A Guide to Reducing Your Ad Fraud Risk

Modern marketing methods have become increasingly dependent on digital advertising, which enables businesses to target specific demographics and reach a wider audience swiftly. However, the risk of ad fraud has increased along with the rise of digital advertising. The budget, reputation, and ROI of an advertiser can all be greatly impacted by the complex and ever-evolving problem of ad fraud.

According to research by Statista, the necessity for comprehensive ad fraud prevention methods predict that the costs associated with digital advertising fraud will increase enormously in the four years between 2018 and 2023, from $35 billion to $100 billion. Thus, advertisers can lower their risk of ad fraud by adhering to the below-mentioned best practices, guaranteeing that their advertising campaigns are seen by actual individuals and yield accurate results.

Understanding the Different Types of Ad Fraud

The first step in reducing your ad fraud risk is to understand different types of ad fraud. The most common types of ad fraud include:

Non-Human Traffic (NHT): Non-human traffic intercepts a campaign by accessing the campaign’s advertising inventory and generating ad impressions or clicks through automated means, such as bots or scripts, rather than by human interaction with ads.

Click Fraud: Click fraud is the activity of frequently clicking on advertising to defraud advertisers or to earn money for the fraudster.

Ad Stacking: Ad stacking is the practice of layering many ads on top of one another to maximize income when only the top ad is displayed.

Domain Spoofing: The process of making a fraudulent website appear real in order to obtain advertising money is domain spoofing.

Viewability: This is the practice of serving ads that are not seen by real people or served in non-viewable areas of a website.

By understanding these different types of ad fraud, you can take measures to mitigate your risk.

Choose Your Partner Carefully

One of the easiest ways to lower ad fraud risk is to choose the partners carefully. Publishers, agencies, and ad networks fall within this category. Thus, seeking partners with a transparent history who have taken steps to prevent ad fraud is essential. For instance, several ad networks use third-party fraud detection services to filter out bots and other fraudulent traffic. So, the brand must ask prospective partners about their fraud protection strategies, including how they identify and stop fraudulent traffic, what technologies they employ to keep an eye out for it, and how they assess the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns.

Utilize Ad Verification Tools for Sustained Growth

Firms can monitor their ad campaigns and spot fraud with the aid of ad verification tools. These technologies can spot irregularities pointing to fraud by tracking ad impressions, clicks, and conversions. In addition, ad serving to real users in viewable website areas is ensured by some ad verification solutions that check the impression quality. Hence, the brand must choose an ad verification solution from the market that best meets its requirements and price range.

Set Clear Objectives and Monitor Performance

Businesses can identify and stop ad fraud by clearly defining their ad campaign goals and keeping track of results. They can track the effectiveness of their campaign to make sure that their goals, such as producing a particular number of clicks or conversions, are being reached. Moreover, ad fraud may be indicated if they observe a sudden increase in traffic or clicks that seem unreal. Thus, to ensure that advertisements are displayed in regions of viewable websites, advertisers need to check the viewability of their ad campaigns. Viewability fraud may be present if they observe that a significant part of their ad impressions is not accessible.

Implement Fraud Prevention

Ad fraud can be reduced by implementing fraud prevention measures. This includes preventing click fraud with tools like CAPTCHA and two-factor authentication, as well as preventing ad stacking with measures like limiting the number of ads that can be served on a single page. In addition, whitelists and blacklists can also be used to control where the ads are served, ensuring that they are only served on legitimate websites.

Educate the Team

While educating the marketing team is important in reducing ad fraud risk, it’s also crucial to extend the training to other departments. These teams can play a pivotal role in identifying anomalies in ad data and detecting fraudulent activity. By educating all relevant departments on the risks of ad fraud and equipping them with the necessary knowledge and tools, advertisers can create a culture of vigilance and ensure that everyone is working together towards the common goal of reducing ad fraud risk.

Ad Fraud Risk: The Need of the Hour

Ad fraud poses a severe risk to advertisers. Therefore, firms must take precautions to lower their risk. Understanding the various types of ad fraud, picking your partners wisely, utilizing ad verification tools, establishing clear goals, putting fraud prevention measures into place, and educating the team will help advertisers identify and prevent ad fraud and ensure that their advertising campaigns are reaching real people and producing tangible results.

Author: Himanshu Nagrecha, Vice President, India & South Asia, TrafficGuard