Digital Media News

There is an ongoing problem with online advertising – that of fraudulent traffic. According to research, over a third of traffic generated from online ads is fraudulent. Bot traffic cheats advertisers because marketers usually pay for ads whenever they are loaded in response to users hitting a web page (regardless of whether the users in question are real).

That’s clearly no good. If you’re going to the trouble of creating content, placing ads, and monitoring your campaigns, you want to know that your paid traffic is actually authentic.

Some businesses are reluctantly resorting to cutting back on advertising spend; others are using sophisticated methods to analyze their audiences. Ultimately, it’s up to you which direction you take your advertising strategy, but there are a number of ways in which you can cut back on spend wastage.

Do you knowexactlyhow many people are viewing your online ads? No? Well, it’s sad to say that it’s probably a lot fewer people than you think. In fact, a study by Google found that more than half (56.1%) of online display ad impressions are not seen by consumers. This means that you may have effectively been throwing your digital ad money away.

Impressions versus viewability

Advertisers have traditionally used impressions as a metric to measure ad performance. Yet many of these impressions result from page visits in which the visitor never actually sees the ads, either because they’re displayed too low, or worse — the impression is down to a bot.

The way around this is to embrace ad viewability - which looks at whether an ad is actually in view to readers on publishers’ websites.Advertisers that embrace ad viewability over impressions will learn which placements are worth the investment.

Above-the-fold (ATF) impressions, for example, do not promise ad viewability. In fact, less than half of ATF impressions are actually viewable, due to the fact that: Many visitors start scrolling down as soon as they visit a page and see top ads for less than a second, and ad vendors self-categorize what constitutes “above” and “below” the fold, which can persuade clients into over-paying for a less-than-suitable placement.

Today, most companies are aware of just how useful PPC advertising can be to their overall online marketing scheme. However, the effectiveness of your PPC campaign can quickly be diminished when up to 20% of your budget is frequently wasted due to fraudulent activity. The right PPC activity can improve search visibility, drive extra traffic towards your website, and enhance customer conversion levels. In fact, research suggests that most businesses and websites online today will engage in a PPC marketing program at some point.

However, the trouble is that PPC is not immune to the malicious marketers out there that choose to manipulate the model and abuse click-through rates as a way of sabotaging their competitors. Click Fraud is a serious issue for any business that encounters it, and if left unnoticed for too long, it's an issue that can drain significant funds out of your marketing budget, while placating you with the impression that your schemes are actually successful.

We have spent a lot of time writing and discussing the issue of fraud within the online advertising industry, specifically click fraud. If part of your advertising strategy is made up of PPC (pay-per-click) ads, then the primary concern you'll need to think about is click fraud - and the effect it could be having on your business success. Becoming a victim of click fraud means that your advertising budget quickly disappears, while potential customers are actually prevented from reaching your website.

For many small businesses, pay per click advertising is an attractive and useful marketing option. The reason for this is that it's often a fast and effective way for websites to generate traffic, boost their website ranking, and increase overall conversions. On top of that, pay per click ensures that you only have to pay for the clicks that you actually get. Although PPC can be a smart solution for website promotion, if you want your campaign to be successful, you'll need to be cautious when it comes to monitoring your PPC activity - or you could risk becoming yet another victim of click fraud.

As more companies than ever rush forwards into an era of automated content production, digital advertising, and online presence, the idea of "brand safety" has grown increasingly important. The term "brand safety" refers to the tools and practices used to ensure that an advertisement or piece of content will not appear in a context that causes harm to the brand in question. This potentially damaging substance can fall into one of two categories: the first are hate sites, adult content, or sites covering controversial topics. The second category depends on the specifics of the brand itself.

Whether you manage a blog, personal project, or entire business website, it's crucial to be aware of the threats that currently exist online. Blogging and social networking have introduced new risks as malicious individuals search for ways to steal customers and hijack revenues. Unwarranted abuse and criticism has also been made far easier by the anonymity and ease-of-access associated with the internet. If you want to reassure your customers, and make sure that your loyal fans remain devoted to your company, then you'll need to answer questions about the following 7 things your clients need to know regarding brand safety.

How would you feel if up to 20% of your price-per-click (PPC) budget was being regularly wasted as a result of fraudulent activity? Most marketers today know that Pay-per-click advertising is a useful, and effective marketing tool that can drive traffic towards your website, improving search visibility and enhancing customer conversion. In fact, almost all websites and businesses online today that engaged in serious online marketing schemes will take advantage of PPC programs like Google AdWords at some point.

Unfortunately, although a targeted PPC campaign can be an ideal way of boosting your online traffic, it is not immune to the unscrupulous marketers out there that abuse the PPC model to sabotage competitors. Click-fraud is a serious issue to anyone unlucky enough to encounter it, and unnoticed click fraud can drain money from your marketing budget, while providing the false impression that your schemes are successful - thereby creating an even bigger problem.

comScore knew they were buying a great brand when they agreed a deal to acquire MdotLabs last summer. Technology and the Internet have combined to create a vast digital world that’s growing every day – and MdotLabs used innovative techniques to focuson something very important: helpingfight online fraud.

More specifically, we’re talking about protecting advertising companies from potentially malicious web traffic and ExactDrive is excited to be in partnership with mDotLabs (comScore).

Fraudulent attacks on the digital advertising industry are a big issue and, as such,protecting an advertising campaign has never been more necessary. Non-human traffic, click-farms and other shady bot-related activities gobble up roughly $14 billion in advertising spend. That figure is thought to amount to between 25% and 50% of ad spend per campaign.

Before 2011, it was thought that the problem of online advertising fraud was more or less contained. Pay-per-click advertising was still experiencing huge growth, but much of the fraud activity and many of the practices had been seen and countered.

Google themselves have long since acknowledged the need to clamp down on fraud. Google is a business like any other; people need to trust them. For instance, they knew that if they failed to detect click-through fraud, then advertisers would lose faith in their brand. There’s nothing quite like a potential drop in profits to kick-start a company into taking action.

Bots, click farms and the like were treated as a priority for the company. And for good reason. Google used experts like Professor Alexander Tuzhilin to draw up best practices for preventing click fraud and things seemed to be working.