Digital ad fraud is more pervasive than most marketers think. This briefing gives a high level overview of what it is, how it is committed, and what you can do about it in managing and optimizing your own digital ad spend.
9. Why Now?
“As more ad inventory is bought and sold
programmatically on ad exchanges, bad
guys are finding it far easier to commit fraud
because few agencies and advertisers
actually check in detail the hundreds of
thousands of sites on which the ads are run.
It’s easier to hide in a far larger haystack.”
-- Dr. Augustine Fou
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Augustine Fou
10. Waste Due to Fraud
• Display ad fraud is the easiest to commit and
bad guys sell tons of “junk” inventory into ad
exchanges.
30-75%
• Video ad fraud is the new area of focus because
video ad impressions are 10x more lucrative
than display
50-80%
• Search ad click fraud is harder to commit,
because it involves several steps, and usually
occurs on “search partner network” sites; but
high spending categories like insurance and high
CPC categories like pharma are favorite targets
20-40%
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Augustine Fou
12. Bad Guys Put Up Sites
site = analyzecanceradvice .com
site = missomoms.com
19 blocked ads on page
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Augustine Fou
13. Load Tons of Ads on Pages
http://modernbab y.com/
http://interiorcom plex.com/
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Augustine Fou
14. Use Bots to Load the Pages
Source: Wired
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Augustine Fou
15. Sell Impressions on Exchanges
“Modernbaby.com and Interiorcomplex.com
Each of these sites peddles enormous traffic on the
exchanges. For example, on a recent day Modern
Baby was offering 19 million impressions via one
exchange (quite the baby boom) and Interior
Complex 30 million [ad impressions PER DAY] (the
roaring housing market must be back).”
Source:
Adweek – Suspicious Web Domains Cost Online Ad
Business $400m per Year
By Mike Shields
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Augustine Fou
17. Display Ad Impressions
30 – 75%
fraudulent, not-in-view, adblocked
IAB: FY 2012 Display Ad Spend = $7.7B
• By far, the easiest to commit – fill a web page with many
display ads and repeatedly load the page with scripts or bots
• Clients pay on CPM basis and are usually goaled on the
number of impressions delivered and CPM
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Augustine Fou
19. Traffic Firehose On/Off
Source: Alexa
Legit human traffic does not change rapidly; but bot traffic
(firehose) can be rapidly turned off and directed to other sites.
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Augustine Fou
20. Where Fake Impressions Come From
Ad exchanges are particularly prone to fraud because shady sites sell enormous
quantities “ad impression inventory” into the exchanges for re-sale.
Source: Integral Ad Science, via BusinessWeek Nov 26, 2013
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Augustine Fou
21. Video Ad Impressions
50 - 77%
fraudulent, autoplay, wasted, not-in-view
Source: Vindico via Adweek, December 15, 2013
eMarketer: Digital Video Ad Spend est. $4B in 2013
• Advanced bots are programmed to load video ads and wait
till they are counted as “views” before leaving the page
• Video ads have 10x the CPM compared with display ads, and
are therefore a prime target for „bad guys‟
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Augustine Fou
22. Video Ad Views Exploded
Dec 2013 35.2B
video ads per month
Source: comScore, Jan 2014 via MarketingCharts
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Augustine Fou
23. Digital Video Ad Spend
Source: eMarketer, May 2013
Digital video ad
spend continues to
rise rapidly as more
TV ad dollars shift to
digital.
Because video CPMs
are so much more
lucrative, it is more
lucrative for bad guys
too.
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Augustine Fou
24. Video Ads Are Lucrative
Video ad CPMs
are $8 - $12,
which means
they are more
than 10X more
lucrative than
display or
mobile ads.
Source: Turn, Inc.
October 2013
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Augustine Fou
25. Impression (CPM) Fraud
Display Ads
Video Ads
500 billion
35 billion
display ad impressions /mo
video ad impressions /mo
29%
40%
Source: Solve Media 2013
Source: Vindico, 2013
confirmed bot traffic
~$1 - $3.50
~$8 - $12
cost per thousand
cost per thousand
$2-6 billion
$1-2 billion
wasted ad spend (annualized)
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estimated fake views
wasted ad spend (annualized)
Augustine Fou
27. Choose Expensive Keywords
olay.com
homemadesimple.com
> 100,000 monthly searches
avg position 1 – 10
sort by highest avg CPC
“cosmetic face lift”
“residential home cleaning”
$10.84 CPC
$9.95 CPC
Source: iSpionage Nov 2013
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Augustine Fou
28. Bots Type Search Term
healthsiteproduc tionalways.com
buy eye cream online
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Augustine Fou
29. Bots Click Search Ad
Olay.com ad
in #1 position
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Augustine Fou
30. Redirect Link(s)
Known blackhat
technique to hide real
referrer and replace
with faked referrer.
SIX (6) redirects
before ending on the
landing page
See how-to:
http://www.blackhatworld.com/
blackhat-seo/cloaking-contentgenerators/36830-cloakingredirect-referer.html
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Augustine Fou
33. Search Ad Clicks
20 - 40%
fraudulent, accidental, wasted
Source: Adometry Click Fraud Report 1H 2013
IAB: FY 2012 Search Ad Spend = $16.8B
• Search ad fraud is a bit more involved to commit and usually
occurs on “search partner” sites (not the main search sites)
• Bad guys set up sites with no content, execute searches with
lucrative keywords, and click the ads with bots
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Augustine Fou
34. Click Fraud by Qtr
Source: ClickForensics 2011
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Augustine Fou
35. Bot Clicks vs Humans
Humans actually click
on buttons and menu
items (mouse moves
and clicks)
Bots don‟t bother
disguising their click
locations and don‟t
show mouse traces.
Source: Spider.io Feb 2013
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Augustine Fou
36. Before and After
BEFORE
AFTER
Top 2 “good guys” = 76%
Top 5 “good guys” = 94%
18% of spend shifted from fraudulent websites to “top 5” good guys
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Augustine Fou
37. Biggest PPC Spenders
Insurance est. Spending:
-
Statefarm.com - $46M /yr
Geico.com - $44M
Progressive.com - $34M
Esurance.com - $28M
Allstate.com - $25M
USAA.com - $21M
Many CPCs from $60 - $78
Retailers est. Spending:
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Walmart.com - $48M /yr
Sears.com - $18M annually
Macys.com - $11M per year
JCPenney.com - $9.6M
CPCs range from $15 - $63
Augustine Fou
39. Other Bad Guy Domains
http://analyzecanceradvice .com
http://analyzecancerhelp .com
http://bestcanceropinion .com
http://bestcancerproducts .com
http://bestcancerresults .com
http://besthealthopinion .com
http://bettercanceradvice .com
http://bettercancerhelp .com
http://betterhealthopinion .com
http://findcanceropinion .com
http://findcancerresource .com
http://findcancertopics .com
http://findhealthopinion .com
http://finestcanceradvice .com
http://finestcancerhelp .com
http://finestcancerresults .com
http://getcancerproducts .com
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36,000+ more
sites like these,
designed to show
search ads and
self-click on them
to siphon CPC
revenue
Augustine Fou
40. Screen Shots of Sites
Alexa
[no data]
Compete
[no data]
Quantcast
[no data]
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Augustine Fou
45. Not Human-Readable
Characteristics
• Auto-generated by bots,
stuffed with search keywords
• To attract organic search traffic
• Not human readable (low
instance of natural phrases)
• Stuffed with affiliate links and
display ads
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Augustine Fou
46. Affiliate Links on Page
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00BXF7I9M/panandscathed-20
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/itemdetails.asp?EdpNo=7674736&SRCCODE=LINKSHARE&cm_mmc_o=ddCjC1bELltzywCjCd2CjCdwwp&utm_source=Linkshare&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=TnL5H
PStwNw&AffiliateID=TnL5HPStwNw-Hc5zkpsnZO2pj1vg.2uttw
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Augustine Fou
51. Industry Players
Nielsen/IAB
IntegralAds (AdSafe)
DoubleVerify
Industry working group to
define ad viewability.
Verify ad placement against
blacklist of known fraudulent
websites.
Ad placement, behavioral
compliance, fraud
detection
Viewable rates (of display ads)
ranged from 14% to 79%.
PageFair
Viewable rates (of display
ads) ranged from 14% to
79%.
Ad blocking detection
Spider.io
Solve Media
Also detection of bot-like
activity and other malware.
Using CAPTCHAs to detect
humans versus bots.
Botnet Costing Display
Advertisers $6 Million per
month. Feb 2013
Global Bot Traffic on Pace to
Waste Up to $9.5 billion in 2013
Ad Budgets. Sep 2013
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WhiteOps
Realtime bot detection
algorithms
Augustine Fou
53. Blacklisting Sites
Value
Exclude sites from
serving your ads
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Caveat
For every site
excluded, bad guys put
up more (because they
don’t have to play by the
rules).
Augustine Fou
54. Enforcing Viewability
Value
Caveat
Only pay for ads which
are viewable (i.e.
above the-fold)
Bad guys have already
defeated “viewability” by
stuffing ads in hidden
layers, all above-the-fold.
Source: Spider.io May 2, 2013
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Augustine Fou
55. Detecting Bot Traffic
Value
Caveat
Good guys use algorithms
to detect unusual
behaviors indicative of
bots (rather than humans)
It‟s an arms race between
good and bad; bots are more
sophisticated and can fake
mouse movements and keep
cookies.
Source: Spider.io March 2013
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Augustine Fou
56. Using CAPTCHAs
Value
Caveat
Captchas deter bots from
filling in forms and stealing
content and cookies.
Some bots can now solve some
captchas, most captchas don‟t
protect content pages.
Source: Solve Media Dec 31 2013
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“Startup called Vicarious
automatically solves
CAPTCHAs.” Oct 2013
http://bit.ly/1bFo9lZ
Augustine Fou
58. Areas of Optimization
Percent of Ad
Spend Impacted
30%
40%
30%
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targeting
improving
optimization
delivery
viewability
bots /not seen by humans
waste
reduction
Augustine Fou
59. Low Hanging Fruit
The most immediate, direct impact on ROI comes from reducing waste
25% On-Target Delivery
(Nielsen)
54% Not In View
(comScore)
23% Ad Blocked
(PageFair)
24 – 29% confirmed bot
(Solve Media)
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Augustine Fou
60. Digital Ad Forensics Process
Preliminary Scan
Sizing of
ad fraud
Forensic Analysis
Maintenance
• Technology Tools
• Statistical analysis
• Budget shifts
• Further optimization
Implementation
FREE
$$$
Preliminary analysis of
paid campaigns and
analytics to determine
magnitude of the ad
fraud impacting client.
Creating recommended
list of changes, including
list of sites to exclude in
each ad channel.
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$
Subscribe to triangulated,
cross-industry database of
“ad fraud offenders” to
continuously update
blacklists and whitelists.
Augustine Fou
61. Related Articles
Digital Ad Fraud Briefing
By: Augustine Fou December 2013
Fake YouTube Videos
By: Augustine Fou, December 2013
Ad Fraud Fighting Techniques
By: Augustine Fou October 2013
Fake Linkedin Profiles
By: Augustine Fou, December 2013
How Display Fraud Works
By: Augustine Fou, May 2013
Fake Facebook Profiles
By: Augustine Fou, Dec 2013
How Click Fraud Works
By: Augustine Fou, November 2013
Fake Twitter Accounts
By: Augustine Fou, August 2013
The Magnitude of Digital Ad Fraud
By: Augustine Fou, November 2013
An Ecosystem of Digital Ad Fraud
By: Augustine Fou, October 2013
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Augustine Fou