Ad fraud: Three insidious methods - and how to protect yourself best

The most serious threat that ad fraud poses to the advertising industry is the associated loss of trust. 72 percent of advertisers who use programmatic systems have expressed concerns about brand safety and control in programmatic trading. According to a study by the Chief Marketing Officer Council and Dow Jones. The financial damage is also considerable. Adloox estimates the costs associated with ad fraud at up to 16.4 billion US dollars for 2017.

Although the technical systems for combating ad fraud are getting better and better, the advertising industry must stay on the ball, says Marius Rausch, VP & Managing Director Central Europe at AppNexus. "It's a cat-and-mouse game. Fraudsters are constantly coming up with new tricks, which we then have to identify and stop. Thanks to continuous analysis and tried-and-tested processes, we can now react very quickly to new methods."

AppNexus has invested a significant amount of time, money and resources in data science and marketplace teams and technology to keep ahead of fraudsters. The constant analysis of several hundred billion impressions per day currently reveals three particularly widespread fraud methods:

• Browser or device hijacking programs: Malware that takes control of a user's browser and visits certain websites without the user's knowledge.
• Bot networks: Server-based browsers pretending to be human users - this tactic has been used more frequently in recent years than the browser hijacking malware described above.
• Ad stuffing: A method by which a publisher implements invisible advertisements on a website that the user cannot see.

The AppNexus team of experts also identified a connection between viral content and ad fraud. Publishers that specialize in viral content generally receive more traffic from bots. Extensive data analyses revealed suspicious traffic patterns and overlaps between visitors to these websites. In addition, the content on these pages was very similar. It was therefore reasonable to conclude that many of these websites were operated by the same people.

Marius Rausch gives Internet users, publishers and advertisers the following tips to protect themselves against ad fraud:

Internet users

• Get to grips with the topic and learn to distinguish between high-quality content and questionable content.
• Pay attention to the source before you share an article. Take a close look at the page. What other news is published there? Are there other sources that corroborate the story? Is it clear that time and effort has been put into researching the facts?
• Complain to publishers who present inappropriate ads, sponsorships or websites. The user experience is very important to reputable publishers.

Publisher

• Avoid buying traffic.
• If traffic is nevertheless being purchased, exercise the utmost caution and check where the traffic is coming from. The cheaper the clicks are, the greater the probability that they come from dishonest sources.
• Work with technology partners that ensure fraud doesn't pay.

Advertisers

• Analyze your data and review your supply chain to ensure you are only working with high-quality publishers that do not allow fraudulent traffic.
• Ask publishers where their traffic comes from. You should avoid publishers who buy traffic from third parties.
• Talk to your technology providers and find out what measures they use to combat fraud.

AppNexus has summarized current background information on ad fraud in the digital ecosystem, concrete observations from the perspective of a leading adtech platform and recommendations for action for publishers, advertisers and Internet users in the free white paper "Viral Content: The first warning signal for ad fraud". A free copy can be downloaded from the Website can be downloaded from AppNexus.