A Wall Street Journal article written by Lara O\u2019Reilly (and contributed to by Alexandra Bruell), dated August 25, 2017, highlights the imploding digital ecosystem, that appears to be becoming increasingly unpredictable, unmanageable and costly.<\/p>\n
Of the billions of dollars of online advertising each year, a percentage is inadvertently placed on sites with fake traffic, with fraudsters siphoning off advertisers\u2019 money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The article states, that according to a report released in May by the Association of National Advertisers and ad-fraud detection firm, WhiteOps,\u00a0industry efforts to curb ad fraud have resulted in a 10% decrease. This year,<\/em> it is expected that ONLY about $6.5 billion in ad spending will be wasted.<\/p>\nIs there something wrong when we consider a waste of $6.5 billion as a small victory? Bearing in mind that $6.5 billion is more than the GPD of many countries!<\/strong><\/p>\nInformational Insights<\/h2>\nSome advertisers question level of refunds, want more details about fraudulent traffic<\/p>\n
Google is issuing refunds for ads that ran on websites with fake traffic, people familiar with the situation said, as the web giant develops a tool to give marketers more transparency about the ads they buy through its platform.<\/p>\n
In the past few weeks, the\u00a0Alphabet\u00a0Inc.\u00a0unit has informed hundreds of marketers and ad agency partners about the issue with invalid traffic, known in the industry as \u201cad fraud.\u201d The ads were bought using the company\u2019s DoubleClick Bid Manager over the course of a few months this year, primarily in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Google\u2019s refunds amount to only a fraction of the cost of the ads served to invalid traffic, which has left some advertising executives unsatisfied, the people familiar with the situation said. Google has offered to reimburse its \u201cplatform fee,\u201d which ad buyers said typically ranges from about 7% to 10% of their total purchase.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The company says this is appropriate because it doesn\u2019t control the rest of the money spent. Typically, advertisers use DoubleClick Bid Manager to target audiences across vast numbers of websites in seconds by connecting to dozens of online ad exchanges, marketplaces that connect buyers and publishers through real-time auctions.<\/div>\n
The ad spending flows through to the exchanges. The problems arise when ads run on publisher sites with fraudulent traffic, including those where clicks are generated by software programs known as \u201cbots\u201d instead of humans. This is an issue of growing concern to marketers. It is difficult to recoup the money paid to those sites when the issue is discovered too late.<\/p>\n
Advertisers often receive small credits from Google and their other ad-tech vendors when they detect discrepancies, but in this case, for some buyers, the instance of fraud discovered was larger than usual.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the latest evidence of how the complexity of the digital advertising ecosystem\u2014an industry where marketers and ad sellers are separated by layers of middlemen and automation\u2014can cause tensions between Madison Avenue and big players like Google. Just a few months ago, some marketers suspended their campaigns from Google\u2019s YouTube after revelations their ads appeared next to hateful or otherwise unsavory videos. YouTube has taken steps to assuage marketers\u2019 concerns, and many brands have now returned to the platform. Ad agencies, too, have battled with Google to let them access more of its extensive data to help them improve how ads are targeted and measure whether they are effective.<\/p>\n
Scott Spencer, director of product management for Google, acknowledged that refunds have been paid, but he declined to provide a dollar figure for the amount being returned. Some ad buyers said the refund amounts range from \u201cless money than you would spend on a sandwich\u201d to hundreds of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n
Some agencies and advertisers were affected more than others, depending on their level of spending during the period and the types of ads they bought.<\/p>\n
[..]<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people talk about [ad fraud], there\u2019s a big specter to it and a big concern about invalid traffic in digital,\u201d said Mr. Spencer. \u201cIt\u2019s not that large in terms of a percentage of what people are buying, but it can be a little bit scary to buyers, and our goal is to remove that to improve the trust overall in the ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/google-issuing-refunds-to-advertisers-over-fake-traffic-plans-new-safeguard-1503675395<\/p><\/blockquote>\n