The digital industry has issued a warning to marketers about the dangers of click fraud after major advertisers including Telstra, Coles and Ford were found on an illegal site set up to scam ad budgets.
The website has been set up by criminal fraudsters, and placed several blue chip brands in an unsavoury digital environment.
Coles, Telstra, ING Direct and Ford have pledged to investigate the issue to ensure it does not happen again, but digital industry experts have stressed the need for industry-wide collaboration, while arguing the problem is endemic.
Here's what they had to say:
Stephen Hunt, MD, TubeMogul Australia:
These incidents seem to pop up every six months or so when a small number of publishers run out of supply to meet over-whelming demand and decide to create fraudulent ads. Publishers that have been approved and made their way onto agency whitelists can become fraudulent overnight. Only the most sophisticated tools (or vigilant operations staff) are able to notice the changes to performance metrics and launch a meaningful investigation. The fraud needs to be incredibly sophisticated to beat the technical defenses in place. However, like any industry, there will always be those who try.
TubeMogul has a long history leading the market when it comes to brand safety. In 2011, we launched our BrandSafe suite which currently blocks over nine million fake pre-roll impressions every day. This was followed by the controversial name and shame site (www.fakepreroll.com) in 2012 that saw us hit with multiple cease and desist orders from US ad networks as we tried to go it alone. This year we launched the OpenVV (www.openvv.org) initiative in an effort to rally the market around a standard of brand safety and video viewability.
But even with all these open-source technologies that are available to all of our partners and competitors alike, our industry is still being held back by a small group of rogue operators.
So what are we doing about it? We are coordinating with other industry players and we are moving fast. Almost every local business in the video space has agreed to unite and collaborate with a goal to identify and expel fraudulent publishers from our market. We know it will be an on-going battle but we are determined to put our competitive interests aside for the protection of our advertisers and our market.
So far we have tracked the source of this particular incident back to two exchanges and are working with them to identify the companies or individuals responsible. We are sharing information that can be used to create black lists (or block lists) along with a collaborative effort in the investigation of suspect supply sources. At this stage all suspected fraud has been traced to international waters. On one hand this is good news since no local players are implicated. However it may make the idea of prosecution more difficult.
IAB Australia CEO Alice Manners:
The entire digital advertising industry needs to better understand the nature and sources of non-intentional traffic and we think that involves two elements.
Firstly all advertisers should be using ad verification technology to ensure that their media buy is transparent, safe and accountable. There are a number of auditing technologies available which essentially attempt to verify that one or more attributes of a served online ad have been executed in a manner consistent with the terms specified by the advertiser or agency and agreed to as part of the ad campaign terms.
The second aspect is that of developing industry behaviours and working towards increased collaboration. This has already begun with the release of the IAB Ad Verification guidelines in May 2013 in conjunction with the Media Federation Australia (MFA) and the Audit Bureau. Then we are planning to assess the need for an industry wide standard in ad verification tool requirements and are also considering a “Traffic of Good Intent” task force such as the one established by IAB in the USA. This task force’s mission is to identify, understand and raise awareness of the issue of non-intentional traffic, and to offer insight and recommended solutions to the digital advertising industry. It seems like potentially a very good step for the Australian industry.
Exponential Australia country manager Ben Maudsley:
With the demand in online video and high CPM’s its not surprising that these operators are moving in to make some quick money. As the online industry advances, technology will continue to develop and so too the risks. But its important to note that this isn’t a new challenge for the digital community. Google went through this years ago and weathered the storm and the industry overall has regularly shown an ability to rise and meet such challenges.
Smart advertisers will tackle this by ensuring they know their supply chain and by working with real people at companies that have the resource, technology and processes to ensure they are as protected as possible within this ecosystem. Having those relationships will allow buyers to manage two high-level fraud risks: fraudulent sites and fraudulent traffic. Without a long-term relationship between buyer and seller, it's easy to see how and why high-performing, low-cost inventory is chased without the checks and balances in place and then in due course how click fraud can arise.
It would be hubris for a business like ours, which has worked hard to maintain direct supply chain relationships through the programmatic frenzy, to say "I told you so", but the risk of fraud and brand damage is clearly an issue in the programmatic buy world. The heightened awareness that it has bought to the issue of fraud is an opportunity for businesses to review their partners and weed out those that don’t provide the necessary brand safety parameters.
Not all media placement is 100% safe (most of us can recall a time when we’ve seen an airline ad run next to articles about a major plane crash) but if due diligence is carried out the risk can be vastly minimised. It is important to remember that the problem areas represent a very small proportion of digital activity. The issue is one of broader confidence and reputation for an industry that has worked so hard to grow up and take a seat at the wider marketing table.
Adap.tv Australia managing director Phil Duffield:
Fraud is a major concern in many industries, not just in digital advertising. In any business where there is big money to be made, there will be bad apples out there trying to game the system. It's not a secret that display advertising has had its fair share of fraud issues and recent events indicate that fraudsters are training their efforts on the video ad market. It's a problem that we have aggressively trained our sights on. We have been working very closely with the IAB and third-party solutions on educating marketers, creating industry standards and best practices around combating fraud and developing measurement, detection and filtering technologies that innovate faster than fraudsters.
Anyone who says fraud can be completely eliminated is being disingenuous - there is no silver bullet for fraud and no one is immune to it. However, that does not mean it cannot be contained and eventually made less advantageous for bad apples to defraud. It's not a matter of solutions so much as counter-attack strategies and our team is focused on ensuring our response is, and continues to be, comprehensive. Those who overtly or covertly use fraud as a part of their digital strategy will lose. That is what's needed to maintain the web as a viable place for video and advertising to live and thrive.
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.
Have something to say? Send us your comments using the form below or contact the writer at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.