Post on 14-Jul-2015
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Addressing Non-Human Traffic & Providing Transparency
Susan Bidel
Senior Analyst, ForresterAri Levenfeld
Senior Director of Privacy & Inventory Quality,
Rocket Fuel
Making Leaders Successful
Every Day
Digital Advertising’s Dirty Little
Secret: Fraud
Susan Bidel, Senior AnalystDecember 2014
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Agenda› Syphoning Revenue from the Whole Ecosystem
› Lack of Transparency Facilitates Fraudulent Activity
› Publishers and Advertisers Alike Need to Clean House
› Recommendations
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Agenda› Syphoning Revenue from the Whole Ecosystem
› Lack of Transparency Facilitates Fraudulent Activity
› Publishers and Advertisers Alike Need to Clean House
› Recommendations
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Fraud defined
Fraud in digital advertising is characterized by reaping financial rewards through the deployment of
technologies that mislead advertisers on where their ads are running and/or who or what is clicking and interacting with
those ads.
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
40%
Lost in Display
$11.6 Billion in 2014 according to Solve Media22% increase
over 2013
“In display, it’s driven
by botnets, ad stacking, and
impression laundering.”Kaylie Smith
Rubicon Project
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Botnets
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Ad Stacking
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Impression Laundering
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Tool Bars
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Video Appeals to Fraudsters
The quality of supply isn’t great, since it’s more expensive to create.
So CPMs are higher against this limited supply, making video a
better target.Steve Sullivan
Vice President
Ad
Technologies
IAB
““
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Mobile Fraud is Difficult to Detect
[We] don’t expect to see the same volume of fraudulent traffic as
with desktop.“ “
Steve Sullivan
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Agenda
› Syphoning Revenue from the Whole Ecosystem
› Lack of Transparency Facilitates Fraudulent Activity
› Publishers and Advertisers Alike Need to Clean House
› Recommendations
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Fraud Not Yet a Major Marketer Concern
› Transparency concern
› Growing year over year
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
But It’s On the rise
› Fraud emerging as a major concern among marketers
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Marketer Responsibility
› Stop seeking bottom dollar deals
› Require complete transparency about where ads are running
› Consider other measures of success beyond the click
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Agenda
› Syphoning Revenue from the Whole Ecosystem
› Lack of Transparency Facilitates Fraudulent Activity
› Publishers and Advertisers Alike Need to Clean House
› Recommendations
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Embrace Transparency
› Marketers
• Know who you’re dealing with and where
your ads are running
• Require completely transparent list of all
sites
Buyers should buy only against a white list with domain transparency.“
“
Larry Allen
Sr. VP Development
Xaxis
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Embrace Transparency
Exchanges can filter toolbars, but they also have an incentive to grow audience scale.
“Andrew Casale
VP Strategy
Casale Media
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Embrace Transparency
› Publishers
• Don’t stack ads – it’s unethical
• Stop compromising traffic quality to fulfill
campaign requirements
Publishers become over-reliant on paid traffic sources, maybe buying 50%-60% of their traffic from second-
and third-tier networks….
“
Qasim Saifee
Sr. VP Monetization Platform
OpenX
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Agenda› Syphoning Revenue from the Whole Ecosystem
› Lack of Transparency Facilitates Fraudulent Activity
› Publishers and Advertisers Alike Need to Clean House
› Recommendations
© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
Employ Programmatic to Fight Ad Fraud
Programmatic offers unparalleled optics at the impression level to fight fraud
› Insist exchanges impose quality control on buyers and sellers
› Publishers: buy your own site
› Marketers: be wary of CPC and CPA deal that look too good
Thank youSusan Bidel
+1 212.857.0751
sbidel@forrester.com
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Ari Levenfeld, Senior Director of Privacy and Inventory
Quality
● Hired by Rocket Fuel 4 years ago
specifically to address inventory quality
● 15 years of quality and policy experience
● IAB QAG certified
● Member of IAB TOGI
● IAB Anti Fraud Working Group
● MRC Invalid Traffic Working Group
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HOW WE FIGHT FRAUD
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Removing Bad Traffic at the Pre-Bid Level
Currently up to 40% of traffic is discarded… 500 BILLION impressions / month
And at Rocket Fuel we’ve seen 8% rise in impressions we routinely reject
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Removing Bad Traffic at the Pre-Bid Level
AI
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How Do We Spot Real Humans?
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We have an inventory quality model - the same artificial intelligence and models we use to optimize our
clients’ campaigns is also dedicated to identifying and blocking suspicious activity.
Example: Millions of features, petabytes of data evaluate bid requests in less than 100 milliseconds.
Artificial Intelligence
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We compare data in bid requests and across impressions. When we see things that don’t make
sense, we block. Example: A user who provides a different UserAgent in the bid request and in the
impression.
Stuff That Doesn’t Add Up
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100% certainty of what’s happening at other end of computer screen is hard. But we’ve come up with a
unique CAPTCHA-like test for “humanness”, and we’re patenting it.
Example: Bots Don’t Buy Things
Patent Pending Technology
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We work publicly and behind the scenes with other ad tech companies to share data to eradicate fraud.
Example: IAB Traffic of Good Intent Task Force.
Pool Resources with Industry
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DO I HAVE BAD TRAFFIC?
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Most People Do… It’s Unavoidable
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Aiding Industry to Combat Fraud
Rocket Fuel Traffic Scanner is
a traffic monitoring tool giving
marketers full transparency
into quality of traffic across
online ads and media
properties with any
programmatic partner.
Available in 3 countries
covering digital campaigns
around the world
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What Should I aim For?
Rocket Fuel introduced the Quality Challenge for Digital Marketers to stay above 95%
Marketers should require that their partners know and state the quality of their impressions
validated and publicly reported on by an accredited 3rd party or through Traffic Scanner.
Rocket Fuel’s
Quality Score
Traffic Scanner - 96.55%
Forensiq - 96.28%
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What Else Can I Do About This?
● Work with companies that give deeper information about bad traffic
● Stay updated on the latest that comes from industry bodies like the IAB Anti-
Fraud Working Group
● Partner with companies like Rocket Fuel, who routinely remove bad traffic at
the pre-bid level, have a high traffic quality score, and are constantly improving
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QUESTIONS?