6 ms·

I wonder if you read the part about fraud detection?

by tobr 4y ago

diffeomorphism 4y ago
That argument is somewhat flimsy though. It is only a problem if you want to pay per view. If you just pay for "show it for one week" as in print then there is no issue.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  But in print it is knowable how many copies are going out, isn't it?
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Even that can be fiddled. USAToday used to do it via deals with hotels to put one outside your room. Boom, extra copies!
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      Printing a newspaper at least costs a bit more money and there's a decent chance someone will read the copy of the paper in their hotel room. Fake Web traffic could easily dwarf real traffic.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Yeah although ad buyers of any sophistication knew going in that a lot of certain newspapers were hotel copies (though arguably a lot of people read those), trade rags vs. consumer subscriptions, general vs. niche, etc. and took that into account. They still didn't have a great idea of how effective they were a lot of the time of course.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Advertisers would want to know something akin to circulation numbers before paying for placement though. And they would want to be reasonably confident those numbers aren't pumped by fraud. Maybe the web needs something like Nielsen ratings, where Verified real users voluntarily submit their browsing to help advertisers determine watch time.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I talk about this at the end of the post as well. I think a ratings panel approach doesn't apply well to the web because the web is so fragmented. (In a good way! I like that there are lots of independent sites!) Unless you had something like 10% of real users or a super representative 1% I think you'd have a big problem with getting realistic numbers outside huge sites.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Yes. But even if you pay for a month placement on a given site, the ad buyer is still going to want an estimate of how many legitimate viewers see/saw your ad. It probably works better on things like podcasts but the bottom line is that you can't really trust me to tell you how many viewers my site had without some fraud detection mechanisms in place. (And even then fraud is apparently pretty rampant.)
  - Saris 4y ago
    I may be missing something, but why? Wouldn't the buyer just look at how many people arrived at their website from the ad?
    - ghaff 4y ago
      How do you know those clicks are people? (You can measure just conversions but that's a much higher bar for measuring an ad and a direct conversion may not even be your objective.)
    - jefftk 4y ago
      Bots can click through like any other visitors. They won't buy stuff, though, so if you're placing ads for people to directly take an expensive action ("performance advertising") you're mostly ok. Brand advertising, though, is very dependent on fraud detection because it doesn't have this clear connection. There's more about this near the end of the post.
      - tobr 4y ago
        Do you think it’s possible to measure how many people are coming from an ad on a specific site and buying something, without also resorting to illegal tracking?
        jefftk 4y ago
        That's a good point. I think a shopping site might be able to succeed in arguing that they had a legitimate interest in tracking how people arrived on their site, but possibly not. On the other hand, if half of your visitors consent to tracking that's enough to have a pretty good sense of the value you're getting from each source.
orangeoxidation 4y ago
Print can charge for ad placement, not impressions. But that's only possible because the number of subscribers, size and number of print runs, circulation are well known and hard to fake stats. The web cannot do that without tracking...
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Big sites (newspapers) could do it the same way - maybe independent reach surveys could be the data that they use to back up their web ad pricing.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I think that's one of the points though. Big sites can back up their digital reach claims such as by using third parties. But if vetting yourself for advertisers was to become a requirement, advertisers just might not bother with small sites. Though admittedly Google makes money off small sites--but I bet most of those small sites don't make enough to make note of.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      Google's vetting of small sites is pretty minimal. Instead they use fraud detection: vetting the traffic itself.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Right. Which is the point both of us are making I think. If you can't do some minimum floor of fraud detection more or less transparently and cheaply, you fall back on more heavyweight mechanisms and probably screen out any site that isn't "big."
- contravariant 4y ago
  Depends what you call tracking. Just like a newspaper company knows how many copies they distribute a website would know how many copies they've sent over the line. You might not trust them but I don't see why you'd think a newspaper would have a harder time claiming they've made more copies than they have.

I wonder if you read the part about fraud detection?

by tobr 4y ago

I wonder if you read the part about fraud detection?

That argument is somewhat flimsy though. It is only a problem if you want to pay per view. If you just pay for "show it for one week" as in print then there is no issue.

emodendroket 4y ago
But in print it is knowable how many copies are going out, isn't it?
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Even that can be fiddled. USAToday used to do it via deals with hotels to put one outside your room. Boom, extra copies!
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    Printing a newspaper at least costs a bit more money and there's a decent chance someone will read the copy of the paper in their hotel room. Fake Web traffic could easily dwarf real traffic.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Yeah although ad buyers of any sophistication knew going in that a lot of certain newspapers were hotel copies (though arguably a lot of people read those), trade rags vs. consumer subscriptions, general vs. niche, etc. and took that into account. They still didn't have a great idea of how effective they were a lot of the time of course.
googlryas 4y ago
Advertisers would want to know something akin to circulation numbers before paying for placement though. And they would want to be reasonably confident those numbers aren't pumped by fraud. Maybe the web needs something like Nielsen ratings, where Verified real users voluntarily submit their browsing to help advertisers determine watch time.
- jefftk 4y ago
  I talk about this at the end of the post as well. I think a ratings panel approach doesn't apply well to the web because the web is so fragmented. (In a good way! I like that there are lots of independent sites!) Unless you had something like 10% of real users or a super representative 1% I think you'd have a big problem with getting realistic numbers outside huge sites.
ghaff 4y ago
Yes. But even if you pay for a month placement on a given site, the ad buyer is still going to want an estimate of how many legitimate viewers see/saw your ad. It probably works better on things like podcasts but the bottom line is that you can't really trust me to tell you how many viewers my site had without some fraud detection mechanisms in place. (And even then fraud is apparently pretty rampant.)
- Saris 4y ago
  I may be missing something, but why? Wouldn't the buyer just look at how many people arrived at their website from the ad?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    How do you know those clicks are people? (You can measure just conversions but that's a much higher bar for measuring an ad and a direct conversion may not even be your objective.)
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Bots can click through like any other visitors. They won't buy stuff, though, so if you're placing ads for people to directly take an expensive action ("performance advertising") you're mostly ok. Brand advertising, though, is very dependent on fraud detection because it doesn't have this clear connection. There's more about this near the end of the post.
    - tobr 4y ago
      Do you think it’s possible to measure how many people are coming from an ad on a specific site and buying something, without also resorting to illegal tracking?
      - jefftk 4y ago
        That's a good point. I think a shopping site might be able to succeed in arguing that they had a legitimate interest in tracking how people arrived on their site, but possibly not. On the other hand, if half of your visitors consent to tracking that's enough to have a pretty good sense of the value you're getting from each source.

orangeoxidation 4y ago

Print can charge for ad placement, not impressions. But that's only possible because the number of subscribers, size and number of print runs, circulation are well known and hard to fake stats. The web cannot do that without tracking...

kzrdude 4y ago
Big sites (newspapers) could do it the same way - maybe independent reach surveys could be the data that they use to back up their web ad pricing.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I think that's one of the points though. Big sites can back up their digital reach claims such as by using third parties. But if vetting yourself for advertisers was to become a requirement, advertisers just might not bother with small sites. Though admittedly Google makes money off small sites--but I bet most of those small sites don't make enough to make note of.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Google's vetting of small sites is pretty minimal. Instead they use fraud detection: vetting the traffic itself.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Right. Which is the point both of us are making I think. If you can't do some minimum floor of fraud detection more or less transparently and cheaply, you fall back on more heavyweight mechanisms and probably screen out any site that isn't "big."
contravariant 4y ago
Depends what you call tracking. Just like a newspaper company knows how many copies they distribute a website would know how many copies they've sent over the line. You might not trust them but I don't see why you'd think a newspaper would have a harder time claiming they've made more copies than they have.