Digital Media News

This article appears as a guest post on StartUpBeat.com.

It’s been almost half a decade since the Internet overtook television as the preferred medium for advertising, and with the advent of ever-more sophisticated mobile delivery mechanisms, 2015 promises to be yet another big year for online marketing. Perhaps the only thing getting in the way of this otherwise inexorable momentum, however, is the persistent lack of transparency undermining the industry.

First, the good. Most businesses have already established some sort of online advertising presence–even if that only extends to do-it-yourself social media outreach–and those businesses that haven’t increasingly understand the need to take their advertising arms digital. Spending continues to rise, both in raw terms and in relation to the overall marketing and advertising sector. And given the deepening popularity of e- and mobile commerce, there is no reason to expect demand won’t, also.

When it comes to online advertising campaigns, effectiveness is clearly everything. No business wants to waste any of their ad spend, that much is obvious. But what other areas can we look to improve ROI? The trouble with many online ad campaigns is that there is often a lack of visibility. It can be hard to make data actionable and to create consistent, meaningful measures. That is to say, there’s often a lack of accountability. ExactDrive's partnership with DoubleVerify helps us provide our advertising clients with media transparency and accountability that delivers the absolute highest level of impression quality for maximum advertising performance.

Campaigns are very much seen as either a success or a failure. But like a lot of things, it’s not always black and white - there are also shades of grey. And with online ad campaigns, there are lots and lots of shades.

However, why not let DoubleVerify shed some light and help you out?

American businesses will spend over $43 billion on online banner and display ads this year, and yet nearly half of all the ad clicks will be fraudulent or fake. They will be performed by bots, which areautomated computer programs that browse the web masquerading as humans, for the purpose of committing click fraud.

Click fraud is one of the biggest challenges facing the digital advertising industry today. Millions of online advertising dollars go to waste due to bots, click fraud, and out-of-sight placements. And click fraud is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Bots can imitate the behavior of consumers, by watching a video or making an online purchase. Videos cost more to create, so CPMs are higher, making them a prime target for fraudsters. According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), bots account for 23% of video ad views.

As an industry, digital advertisers are worried about click fraud - and they are right to be, but sometimes people assume something is click fraud when it’s not.

If you've been affected by click fraud, how should you deal with it? Marketing analytics can help. Have you ever visited a social media site, seen a not-so-interesting story with thousands of likes, and clicked on it, mainly because others were clicking? If you answered yes, you may have been duped by click fraud - and you are not alone.

The Wall Street Journal last year reported that 36 percent of Web traffic is spawned by click fraud programs and bots, and the cost to the global digital display advertising industry was approximately $11.6 billion in 2014.

The statistics are shocking, but don’t fret - this blog will show you what to watch out for and how to deal with click fraud, when traversing cyberspace.