Advertisers can reduce fraud by cutting out the lowest hanging fruit first -- DONT serve ads on sites that are created solely for fraud. Blacklist them and keep updating the blacklists frequently.

1. January 2015 / Page 0marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
CONFIDENTIAL
Advertisers can save money and improve ROI
Fraud sites
• All traffic/impressions from bots
• No detectable human traffic
• Created by template/algo
• Content not human readable
Don’t serve ads on fraud sites
• Blacklist fraud sites – sites that are
created solely for fraud
• Focus ads on whitelist sites that can
prove “humanness” of their users
Sites that cheat
• Purchased/sourced traffic created by bots
• Stacked ads, auto-refresh
• High ad-load, low/no viewability
• Audience extension/expansion
Don’t serve ads to bots
• Avoid sites that “source traffic” as
most of that traffic is created by bots
• Use security and viewability vendors to
ensure ads are viewable
Premium publishers
• Legitimate publishers with real content that
humans engage with, interact, read and watch
• They still have malicious bot traffic designed
to gather cookies to commit retargeting fraud
elsewhere
Use premium publishers
• Focus ad spend on premium
publishers that have good practices
and can demonstrate low levels of NHT
(non-human traffic)
Ways to Mitigate

2. January 2015 / Page 1marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
CONFIDENTIAL
comScore corroborates these findings exactly
Fraud sites
• All traffic/impressions from bots
• No detectable human traffic
• Created by template/algo
• Content not human readable
Don’t serve ads on fraud sites
• Blacklist fraud sites – sites that are
created solely for fraud
• Focus ads on whitelist sites that can
prove “humanness” of their users
Ways to Mitigate
“In our analysis of hundreds of digital ad campaigns, we found that levels of NHT can vary greatly
and that a small number of the worst performing campaigns generate the lion’s share of all NHT
impressions. The bottom 21 percent of campaigns contributed 75 percent of all NHT impressions.”
Source: comScore Feb 4, 2015
75%21%

3. January 2015 / Page 2marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
CONFIDENTIAL
Dr. Augustine Fou – Ad Fraud Researcher
“I advise clients and their agencies on the
technical aspects of fighting digital ad fraud.
Using forensic technologies and techniques I
help to assess the threat and the current
countermeasures in order to recommend
additional steps that can be taken to combat
fraud and improve ROI.”
FORMER CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, HCG (OMNICOM)
MCKINSEY CONSULTANT
CLIENT SIDE / AGENCY SIDE EXPERIENCE
PROFESSOR AND COLUMNIST
ENTREPRENEUR / SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
PHD MATERIALS SCIENCE (MIT '95) AT AGE 23
ClickZ Articles: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-clickz
Slideshares: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-slideshares
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/augustinefou
acfou[at]mktsci.com | 212.203.7239