Fraud, not!
Being proactive in blocking out and avoiding fraudulent activity as much as possible is absolutely necessary in today’s digital age.
Let’s talk about some measures you can take to defend your digital spend from being fraudulently consumed. It’s super important, you can never be too safe.
To highlight the magnitude of the problem, even the latest technological advancements such as Ads.txt for example, protects against just one of about ten major ad types that we are aware of today. For media buyers Ads.txt helps eliminate domain spoofing.
What other fraud types and kinds are out there? Here are some major types of fraud to watch out for:
Bot traffic (impression fraudulent)
Ad stacking (impression/viewability fraud)
Ad injection (impression fraud)
Cookie stuffing/click spam (attribution fraud)
Click farms (click/social activity fraud)
Pixel/Impression stuffing (impression fraud, impression count fraud)
App install fraud (attribution/impression/location fraud)
Pop under redirects (impression/viewability/completion fraud)
In reality, no single tool can help you manage the risk. Also, it’s not always one of the tech tools that makes the difference. Common sense is the leading component in the anti-fraud toolbox of any smart media buyer. Technology combined with your own ability to think critically is your sword and shield in this battle.
What can I do to better detect and avoid fraud? Below are some tips on how to combine technology with common sense to help you #defendthespend
1. Invest into testing as many anti-fraud tools as possible. Try them all. Find the one or two that works best for the type of traffic, placements or campaigns you are running.
2. Monitor your campaign performance for unusual trends and changes. Is your CTR unchanged or flat between 2am and 6am Monday to Friday? Are there impression volume spikes on publisher site? Etc. Don’t be shy about letting publishers know that you are seeing irregularities on their sites.
3. Actively be blacklisting suspicious publishers and exchanges, and regularly update that list. Ask others to share their blacklists with you.
4. Pay attention to metrics that require human interaction, such as inquiries, forms and product searches. Fake impressions are probably not going to cause lift in store locator searches.
5. Use other platform to measure digital sales/conversions than the one you are using to buy media.
6. Look at the entire conversion path. Are your display efforts causing an increase in your branded search queries?
7. Look at site analytics. Is the bounce rate very high from a particular domain or referral URL? Are the users browsing your site beyond the ad campaign landing/splash page? Legit users would.
8. Shift your conversion methodology from measuring CPA to measuring overall lift! Lift in sales, lift in engagements, lift in brand interactions. CPA itself isn’t good enough as some of digital fraud tactics are aimed specifically at tricking digital marketing attribution models.
9. Learn about fraud dynamics and economics. The more you understand how it works and how it happens the easier it will be for you to notice it and avoid it.
Fraud is always evolving, and so should your knowledge and abilities in avoiding it. No environment, channel or digital media type is immune to fraud. Fraud strives in places where we believe it is absent, like as social media, in-app, influencer marketing, email. Evolution of fraud is fast. Your current tactics and measures may not work tomorrow.
Stay proactive and stay knowledgeable.
#DefendTheSpend
#TorontoAdOps
