7 ms·

Can anyone explain why it's the ad buyers that lose out in this case, not the ad network? Surely it makes way more sense for the ad networks to bare the financi

by angusb 10y ago

Can anyone explain why it's the ad buyers that lose out in this case, not the ad network? Surely it makes way more sense for the ad networks to bare the financial responsibility of preventing ad fraud and not the ad buyer? (The ad equivalent of a money-back-guarantee) How is an ad buyer ever supposed to make an informed decision about how susceptible their chosen ad vendor is to fraud?

geocar 10y ago
Because Google require you hold them harmless in order to buy on their network.
tyingq 10y ago
The ad networks sometimes do refund money for invalid clicks. However, there's not much incentive to do so, other than maintaining a good reputation. For this reason, I suspect they put just enough work into fraud detection that you see some refunds, enough to convince you they are diligent. I suspect it's similar for the R&D spend on preventing them in the first place.
lawless123 10y ago
They're probably following the Uber model of not considering themselves responsible for anything.
dawnerd 10y ago
When I've purchased ads I've always assumed a certain percent will be fake clicks from th get go.
dragonwriter 10y ago
The ad networks are held responsible by basic economics -- the higher the fraud on a network, the lower the observed utility of advertising on that network, and, therefore, over time the less people are willing to pay to advertise on that network.
rcarrigan87 10y ago
At this point, advertisers just assume some level of fraud is part of the deal with any platform. As long as you're hitting your target ROI than advertising on still makes sense.
- mtanski 10y ago
  The world can be divided up into two types of advertising. DR (Direct Response) or Branding/Awareness. The goal of DR is drive an immediate action, for ex. a purchase or news letter signup. Branding/Awareness is more about keeping the brand/product top of mind for the eventual time when the purchasing is actually done. Usually small and mid-sized advertisers focus on DR. That's why you see a lot of re-targeting type ads for buying products you abandoned in your shopping cart (exception: large ecommerce). Then you have large advertisers like the Fortune 500 and beyond. They know that you're not making the purchase right there. Hardly any toothpaste, car, $25k server ads or retirement account ads lead to a conversion instantaneously. This is Branding/Product advertising. The hope is to keep their product top-of-mind so you'll consider it when you're driving by the dealership or in the toothpaste isle at Target. This is like your traditional newspaper advertising. Traditional KPIs like CPA used in DR ads don't make sense here. And, due to fraud CPC and CTR are not that useful. A lot of brand/product advertisements don't have a good instantaneous KPI and measuring long term ROI for a year long $25k server campaign is nebulous art at best. So to wrap up this story. The guys running this fraud operation were spoofing "premium" video sites with $13.00+ average CPMs (this is high); they were going for the most expensive inventory. The people buying ads on "premium" video sites are not DR advertisers. The goal was to capture Branding/Product advertisers dollars. It's a bit of a misconception that all online advertising is ROI focused. This was true maybe 4 years ago. With younger audiences (40 and under) consuming more video content online versus linear television there's been in a influx of branding dollars coming "premium" online video. (Disclosure: My company Adfin provided data for financial estimate for this anti-fraud operation done by WhiteOps)
  - anamoulous 10y ago
    The frusturating thing about this is how obvious it should be that the publisher account getting paid for the impression is _not_ the premium publisher that it said it was. If your account with, say, AppNexus is registered to "Mikhail Gorsky's Ad Fraud Ring" and it's registering video plays on espn.com/video at a $30 CPM, there are some very very basic heuristics that AppNexus could run to determine there is something off about this arrangement.

by angusb 10y ago

geocar 10y ago

Because Google require you hold them harmless in order to buy on their network.

tyingq 10y ago

The ad networks sometimes do refund money for invalid clicks. However, there's not much incentive to do so, other than maintaining a good reputation. For this reason, I suspect they put just enough work into fraud detection that you see some refunds, enough to convince you they are diligent. I suspect it's similar for the R&D spend on preventing them in the first place.

lawless123 10y ago

They're probably following the Uber model of not considering themselves responsible for anything.

dawnerd 10y ago

When I've purchased ads I've always assumed a certain percent will be fake clicks from th get go.

dragonwriter 10y ago

The ad networks are held responsible by basic economics -- the higher the fraud on a network, the lower the observed utility of advertising on that network, and, therefore, over time the less people are willing to pay to advertise on that network.

rcarrigan87 10y ago

At this point, advertisers just assume some level of fraud is part of the deal with any platform. As long as you're hitting your target ROI than advertising on still makes sense.

mtanski 10y ago
The world can be divided up into two types of advertising. DR (Direct Response) or Branding/Awareness. The goal of DR is drive an immediate action, for ex. a purchase or news letter signup. Branding/Awareness is more about keeping the brand/product top of mind for the eventual time when the purchasing is actually done. Usually small and mid-sized advertisers focus on DR. That's why you see a lot of re-targeting type ads for buying products you abandoned in your shopping cart (exception: large ecommerce). Then you have large advertisers like the Fortune 500 and beyond. They know that you're not making the purchase right there. Hardly any toothpaste, car, $25k server ads or retirement account ads lead to a conversion instantaneously. This is Branding/Product advertising. The hope is to keep their product top-of-mind so you'll consider it when you're driving by the dealership or in the toothpaste isle at Target. This is like your traditional newspaper advertising. Traditional KPIs like CPA used in DR ads don't make sense here. And, due to fraud CPC and CTR are not that useful. A lot of brand/product advertisements don't have a good instantaneous KPI and measuring long term ROI for a year long $25k server campaign is nebulous art at best. So to wrap up this story. The guys running this fraud operation were spoofing "premium" video sites with $13.00+ average CPMs (this is high); they were going for the most expensive inventory. The people buying ads on "premium" video sites are not DR advertisers. The goal was to capture Branding/Product advertisers dollars. It's a bit of a misconception that all online advertising is ROI focused. This was true maybe 4 years ago. With younger audiences (40 and under) consuming more video content online versus linear television there's been in a influx of branding dollars coming "premium" online video. (Disclosure: My company Adfin provided data for financial estimate for this anti-fraud operation done by WhiteOps)
- anamoulous 10y ago
  The frusturating thing about this is how obvious it should be that the publisher account getting paid for the impression is _not_ the premium publisher that it said it was. If your account with, say, AppNexus is registered to "Mikhail Gorsky's Ad Fraud Ring" and it's registering video plays on espn.com/video at a $30 CPM, there are some very very basic heuristics that AppNexus could run to determine there is something off about this arrangement.