Digital display ad fraud: Best practices for buyers
A new eMarketer report, Ad Fraud in Digital Display: The Scope of Fraud and Its Impact on Buyers and Sellers, discusses several best practices beyond the adoption of a fraud detection tool that buyers are employing today, based on interviews with executives across the ad industry.
Ditch simplistic measurement models that are easy to game. By expanding campaign measurement and optimisation criteria beyond single measures such as clicks or even views, buyers can better identify instances of fraud and protect themselves against future occurrences.
“If you’re optimising to some superficial metric, in the end, that’s what the fraudsters pay attention to,” said Stuart MacDougall, CTO of SourceKnowledge. “If they see the IAB wants 70 per cent viewability, they’re going to go out and try to manipulate the system so they get 70 per cent viewability.” Know where your ads are running. Taking a set-it-and-forget-it approach to campaign execution—particularly when buying on ad networks and exchanges—can be a dangerous practice. Advertisers must be diligent about checking the sites they’re running on and the levels of traffic those partners are driving. “Use common sense,” MacDougall said. “Look at the top 10 sites you’re running on. Is one generating more traffic than Yahoo? Those are simple things you can do to avoid a lot of fraud.”
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