3ton30: the many faces of ad fraud

1

THE MANY FACESOF AD FRAUD AND HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

#StopAdFraud

2

IN 2016

WE HAVE DELIVERED GREAT RESULTS FOR:2,000+ Agencies

6,000+ Brands

200,000+ Campaigns

FOUNDED IN

2001

INNOVATORSIN AD

TECHNOLOGY

675+CENTRONS IN

37 NORTH AMERICAN

OFFICES

TOP 10DIGITAL MEDIA

SPENDER

3

WELCOME TO

This month’s feature: The Many Faces of Ad Fraud

4

THIS IS A SPECIAL WEBINAR PRESENTATION

SPOTLIGHT

5

2016 IAB Service Excellence Award

recipient for OpenRTB

contributions

Director, RTB Platform Operations

IANTRIDER

YOUR EXPERT TODAY:

#StopAdFraud

6 AG

EN

DA QUESTIONS WE’LL ANSWER

ABOUT AD FRAUD TODAY:What is it?

How does it work?

Why does it exist?

Who is the victim?

Who is responsible?

How can you protect yourself?

7

IN THENEWS

8

The Association of National Advertisers conducted a 61-day study looking at the severity of bots across

49 advertisers, 1,300 campaigns, and 10 billion impressions.

BOTS WILL CAUSE:

in losses in 2016

$7.2BILLION1-70%

of all video impressions

2-30%of display

ads

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?#StopAdFraud

9

A COMPLEX LANDSCAPE WHERE NOT ALL MARKETPLACES ARE CREATED EQUAL

QU

ALI

TY

ALL THEOTHERS

REACH

10

CONFUSED?#StopAdFraud

11

DEFININGFRAUD

Ad fraud is the practice of serving digital ads that have no chance of being viewed by a human user or are misrepresented.

12

HUMAN GENERATED

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF FRAUD

BOT GENERATED

13

POP-UP POLL!

I’m always watching for fraudb

I’m very selective with my media buysc

#StopAdFraud

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TOPROTECT YOURSELF FROM FRAUD?

a I review past purchases and look for fraud

I use technology to helpd

Fraud? Am I supposed to do something about this?e

14

YES, BOTS ARE A LEADINGCAUSE OF FRAUD

SIMPLEBOTS

SOPHISTICATEDBOTS BOTNETS

#StopAdFraud

15

WHAT IS A SIMPLE BOT?

• Clearly robotic; unnatural patterns of behavior

• May or may not identify itself as a bot

• Easiest to detect

16

WHAT IS A SOPHISTICATED BOT?

• Attempts to disguise itself as human

• Never identifies itself as a bot

• Not easily detectable

17

WHAT IS ABOTNET?

• A collection of computers running bot software

• Often infected home computers

18

BUT HUMANS CAUSE FRAUD, TOO

CLICKFARMS

INVISIBLEADS

SPOOFING/LAUNDERING

UNINTENTIONALNAVIGATION

#StopAdFraud

19

WHAT IS A CLICK FARM?

• Groups of humans intentionally generating traffic for the purpose of inflating impressions/clicks

• Often called “paid to promote” or “paid to click”

• Users have no interest in ad

20

WHAT IS AN INVISIBLE AD?

• An ad that is served to humans but can’t ever be seen

• Positioned out of the browser “viewport”

• Stacked ads

21

WHAT IS SPOOFING/LAUNDERING?• Domain is misrepresented

(e.g., an undesirable site claims to be cnn.com)

• A shell site is set up to host the ads and an IFRAME is used to actually display them on another, less desirable site

22

WHAT IS UNINTENTIONALNAVIGATION?

• “Zero-click traffic”

• Pop-ups

• Pop-unders

• Unwanted add-ons that redirect users

• Redirects from misspelled domains

23

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?

Centro currentlyBLOCKS 3,321 DOMAINS

Due to human traffic fraud that reduced impression volume on

certain exchanges by

50%

24

The price of anopen eco-system

is a few bad apples.

A low-quality publisher does not

mean it serves fraudulent

Impressions.

LOW QUALITY IS NOT NECESSARILY FRAUD

25

SITE BUNDLING

ADINJECTION ARBITRAGE

MISREPRESENTINGSITES AND QUALITY

26

WHAT IS SITE BUNDLING?

• Masked domain

• Multiple sites included (i.e., domain is reported as “adnetwork.com,” ad network gives a site list but neglects to list low-quality or undesirable sites)

27

WHAT ISAD INJECTION?

• Browser add-ons or toolbars with extra code included

• Replaces existing ads on a page

• Adds new ad units to a page

• Deprives publishers of revenue

28

WHAT ISARBITRAGE?

• Buying an impression via RTB and then immediately reselling it into an ad exchange

• May be resold multiple times, obscuring origin and quality

• May be a display impression turned into a video impression

29

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING,DO SOMETHING…

STEP 1FIRST IMPRESSIONS

30


STEP 2LOOK UPSTREAM

31


STEP 3IDENTIFY BAD BEHAVIOR

32


STEP 4FIND FINGERPRINTS

33

THE CHALLENGE OF OPEN MARKETPLACES

34

MOST AD FRAUD IS LEGAL(TECHNICALLY)

35

INCENTIVE TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY

$1.00 of Advertiser MoneyA

GE

NC

Y

Agency Trading Desk

DS

P

SS

P PUBLISHER

36

WHO IS THEVICTIM?

37

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

38

THE ROLE OF THE PUBLISHER

“Fake traffic has become a commodity. There’s malware for generating it and

brokers who sell it. Some companies pay for it intentionally, some accidentally, and

some prefer not to ask where their traffic comes from…”

— Businessweek

#StopAdFraud

39

THE ROLE OF THEADVERTISER/AGENCY

ADVERTISERSWant cheaper

inventory, but thisencourages fraud.

AGENCIESWant to spend

at all costs, but thislowers standards.

#StopAdFraud

40

THE ROLE OF THE AD TECH PLATFORMSA combination of human and tech measures monitor and block fraud.

ADVERTISERS

$$$

PLATFORMOPS

DSP SSP

X

X

X X X

PUBLISHERS

41

WHAT ARE THE TAKEAWAYS?

SO, IAN,

42

BEST PRACTICES TOGUARD AGAINST FRAUD

Audit previously bought media for indicators

of fraud

Proactively monitor fraud

Buyselectively

Usetechnological

countermeasures

#StopAdFraud

43

TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP

PRE- BID SEGMENTS

VERIFICATION SERVICES

PRIVATE MARKETPLACES

TIERED INVENTORY

LEVELS

44

OTHER TACTICS TO USE

TURN OFF CLICK-BASED OPTIMIZATIONS

AVOID EASY-TO-FAKE CAMPAIGNS GOALS

EMBRACE DEFENSIVE BUYING TACTICS

45

LIKED WHAT YOU HEARD TODAY? Join us every month

for 3Ton30: Quick digital lessons

for fast-movingmarketers

Here’s what’s coming up:May 18thth

Topic: Digital Trends and How to Drive Performance

46

STAY UP-TO-DATE ONDIGITAL TRENDS AND ALL THINGS CENTROBY FOLLOWING USON SOCIAL MEDIA

@Centro

@Centro_Inc

facebook.com/centro.llc

linkedin.com/company/centro

47

THANKYOU.

Ian TriderDirector, RTB Platform Operations

3ton30: the many faces of ad fraud

Marketing