Ad Fraud Archives - Integral Ad Science

What Is Click Fraud?

IAS Team — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Click fraud stands as a persistent threat that undermines the integrity and effectiveness of online marketing efforts. Simply put, click fraud involves the deceptive practice of clicking on online advertisements with malicious intent rather than genuine interest. This can be orchestrated by automated bots or individuals, aiming to generate fraudulent clicks that inflate advertising costs or mislead performance metrics.

This malicious activity not only drains marketing budgets but also skews data, leading to misguided strategies and diminished return on investment (ROI).

As digital advertising continues to grow, so does the sophistication of click fraud tactics, making it imperative for marketers to adopt advanced protection measures to safeguard their campaigns and ensure accurate performance evaluation.

What’s the true cost of click fraud?

The true cost of click fraud encompasses more than just financial losses. It disrupts the integrity of digital advertising by inflating click-through rates and misleading advertisers with false engagement metrics, ultimately diminishing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Click fraud undermines trust and credibility within the digital advertising ecosystem. It erodes the confidence of advertisers in online platforms and tarnishes the reputation of publishers and ad networks. Addressing click fraud is essential not only to safeguard advertising budgets but also to uphold transparency and maintain a sustainable environment where brands can effectively connect with their target audiences.

The true cost of click fraud goes well beyond the financial implications:

Financial impact: Advertisers pay for each click on their ads, whether legitimate or fraudulent. Click fraud can drain advertising budgets rapidly, leading to wasted resources and reduced ROI.
Sustainability efforts: Click fraud impedes efforts toward sustainable digital advertising practices by distorting performance metrics.
Data integrity: Fraudulent clicks distort performance metrics such as click-through rates and conversion rates, making it difficult for marketers to accurately assess the success of their campaigns and make informed decisions.
Trust and reputation: For publishers and ad networks, click fraud compromises trust with advertisers and can damage their reputation in the industry. It undermines the credibility of digital advertising platforms as effective channels for reaching target audiences.

Let’s dive deeper into click fraud’s serious implications and explore what marketers can do about it.

Financial impact of click fraud

Click fraud poses a substantial financial threat to brands and advertisers, significantly affecting their revenue streams and overall financial health. Increasing invalid traffic, primarily driven by click fraud, can have several detrimental effects:

Loss of ad spend: In 2024, it’s projected that advertisers and brands could lose as much as $71 billion due to invalid traffic generated by click fraud. This loss directly impacts advertising budgets, diminishing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and reducing the ROI from digital advertising efforts.
Revenue dilution: Click fraud not only wastes advertising dollars but also dilutes the revenue potential for brands. The projected loss of up to $205 billion in revenue underscores the magnitude of the problem, as fraudulent clicks do not translate into genuine consumer engagement or sales conversions. This financial impact can hinder growth strategies and profitability targets for brands relying on digital advertising channels.

Budget allocation challenges: Advertisers rely on accurate data to allocate their advertising budgets effectively. Click fraud distorts performance metrics, leading advertisers to make decisions based on misleading information. As a result, brands may misallocate resources, investing in channels that do not yield the expected returns due to fraudulent activities skewing engagement metrics.

The hidden environmental costs of click fraud

Ad campaigns can be detrimental to the environment.

Of the 3.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions generated annually by programmatic display advertising globally, 26.4% of impressions are estimated to be non-viewable, according to data from Lunio. This equates to approximately 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted yearly to serve non-viewable impressions.

This highlights a significant concern regarding carbon emissions from digital advertising. Given that campaigns often accumulate millions of impressions, each impression consumes enough energy to charge tens of thousands of smartphones.

Click fraud can impact sustainability efforts in a number of ways:

Energy consumption: Each fraudulent click triggers data processing and server activities, consuming energy resources. Data centers and servers require substantial energy to operate efficiently. The increased activity due to fraudulent clicks contributes to higher energy consumption, indirectly impacting carbon footprints and contributing to environmental degradation.
Electronic waste: The digital advertising ecosystem relies heavily on electronic devices and hardware. When click fraud artificially inflates advertising metrics, it can lead to increased demand for new electronic devices, contributing to electronic waste (e-waste) when older devices are discarded prematurely. E-waste management is a critical aspect of environmental sustainability, and minimizing unnecessary device turnover is essential.
Resource utilization: Fraudulent activities can lead to inefficient allocation of resources. Advertisers may misallocate budgets based on false data, directing investments away from genuinely effective channels. This inefficiency can lead to unnecessary consumption of resources like raw materials for advertising materials and human resources for managing ineffective campaigns.

By comprehending the carbon footprint of campaigns, marketers and brands can grasp the magnitude of their environmental impact. This awareness marks the initial stride towards eliminating inefficient practices within digital advertising.

Publishers and brands face significant reputational damage as a result of click fraud

Click fraud can cause significant reputational damage to both advertisers and publishers involved in online advertising. When click fraud occurs and advertisers unknowingly pay for fraudulent clicks, several reputational challenges can arise:

Wasted budget and ROI concerns: Advertisers rely on accurate data and performance metrics to assess the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. If a significant portion of their budget is wasted on fraudulent clicks that do not generate genuine interest or conversions, it can lead to questions about the efficacy of their marketing strategies and the return on investment from online advertising.
Impact on trust and credibility: Advertisers may lose trust in the advertising platforms where the click fraud occurred. They may question the platform’s ability to protect their advertising investments and provide accurate reporting. This loss of trust can result in advertisers reducing their advertising spend on the platform or seeking alternative advertising channels, potentially damaging the platform’s reputation in the industry.
Legal and regulatory issues: In some cases, click fraud can lead to legal consequences, such as violating terms of service agreements with advertising platforms or facing legal action from affected parties. Legal disputes and negative publicity resulting from click fraud can further damage the reputation of the parties involved.
Publisher reputations at stake: Publishers hosting fraudulent clicks can also suffer reputational damage. Advertisers may exclude websites suspected of engaging in click fraud, reducing their ability to attract legitimate advertisers in the future. This tarnishes the publisher’s reputation within the advertising community and affects their revenue stream.

How IAS helps

Marketers seek transparency regarding the measures taken to safeguard their advertising investments on every platform. They desire comprehensive visibility into the detection and filtration of invalid traffic. Despite this, some marketers have yet to adopt dedicated systems for preventing invalid traffic, which underscores a critical opportunity for enhancing the efficiency of ad spend.

That is why IAS is teaming up with Lunio in a first-to-market partnership to provide post-click measurement and protection across search, social, and display networks. This partnership builds on IAS’s existing ad fraud detection and mitigation capabilities, giving marketers the most comprehensive IVT protection in the industry.

In partnership with Lunio, marketers can receive reliable, transparent post-click IVT analytics and traffic protection capabilities, with key benefits including:

Transparency: Understand how IVT is affecting accounts and spot where junk visits are damaging campaign performance
Empowerment: Proactively analyze and optimize paid media investments using insights from click data and traffic quality signals that aren’t available elsewhere
Quality: Increase the quality of ad traffic by leveraging insights to prevent invalid and junk traffic from wasting resources and skewing data — for laser-focused targeting of real prospects

By safeguarding every stage of the ad journey against invalid traffic — from impressions through to click — advertisers can enhance transparency and ensure quality from beginning to end of each campaign.

The post What Is Click Fraud? appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

End-to-End Ad Measurement is Super Valuable — Here’s Why

IAS Team — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 10:00:00 +0000

It’s no secret that measurement is a crucial component of successful advertising campaigns. Advertisers and publishers alike have been measuring digital impressions for decades. But ad measurement has evolved significantly since its inception, and impressions aren’t the only metric that matter anymore.

So how comprehensive and actionable is the measurement you’re relying on today?

The right measurement tactics enable you to ensure greater brand protection and impact on valuable media inventory — especially in environments like the open web, where your display and video campaigns are highly visible. In this blog post, we’ll explore why end-to-end ad measurement is invaluable and how it can transform your advertising strategy.

The key ingredients of end-to-end ad measurement

Despite its simplicity in nature, end-to-end ad measurement on the open web can get complicated fast. The advertising ecosystem is complex and busy, with consumers tuning in every day to different formats via multiple streaming platforms, and often in very different contexts. To navigate this complexity, end-to-end measurement must cover several key areas.

Viewability

For advertising to make an impact, it has to be viewed —not just served. Ensuring that your digital ads have the opportunity to be seen by consumers, wherever they are, is critical. All digital ads — desktop, mobile, in-app, browser, display, video — have unique requirements that need to be met when measuring for viewability.

As advertising becomes more sophisticated, brands want to not only prove ROI but also transact on viewability, and that’s why it’s more important than ever to have full-flight data on whether or not an ad was seen. IAS provides coverage for display and video placements across desktop, mobile web, and mobile app, and provides actionable data that reports viewability, fraud, and overall user experience.

Measuring viewability is paramount, so IAS ensures it doesn’t come at the cost of efficiency. We deliver the same set of data to both buyers and sellers so that no time is wasted on reconciliation. Additionally, our predictive data makes it possible for brands to target the most viewable ads available, all before ever placing a bid. Our pre-bid video and display viewability segments are easily accessible within the world’s largest demand-side platforms.

Ad Fraud

There are more than 5.35 billion internet users worldwide using the internet everyday. But unfortunately, sometimes digital ads are delivered to anything but a real person.

Advertising fraud is a persistent threat in the digital space, draining resources and diminishing campaign effectiveness. According to our 19th Edition Media Quality Report, campaigns that are not optimized for fraud tended to encounter levels of fraud up to 14 times higher than those optimized against ad fraud. In fact, 8.4% of non-optimized ad campaign impressions were served to anything but a real human in the second half of 2023.

End-to-end ad fraud measurement can significantly increase transparency to help identify fraudulent inventory. By leveraging ad fraud metrics, marketers can measure the amount of activity their ads are generating from fraudsters, and subsequently use this data to optimize ad spend toward real users via IAS pre-bid solutions. Access to actionable invalid traffic data throughout the entire campaign is key to effectively allocating ad spend and confidently ensuring your ads have an opportunity to reach real users and make an impact.

Brand Safety and Suitability

Brand safety must go beyond the binary. Black and white brand safety and suitability measurement can unnecessarily limit scale and doesn’t give the context marketers need to understand the effectiveness of their ads.

That’s why it’s critical for marketers to build on the power of brand safety with the innovation of suitability. IAS contextual targeting technology reviews all elements on a given page and takes additional steps beyond URL analysis to understand the meaning of the content. Before a bid is even placed, IAS’s predictive science pre-screens pages to filter out content that isn’t suitable for a given brand. Only IAS gets to the true meaning of the content, so marketers can ensure they’re aligning campaigns with consumers who will connect the most with their brand.

End-to-end brand safety and suitability measurement and protection gives marketers the most accurate picture of the content near their ads, and provides brands with the opportunity to safeguard without limiting scale.

4 steps to improve your brand’s performance on the open web

Leverage measurement partners who follow industry standards for viewability
Keep up with benchmarks for viewability, invalid traffic, and brand safety and suitability
Employ AI-powered prevention solutions for invalid traffic and brand safety and suitability to ensure your ads are seen by real people in the right context
Reallocate ad spend based on viewability, invalid traffic, and brand safety and suitability data

Drive superior results today with IAS

By incorporating end-to-end measurement into your digital advertising strategy, you can protect your brand, optimize your ad spend, and achieve superior results. Reach out to an IAS representative today to learn how we can help you harness the full potential of your advertising campaigns.

The post End-to-End Ad Measurement is Super Valuable — Here’s Why appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Effectively Validate Media Quality Across the Microsoft Advertising Network

IAS Team — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Safeguard and scale with Viewabilty, Invalid Traffic, and Brand Safety & Suitability Measurement across Microsoft

Delivering your ads to the right places and driving impact to the right audience has never been easy — until now. Starting today, IAS and Microsoft are joining forces to provide new levels of transparency into ad performance across the Microsoft Advertising Network including Audience Ads and Microsoft Invest.*

Through this expanded collaboration, you can access Viewability, Invalid Traffic, and Brand Safety & Suitability measurement to ensure that your Microsoft ads are running adjacent to brand safe and suitable content and engaging users.

With IAS's Microsoft Advertising Network Measurement, you can:

Validate your campaigns with measurement using trusted third-party reporting and analysis for Audience Ads
Access actionable insights such as viewability, time in view, % completed, invalid traffic rate, and brand safety pass and fail rate
See a holistic view of performance across desktop, mobile web, and in-app for display, video, native, and CTV campaigns

Effectively validate your media quality and maximize engagement with real users across the Microsoft Advertising Network. To get started, download the one sheet and reach out to an IAS representative.

*Powered by Xandr

The post Effectively Validate Media Quality Across the Microsoft Advertising Network appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

IAS Partners with Lunio to Provide Click Fraud Measurement and Protection

IAS Team — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 11:55:00 +0000

First-to-market partnership detects invalid traffic throughout the entire media buying cycle

Fraudulent clicks don’t convert. When it comes to money wasted on clicks generated by bots, it’s not just ad budgets that are squandered — the opportunity for revenue is lost too. In fact, it’s estimated that $205 billion in revenue opportunities will be lost to invalid traffic (IVT) this year alone.

Starting today, IAS is teaming up with Lunio in a first-to-market partnership to provide post-click measurement and protection across search, social, and display networks. This partnership builds on IAS’s existing ad fraud detection and mitigation capabilities, giving marketers the most comprehensive IVT protection in the industry.

“IAS is dedicated to safeguarding brands throughout the entire media buying cycle,” said Jim Egan, SVP, Business Development at IAS. “Our partnership with Lunio makes us the first media measurement and optimization platform to provide insight into click fraud, empowering marketers with the most actionable invalid traffic data.”

In partnership with Lunio, marketers will receive reliable, transparent post-click IVT analytics and traffic protection capabilities, with key benefits including:

Transparency: Understand how IVT is affecting accounts and spot where junk visits are damaging campaign performance
Empowerment: Proactively analyze and optimize paid media investments using insights from click data and traffic quality signals that aren’t available elsewhere
Quality: Increase the quality of ad traffic by leveraging insights to prevent invalid and junk traffic from wasting resources and skewing data — for laser-focused targeting of real prospects

“This partnership marks a crucial step forward in providing marketers with the most effective invalid and junk traffic data possible” said Neil Andrew, CEO at Lunio. “We’re proud to partner with IAS in a joint commitment to giving marketers reliable analytics and protection that drive quality and — most importantly — business results.”

IAS’s existing ad fraud detection and mitigation products stop more bots without over-blocking real humans by relying on a unique, three-pillar approach powered by unmatched scale and machine learning to provide the most accurate detection and prevention.

To learn more, download the one sheet and reach out to an IAS representative.

The post IAS Partners with Lunio to Provide Click Fraud Measurement and Protection appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

What is Podcast Advertising?

IAS Team — Mon, 20 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking to expand your advertising strategy through podcasts, but you still have one critical question: what is podcast advertising?

Podcast advertising lets you speak to potential customers through digital audio ads within podcast episodes. But in a world where we primarily associate advertising with visuals, you may be wondering how this ad strategy works and how you can take advantage of it to grow your brand.

Let’s dive into the world of podcast advertising.

Does anyone listen to podcast ads?

“Does anyone have any good podcast recommendations?”

Chances are you’ve heard this phrase within the past year, and maybe even more recently than that. That’s probably because podcast listenership has hit an all-time high, with nearly 100 million Americans tuning in every week.

On top of that, U.S. podcast advertising revenue is expected to top $2.5 billion in 2024, up 2,070% since 2015, and more than doubling podcast ad revenue from 2021 ($1 billion).

The benefits of podcast advertising

Podcasts are an incredibly popular source of entertainment. Whether you’re a true crime fanatic, a pop culture buff, or a marketer wanting to learn more about stopping ad fraud, there’s a podcast for just about anything.

With that, there are multiple benefits to launching a podcast advertising campaign:

Incremental Reach: Podcast advertising allows you to replenish the top of your marketing funnel with new customers. Podcast listeners are primarily a younger audience, so you can market to them and advertise on radio or traditional TV to avoid targeting a duplicative audience.
Improved Overall Marketing Performance: Adding podcast advertising to your campaigns can improve performance across the board. The Guardian found that the compounding effects of podcast ads as part of a media mix helped 34% of listeners learn something new about a brand.
Increased Brand Trust: A study conducted by Acast and Nielsen found that 63% of respondents trust the podcast host to whom they’re listening. An additional 80% said they trusted the host’s recommendations.
Increased Audience Reach: Podcast ads let you reach audiences beyond traditional TV, social media, and display campaigns. For example, a podcast ad campaign opens up your reach to millions of people listening to podcasts on their morning and evening commutes to work.

How do ads work in podcasts?

Like most advertising strategies, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to podcast advertising. Brands can choose from these three common formats when it comes to delivering their ads via podcast:

1. Host-read sponsorships

Other names for this format include host-read ads, sponsor ads—or more commonly today—sponsorships.

These are longer, editorialized commercial messages the podcaster delivers themselves. The idea behind these ads is that the influencer delivers a creative and authentic message to their audience promoting the brand sponsoring the podcast episode.

With the right timing, a podcast host can segue into these live reads naturally from a topic, and the audience may be more likely to engage with the product or service. A typical host-read ad can range from 60 seconds to a couple of minutes.

2. Pre-recorded ads

Also known as announcer-read ads, pre-produced ads, or just audio ads, pre-recorded ads are created by the advertiser and given to the podcast host to play during an ad break.

Most pre-recorded audio ads run anywhere from 15-30 seconds, and are dynamically inserted into podcast shows by targeting campaign dates, geographic location, podcast categories, and audience demographics. This targeting is set up before launching a campaign to narrow down which listeners should hear your ad and which shouldn’t.

3. Branded content

Though not as common as sponsorships and audio ads, branded content integrates a promotional message into the editorial content of the podcast.

This can be in the form of a branded segment or episode, and can even encompass an entire series. For this format to succeed, the branded content and podcast advertising the brand must align in their messaging to feel organic and resonate with the audience in a non-intrusive manner.

Where is the best place to insert podcast ads?

Different ad spots dictate when your audience will hear your ads during the podcast. Like podcast ad formats, there are three types of ad spaces:

Pre-roll ads are placed at the beginning of the podcast episode. Pre-roll ads are considered effective because most people will just let them play since they are leading into the episode.
Mid-roll ads are placed in the middle of an episode that is 10 minutes or longer. Most consumers will be engaged in other activities by this point, making it highly likely that they will let the ad play. As a result, this is the most lucrative place for audio ads.
Post-roll ads play at the end of an episode. While there is a chance listeners will just let the ad play while they wait for the next episode, there is also a chance they turn off the podcast before they can hear the ad.

Dynamic vs. baked-in ads

How do ads work in podcasts that are no longer relevant? And what if I want my ads to reach different audiences?

Along with choosing from the three types of formats and ad placements, there are also two different ways to fill an ad slot: ads can be “baked-in” or inserted dynamically.

Baked-in ads are added to the podcast audio file, making it a permanent ad placement. All listeners will hear the same ad, and it will remain in the episode as long as it is up, meaning individuals who go back to listen to an older episode will still hear your ad.

Dynamic ads are inserted into chosen ad spots (pre-, mid-, or post-roll) and can be targeted to a desired audience at any chosen time. Podcasters can also keep their advertising up-to-date, allowing them to monetize older podcasts with new ads.

The world is listening. The question is: are they listening to you, or your competitors?

Make your brand heard with IAS

Let IAS help ensure your audio ad spend is heard, measurable, and transparent with industry-leading media quality measurement for digital audio — including podcasts.

When you measure your podcast ads with IAS, you can:

Validate your campaigns using trusted third-party reporting and analysis for audio campaigns compliant to MRC standards
Access actionable insights such as audible rate, audible impressions, invalid traffic rate, and more
Receive a holistic view of performance with support across formats, globally

Ready to drive superior results in podcasting? Contact us today and let’s protect your brand and ensure your audio ads resonate with real people.

The post What is Podcast Advertising? appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Industry-Leading Media Quality for TuneIn

IAS Team — Wed, 08 May 2024 12:00:00 +0000

IAS Audibility and Invalid Traffic measurement is now available for TuneIn

Marketers are concerned about fraud in digital audio — and it makes sense why. With an opportunity to reach nearly three-quarters of U.S. internet users, it’s crucial for marketers to know their ad spend is reaching real people.

That’s why IAS is bringing its industry-leading media quality measurement to TuneIn. Starting today, marketers can have further confidence that their audio ads on TuneIn are driving engagement with real users.

With IAS Audibility and Invalid Traffic measurement on TuneIn, marketers can:

Validate campaigns using trusted third-party reporting and analysis for audio campaigns, compliant to MRC standards
Access actionable insights like audible rate, audible impressions, invalid traffic rate, and more
See a holistic view of performance with support across in-app and web browser streaming campaigns for the audio ad format

Drive engagement on TuneIn with the industry’s most actionable data. Download the one sheet now and reach out to an IAS representative to get started.

The post Industry-Leading Media Quality for TuneIn appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Media Quality Report: 19th Edition

IAS Team — Tue, 07 May 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Industry-leading benchmarks for superior media quality

The digital landscape continues to evolve at a rapid rate, offering marketers endless opportunities for innovation. But in an era where change is the only constant, it’s critical for marketers to know if their campaigns are keeping up with the pace of digital media.

The 19th edition of the Media Quality Report (MQR) is here to serve as a trustworthy tool for marketers worldwide to benchmark campaign success. This year’s report offers marketers an in-depth look into global media quality data, key trends shaping the digital landscape in 2024, and country-level metrics for a more enriched way to make data-driven decisions.

Dive into this year’s key trends, with highlights including:

Fraud rates for unprotected campaigns were 14x higher than campaigns protected against fraud
Time-in-view hit a new low in H2 2023
Brand risk rose in the Americas as election cycles began

As the gold standard in digital media quality, the MQR arms marketers with actionable insights that are key to forging an innovative, impactful, and safer digital future.

Download the report today to access IAS’s industry-leading global benchmarks and drive superior results.

The post Media Quality Report: 19th Edition appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Drive Superior Results this Election Season

IAS Team — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 11:30:00 +0000

Six steps marketers can take to safeguard and scale their brand in an election year

Political ad spend is projected to surpass $10 billion and shatter historical records by the end of the 2024 election cycle. As challenges like brand risk and misinformation become amplified in an election year, marketers need sophisticated technology to confidently cut through the noise and reach their ideal consumers while staying brand-safe.

The IAS Political Guide deep dives into six actionable steps marketers can take to ensure brand protection, support quality journalism, and drive superior results this election season. With IAS Measurement & Optimization solutions, you can expect:

Brand-specific protection with curated contextual avoidance down to the sentiment & emotion level
Contextual targeting to reach your audiences with curated segments for political related content
Ad fraud protection across programmatic, social, and CTV buys
Global Disinformation Index (GDI) Partnership for third-party, AI-powered protection against misinformation

Download the IAS Political Guide now to access the six steps you can take to drive superior results across major political events.

The post Drive Superior Results this Election Season appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

IAS Earns Platinum Status from the Trustworthy Accountability Group

IAS Team — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 12:59:00 +0000

By Kevin Alvero, Chief Compliance Officer, IAS

Data powers everything. That’s why IAS operates with the notion that transparent and trustworthy data are paramount to driving success across the digital media ecosystem. We take pride in providing the industry’s most actionable data to drive superior results, and we’re committed to taking the necessary steps to ensure we’re instilling the utmost trust in our customers.

With that in mind, we’re pleased to share that IAS has earned Platinum status again from the TAG (the Trustworthy Accountability Group). TAG, a global certification program that strengthens safety and transparency in digital advertising, awards Platinum status, its highest recognition, to companies who have achieved three or more seals for setting industry best practices in areas such as ad fraud, brand safety, malvertising, and transparency. This distinction accompanies IAS’s 2024 TAG recertifications, which include recognition through TAG’s Certified for Transparency, Certified Against Fraud, and Brand Safety Certified Programs.

TAG Platinum status validates the rigorous standards IAS has adopted to protect buyers and sellers across the digital advertising industry. We hope this accomplishment will empower brands, agencies, and publishers to safeguard and scale their business with transparent, trustworthy data from IAS.

“TAG Platinum status is an honor reserved for the select companies to have achieved at least three of TAG’s program certifications, and we are delighted to recognize Integral Ad Science for having reached that lofty goal,” said Mike Zaneis, CEO, TAG. “Working together, we will continue to advance TAG’s certification programs and expand their reach to ensure a safer and more transparent supply chain for all participants.”

We’re pleased to have received this valued distinction along with three recertifications. Through our relationship with industry bodies like TAG, IAS will continue to strive for the highest standards of trust and transparency in digital media.

The post IAS Earns Platinum Status from the Trustworthy Accountability Group appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

The Threat Lab Analyzes the Year’s Highest Ad Fraud Spikes

IAS Team — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 12:00:00 +0000

In the Threat Lab’s recent Fraud Trends Report, the team advised advertisers and publishers to be wary of ad fraud when it’s at its peak. In the Q4 2023 analysis, the Threat Lab defined October, November, and December as the holiday season — and predicted that these months are particularly dangerous from an ad fraud perspective. The team further anticipated that November, specifically its fourth week, would be the hardest hit by ad fraud.

Now that we can look at global data from the 2023 holiday season, the Threat Lab team wanted to analyze the accuracy of advising caution during this time and understand what this can teach marketers about protecting ad campaigns during particularly turbulent periods.

When is fraud at its highest?

The graph below maps out global ad fraud rates for each day in 2023. The period highlighted in dark green represents the dates between October 12 and December 4, which overlaps with our definition of the holiday season. With a median ad fraud rate 67% greater than the rest of the year, the holiday season stands out as a period of disproportionately high ad fraud activity — so much so that 2023’s highest ad fraud rates all fall within the highlighted period.

What’s the deal with Black Friday?

However, certain dates pop more than others. The graph below shows that ad fraud peaks during November 24, 25, and 26 — also known as 2023’s Black Friday weekend. The median ad fraud of these three days was 36% greater than other dates in the holiday season, and a whopping 122% greater than the rest of the year. The top three most hostile days of 2023 were the Saturday after Black Friday, the Sunday after Black Friday, and Black Friday itself.

What makes this trend even more peculiar is that November 27, which was the Monday after Black Friday, experienced a 28% decrease in ad fraud relative to the day prior — signaling the highest single day drop of the entire year. This drop suggests that the already disproportionately high holiday ad fraud climaxing on this specific weekend isn’t accidental.

How does fraudulent traffic compare to legitimate traffic?

To understand why the holiday season is so hostile, we compared fraudulent traffic with legitimate traffic.

Although legitimate traffic does increase gradually throughout the year with periodic dips, there aren’t major inconsistencies during the holiday season. Fraudulent traffic, on the other hand, increases dramatically. This comparison suggests that the spike in ad fraud during the holiday season isn’t due to a change in legitimate traffic behavior — it’s linked to fraudulent traffic becoming more active.

So why does this happen? It’s most likely that advertisers aggressively increase their ad spend in the weeks leading up to Black Friday. And once Black Friday ends, they use the remainder of their budget on the following weekend. The challenge with this is that there is a finite supply of high quality inventory available. The increased demand pressures advertisers to buy low quality inventory, exposing their campaigns to higher risk of ad fraud.

How IAS Can Help

When high quality inventory is limited, the risk of fraud infiltrating campaigns is much higher. This risk can be avoided by adopting ad fraud mitigation and protection, which helps keep advertisers from spending their ad dollars on low quality inventory that comes with a higher likelihood of ad fraud.

IAS ensures the most precise fraud detection possible with our three-pillar approach. Our fraud technology is based on a set of methodologies that detect the evolving threat of ad fraud with incredible accuracy. Our approach includes:

Behavioral and Network analysis: our 10+ billion daily impressions provide a macro view of bot activity
Browser and Device analysis: real-time signals at the ad call
Targeted Reconnaissance: malware analysis, software disassembly, and the infiltration of hacker communities guides detection and identification of emerging threats

It’s never too late — or too early — to protect your campaigns from fraud. Be prepared for fraudsters whose activity changes with the seasons. Contact an IAS representative today to find out how to fight fraud and drive superior results.

The post The Threat Lab Analyzes the Year’s Highest Ad Fraud Spikes appeared first on Integral Ad Science.