How Data Science and Technology Can Help Fight Ad Fraud

A lot of the media buying is shifting into the digital space, so...

...How should marketers approach it to make it more effective?

What is ad fraud? something pretending to be a person, and therefore stealing impression from advertisers. On top of that, 20% of impressions are lost, which sets you back on building sales and achieving success.

This is ad fraud, and even if some believe is going to decrease over time, it will happen only if the entire ecosystem addresses it.

" We are all responsible " says Ron Amram, Senior Media Director, Marketing, HEINEKEN USA. The only way to fight it, is to integrate collaborative solutions in the big ecosystem

There are 3 actions that can help fight ad fraud:

• Identify bad actors: make them public, expose fraud from ad exchangers (those who sell this inventory).
• Create blacklists
• Identify more sophisticated threaths.

We are in the first stage of this problem: we are recognizing it as a problem and we are starting to talk about it. The solution has to be both organizational and technological. Business practices will have to change. It is a security issue, so we have to address it as such, investing in changing the mentality and work together to make it more secure.

"Today we are in a transition period, but soon the buy side, us, is going to be able to spot the problem, and stop carrying all the burden " Michael Tiffany, Co-Founder and CEO, White Ops

The downside is that we don`t have standardized guidelines yet or independent organization to supervise ad fraud. The good side: There is going to be more competition in quality. Improving the quality of the inventory: ad exchangers, ad network, or referral services, and taking responsibility for it. Which means, creating best practices.

We should also creat identifiers that rewards good actors and punishes bad actors. And create tools for the middle man to be able to spot them or trust the inventory they are buying. We need to raise the bar, to be precise about the type of malware. And make it public, establish protocols making an economic effect and provoke changes. 2/3 of the ad fraud came from compromised regulars people's computers.

In summary, it seems that the solution will come from mutual agreement, much like everything that takes place on the internet. That can be easily achieved or harder than ever. It will be up to us.

"People have realize the value of programmatic, and RTB, just now. Next step, how can we ensure it ." Douglas de Jager, Engineering Lead and Manager, Google Ad Traffic Quality, Google