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Bob Hoffman at the Ad Contrarian called this in January: "P&G To Online Ad World: We've Had Enough" - https://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/p-to-online-ad

by wyc 9y ago

Bob Hoffman at the Ad Contrarian called this in January: "P&G To Online Ad World: We've Had Enough" - https://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/p-to-online-ad-world-weve-had-enough.html https://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/p-to-online-ad-wor... Digital advertising is rife with (what should be considered) fraud. Advertisers feel as though they are getting fleeced, and the advertising middlemen reap massive margins. The accountability isn't where it needs to be; there are websites that hide ads under other ads, still reporting displays for all ads per page load. I suspect moves like this one will help the ecosystem change for the better.

nitwit005 9y ago
> there are websites that hide ads under other ads, still reporting displays for all ads per page load. While people have done that, most ads seem to load load with some JS to confirm if the ad is visible, and if it's above or below the fold.
- simooooo 9y ago
  How would it have any clue if it's below another div? Pretty much impossible
  - nikanj 9y ago
    Because this is running on the customer's browser, CPU efficiency doesn't matter at all. They can do all sorts of stupid things, like grab the DOM from the browser, lay it out in a JS rendering engine and see if their div ends up being visible. I haven't had the time to look through the ad javascripts on your typical fat webpage, but when there's tens of megabytes of code and it pegs my CPU at 100%, I know it's doing more than just displaying a .png in an iframe.
    - mjevans 9y ago
      This kind of resource misuse is one more reason people run adblockers. That and the security risks of running other people's code on your system.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      Could you just pick a couple of pixels from the actual page display and check they're the right color? Not sure either of these work without access at the top page level, ie you can't get the data from scripts in an iframe? Been a while since i did any JS dev.
- criddell 9y ago
  Why does it matter if the ad is visible? When those same companies post in People magazine, they pay for the placement they want and get no data about how many people saw the ad. The agencies that buy the ad verify it was placed in the right spot at the right size and that's about all they can do. Why should the web be any different? As long as they insist on bundling javascript with their ad, I'm going to run an ad-blocker.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    > Why should the web be any different? What? Because it can - it's the biggest reason so much money is transferring to digital and away from print, because of data and accountability. An ad that was at least scrolled into view is better than one that isnt and many campaigns are now bought on that basis. It's not perfect but it's far better than before and we're not going back.
    - criddell 9y ago
      > it's far better than before That's not really what P&G has found.
      - manigandham 9y ago
        CPG can't be tracked is the problem, there's a major last mile / offline attribution issue and it's only getting tougher as security/privacy gets more regulated. That being said, we work with P&G, they definitely know more now than decades before with older mediums.
0xbear 9y ago
Yeah, but it's not like traditional advertising is free of fraud either. You can't even really pretend to measure the effectiveness of campaigns there. And there's much more money in it.
- red_admiral 9y ago
  > You can't even really pretend to measure the effectiveness of campaigns there. I disagree - for something at the scale of P&G, you can bet that they're doing a LOT of measuring for every campaign they run. The article reads to me as if they're applying the same metrics to their online ads that they use already for traditional campaigns, and finding little impact.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    Agree that they are measuring, but determining the cause and effect of each campaign is very hard. Sometimes ads have a clear impact, but those are cases that no one argues with. Mostly advertisers simply say (in effect) we got your message out, and there was an impact. If the low/high uptake was due to the ad or to the quality of the product or to the weakness of competitors - well no one can say.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      >well no one can say. // P&G must have the most and best data on the planet. By now they can probably say with a pretty high confidence interval.
      - halflings 9y ago
        That's not a real argument though. Just assuming that they have a magical way to solve attribution for traditional ads because they're a bit corporation. If they did have that, they could just use the same tools on digital and report fake clicks and bots to Facebook and Google to get reimbursed. (Google at least refunds all impressions and clicks that were later detected as being fraudulent)
baybal2 9y ago
Well, this is the thing that needed to be said. I worked in online ads for bigger part of my career, I certify that fraud is that industry's second nature. But the type of fraud they engage in is the one for which they can't be prosecuted (disclaiming, audits, etc)
loceng 9y ago
Is there no government agency(ies) who track this to protect businesses from fraud? Otherwise with these practices in place, clearly the businesses selling ads are simply seeing what level of bullshit businesses will tolerate - how far into businesses' profits they can dig before the businesses say fuck this.
manigandham 9y ago
Advertisers are the most complicit in all this. They always have the option of using whitelists and buying properly but they (meaning the dozens of layers in the agency/vendor supply chain) always go for the cheap impressions and clicks to make their reports look good.

by wyc 9y ago

nitwit005 9y ago

> there are websites that hide ads under other ads, still reporting displays for all ads per page load. While people have done that, most ads seem to load load with some JS to confirm if the ad is visible, and if it's above or below the fold.

simooooo 9y ago
How would it have any clue if it's below another div? Pretty much impossible
- nikanj 9y ago
  Because this is running on the customer's browser, CPU efficiency doesn't matter at all. They can do all sorts of stupid things, like grab the DOM from the browser, lay it out in a JS rendering engine and see if their div ends up being visible. I haven't had the time to look through the ad javascripts on your typical fat webpage, but when there's tens of megabytes of code and it pegs my CPU at 100%, I know it's doing more than just displaying a .png in an iframe.
  - mjevans 9y ago
    This kind of resource misuse is one more reason people run adblockers. That and the security risks of running other people's code on your system.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    Could you just pick a couple of pixels from the actual page display and check they're the right color? Not sure either of these work without access at the top page level, ie you can't get the data from scripts in an iframe? Been a while since i did any JS dev.
criddell 9y ago
Why does it matter if the ad is visible? When those same companies post in People magazine, they pay for the placement they want and get no data about how many people saw the ad. The agencies that buy the ad verify it was placed in the right spot at the right size and that's about all they can do. Why should the web be any different? As long as they insist on bundling javascript with their ad, I'm going to run an ad-blocker.
- manigandham 9y ago
  > Why should the web be any different? What? Because it can - it's the biggest reason so much money is transferring to digital and away from print, because of data and accountability. An ad that was at least scrolled into view is better than one that isnt and many campaigns are now bought on that basis. It's not perfect but it's far better than before and we're not going back.
  - criddell 9y ago
    > it's far better than before That's not really what P&G has found.
    - manigandham 9y ago
      CPG can't be tracked is the problem, there's a major last mile / offline attribution issue and it's only getting tougher as security/privacy gets more regulated. That being said, we work with P&G, they definitely know more now than decades before with older mediums.

0xbear 9y ago

Yeah, but it's not like traditional advertising is free of fraud either. You can't even really pretend to measure the effectiveness of campaigns there. And there's much more money in it.

red_admiral 9y ago
> You can't even really pretend to measure the effectiveness of campaigns there. I disagree - for something at the scale of P&G, you can bet that they're doing a LOT of measuring for every campaign they run. The article reads to me as if they're applying the same metrics to their online ads that they use already for traditional campaigns, and finding little impact.
- sgt101 9y ago
  Agree that they are measuring, but determining the cause and effect of each campaign is very hard. Sometimes ads have a clear impact, but those are cases that no one argues with. Mostly advertisers simply say (in effect) we got your message out, and there was an impact. If the low/high uptake was due to the ad or to the quality of the product or to the weakness of competitors - well no one can say.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    >well no one can say. // P&G must have the most and best data on the planet. By now they can probably say with a pretty high confidence interval.
    - halflings 9y ago
      That's not a real argument though. Just assuming that they have a magical way to solve attribution for traditional ads because they're a bit corporation. If they did have that, they could just use the same tools on digital and report fake clicks and bots to Facebook and Google to get reimbursed. (Google at least refunds all impressions and clicks that were later detected as being fraudulent)

baybal2 9y ago

Well, this is the thing that needed to be said. I worked in online ads for bigger part of my career, I certify that fraud is that industry's second nature. But the type of fraud they engage in is the one for which they can't be prosecuted (disclaiming, audits, etc)

loceng 9y ago

Is there no government agency(ies) who track this to protect businesses from fraud? Otherwise with these practices in place, clearly the businesses selling ads are simply seeing what level of bullshit businesses will tolerate - how far into businesses' profits they can dig before the businesses say fuck this.

manigandham 9y ago

Advertisers are the most complicit in all this. They always have the option of using whitelists and buying properly but they (meaning the dozens of layers in the agency/vendor supply chain) always go for the cheap impressions and clicks to make their reports look good.