fraud in the context of Programmatic
Advertising? Because with removing (or reducing) the human contact in the
booking, ad placement and ad trafficking process, the possibility of ad fraud occurring
increases. It is something not only we should be aware of, but we ought to do everything possible
to circumvent, or at best reduce.
For those unfamiliar with the digital advertising landscape
it may come as a surprise that some of the online adverts that are served may
never actually get to be seen by a human being. A part of this is due to people
opting out (e.g. closing the website before it has a chance to load the ad), or
due to the ad placement being on a part of the page that even though loads, is
not displayed on the visible part of the screen (e.g. the ad is below the
fold).
However another, and a rather larger part of the ads are
never seen because of ad fraud, or in other words non-human traffic. Some
estimate (Reuters)
the volume of this to be 25% of video and 11% of display ads. Some estimates
are higher (WSJ),
although no one knows what the exact number is. However, considering that the
total digital ad market is estimated to be worth $600bn in 2015 (by eMarketer),
even if we only take 1% of that, it is a whopping $6bn that is spent by advertisers yet the message reaches anyone.
For advertisers it's important to ask tough questions from
the DSPs they use on their capability of filtering out fraudulent
activity. For SSPs it's equally important that they vet the sites they do
business with, and for Exchanges to filter out questionable content and or environments.
We are all responsible to fight fraud with adopting new technologies and
safeguards to, if not making it impossible, but at least make it difficult for fraud to
take place.
I see no silver bullet, rather an ongoing commitment to stay
ahead or very close to those who are trying to cheat the system.
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