illustrated ad fraud risks for advertisers

Ad Fraud Creates Big Risks for Advertisers

September 2016Augustine Fou, [email protected] 212. 203 .7239 (New York)

mailto:[email protected]

September 2016 / marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.

linkedin.com/in/augustinefou

Advanced bots can do everything a human can ….

Javascript installed on webpage

Malware on PCsData Center BotsOn-Page BotsHeadless browsers

in data centersMalware installed on

humans’ devices

Less sophisticated Most sophisticated

Source: AdAge/Augustine Fou, Mar 2014 Source: Forensiq Source: Augustine Fou, Oct 2015

“understanding what bots can do is the first step to understanding the risks they create for advertisers placing ads programmatically on open exchanges.”

Load pages, click Fake scroll, mouse movement, click

Replay human-like mouse movements,

clone cookies

http://adage.com/article/digital/bots-scam-advertisers-pretending-human/293428/

http://adage.com/article/digital/bots-scam-advertisers-pretending-human/293428/

http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/digital-ad-fraud-ecosystem



Ad Fraud Risks for Advertisers(scenarios illustrated with examples)



How many impressions do you want to buy?

Rectangular traffic patterns – turn bots on, turn bots off on demand

“sourcing traffic”



http://www.olay.com/skin-care-products/OlayPro-X?utm_source=msn&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Olay_Search_Desktop

What safe sites do you want to buy from?

Click thru URL passes fake source “utm_source=msn”

buy eye cream online(expensive CPC keyword)

1. Fake site that carries search ads

Olay.com ad in #1 position

2. search ad served, fake click

Destination pagefake source declared

3. Click through to destination page

“domain laundering”

http://www.olay.com/skin-care-products/OlayPro-X?utm_source=msn&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Olay_Search_Desktop_Category+Interest+Product.Phrase&utm_term=eye%20cream&utm_content=TZsrSzFz_eye%20cream_p_2990456911









What click through rates are you shooting for?Programmatic display

(18-45% clicks from advanced bots)Premium publishers(0% clicks from bots)

0.13% CTR(18% of clicks by bots)



Campaign KPI: CTRs



What is your target viewability?

Bad guys cheat and stack ALL ads above the fold to make 100% viewability.

Good guys have to array ads on the page – e.g. 50% or lower overall average viewability.

Fraud SitesGood Publishers

“100% viewability? Sure, no problem.”

AD

“ad stacking”



How many clicks/pages per session do you want?

click on links

load webpages tune bounce rate

tune pages/visit

“bad guys’ bots are advanced enough to fake most metrics”



Need 0% NHT traffic? Or Middle East traffic?• “IntegralAdScience filtered traffic, she says,

can be monetized on any banner network from “the exchanges.”

• Pixalate filtered traffic, she says, can be monetized on any search feed.

• MOAT filtered traffic, she says, works well with video networks but not one in particular.”

Source: Shailin Dhar, Ad Fraud Researcher



How scalable is the traffic? Really, really scalable…Cash out sites are massively scalable

131 ads on pageX

100 iframes=

13,100 ads /page

One visit redirected dozens of timesKnown blackhat technique to hide real referrer and replace with faked referrer.

Example how-to:http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/cloaking-content-generators/36830-cloaking-redirect-referer.html

Thousands of requests per pageSingle mobile app calling 10k impressions

Source: Forensiq

“pixel stuffing”“iframe stuffing”



How profitable is ad fraud? Really, really profitable…

Source: https://hbr.org/2015/10/why-fraudulent-ad-networks-continue-to-thrive

“the profit margin is 99% … [especially with pay-for-use cloud services ]…”

Source: Digital Citizens Alliance Study, Feb 2014

“highly lucrative, and profitable… with margins from 80% to as high as 94%…”

https://hbr.org/2015/10/why-fraudulent-ad-networks-continue-to-thrive

https://hbr.org/2015/10/why-fraudulent-ad-networks-continue-to-thrive

https://media.gractions.com/314A5A5A9ABBBBC5E3BD824CF47C46EF4B9D3A76/4af7db7f-03e7-49cb-aeb8-ad0671a4e1c7.pdf



Ad fraud creates real risk for advertisers

Budget risk – ads shown to bots are wasted

Analytical risk – bad data makes bad conclusions

Business risk – losing the business, possibly abetting criminals

“What portion of your $10 million ad budget was shown to bots?”

“Are you optimizing for higher viewability? You may have just sent more dollars to the bad guys.”

“Did your ad just show up on a hate site that also planted malware?” Your customers just had a bad ad experience.”



About the Author/Researcher



Dr. Augustine Fou – Recognized Expert on Ad Fraud2013

2014

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS / PANELS4A’s Webinar on Ad Fraud AdCouncil Webinar on Ad Fraud TelX Marketplace Live Panel on CybersecurityARF Audience Measurement / ReThinkIAB Webinar on Ad Fraud / Botnets AdMonsters Publishers Forum / OPSDMA Webinar – Ad Fraud & Measurement

2016

2015



Harvard Business Review – October 2015

Excerpt:

Hunting the Bots

Fou, a prodigy who earned a Ph.D. from MIT at 23, belongs to the generation that witnessed the rise of digital marketers, having crafted his trade at American Express, one of the most successful American consumer brands, and at Omnicom, one of the largest global advertising agencies. Eventually stepping away from corporate life, Fou started his own practice, focusing on digital marketing fraud investigation.

Fou’s experiment proved that fake traffic is unproductive traffic. The fake visitors inflated the traffic statistics but contributed nothing to conversions, which stayed steady even after the traffic plummeted (bottom chart). Fake traffic is generated by “bad-guy bots.” A bot is computer code that runs automated tasks.

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