Podcast on (Massive) Ad-Fraud(podcasts.apple.com)
podcasts.apple.com
Podcast on (Massive) Ad-Fraud
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/%2460-million-or-%2460-billion-the-ad-fraud-question/id1543179653?i=1000502051941
20 comments
(Hot) alternate take to ad-fraud - it doesn't matter what percentage of ad views are bots. The only thing that matters is that CLV (customer lifetime value) > cost per conversion.
Of course it matters: (1) at the macro level, fraud is a tax on the whole ecosystem that ultimately yields higher prices for consumers and (2) at the micro level, relatively better ad efficiency (less fraud) can drive business competitiveness (or even viability, in extreme cases).
In reference to (1) - I'm not so sure this is the case. Competition amongst advertisers will drive up CPM / CPC until the point of margin. The real loser here is the publisher, wasting money on server bandwidth.
As an example, if the max CPA for furniture suppliers is $500, if we eliminate ad fraud, furniture suppliers won't get a cheaper CPA, they'll competitively bid up the CPM / CPC until the point of a $500 CPA once again.
As an example, if the max CPA for furniture suppliers is $500, if we eliminate ad fraud, furniture suppliers won't get a cheaper CPA, they'll competitively bid up the CPM / CPC until the point of a $500 CPA once again.
> The real loser here is the publisher, wasting money on server bandwidth.
The marginal cost of delivering a web page is near 0. In fact, many major publishers frequently buy "traffic" (read: bot clicks) that is designed to bypass the major bot detection firms like Doubleverify, IAS, etc. It makes them a lot of money and bots don't care about the quality of the articles. There's another related category of fraud called "cashout sites" or "ghost sites" where they make a website (usually celebrity news), get approved to put ads on it, then get a bunch of botted ad clicks on it.
> As an example, if the max CPA for furniture suppliers is $500, if we eliminate ad fraud, furniture suppliers won't get a cheaper CPA, they'll competitively bid up the CPM / CPC until the point of a $500 CPA once again.
In every fraud the fraudster siphons dollars at someone else's expense. Those millions of dollars the government seized in the Methbot case necessarily have to have come from somewhere. An ad fraudster makes advertisers pay for views/clicks that never actually reached real people. Paying $1/click in a system with 0 fraud has a higher ROI for advertisers than paying $1/click in a system where 10% of clicks are fake.
The marginal cost of delivering a web page is near 0. In fact, many major publishers frequently buy "traffic" (read: bot clicks) that is designed to bypass the major bot detection firms like Doubleverify, IAS, etc. It makes them a lot of money and bots don't care about the quality of the articles. There's another related category of fraud called "cashout sites" or "ghost sites" where they make a website (usually celebrity news), get approved to put ads on it, then get a bunch of botted ad clicks on it.
> As an example, if the max CPA for furniture suppliers is $500, if we eliminate ad fraud, furniture suppliers won't get a cheaper CPA, they'll competitively bid up the CPM / CPC until the point of a $500 CPA once again.
In every fraud the fraudster siphons dollars at someone else's expense. Those millions of dollars the government seized in the Methbot case necessarily have to have come from somewhere. An ad fraudster makes advertisers pay for views/clicks that never actually reached real people. Paying $1/click in a system with 0 fraud has a higher ROI for advertisers than paying $1/click in a system where 10% of clicks are fake.
I think it's who does the tax go to. Fine if FurnitureWorld.com pays its 500 bucks to google and NYT, but at the moment a chuck of that goes to organised crime - frankly the same people taking a slice of credit card fraud that banks see as a cost of business.
Crime and corruption play a huge part in our societies and relatively simple measures can starve them of the cash flow - from decriminalisation to de-anonymising the net. Or something
Crime and corruption play a huge part in our societies and relatively simple measures can starve them of the cash flow - from decriminalisation to de-anonymising the net. Or something
(Ignoring the premise that this is an efficient market - which it very much isn't) So ad fraud is a victimless crime? Where is the money that the fraudsters are earning coming from? Who are they taking that money from?
It's an interesting question.
If the fraud were evenly spread out, and if all advertisers had the same goal, the equilibrium bid just adjusts for less valuable clicks/interaction/etc (in line with what the earlier commenter mentioned), and the advertisers pay the same amount as in a world without fraud. Fraud isn't evenly spread out though, and advertisers are sometimes unaware, so it probably does hurt them.
The other loss is from honest publishers (think newspaper websites, etc.) - they're having to split payments with fraudsters, even though they're providing all the value to the advertiser. Downstream effects mean the publisher is probably producing less, showing more ads, or using other ways to replace ad income.
If the fraud were evenly spread out, and if all advertisers had the same goal, the equilibrium bid just adjusts for less valuable clicks/interaction/etc (in line with what the earlier commenter mentioned), and the advertisers pay the same amount as in a world without fraud. Fraud isn't evenly spread out though, and advertisers are sometimes unaware, so it probably does hurt them.
The other loss is from honest publishers (think newspaper websites, etc.) - they're having to split payments with fraudsters, even though they're providing all the value to the advertiser. Downstream effects mean the publisher is probably producing less, showing more ads, or using other ways to replace ad income.
It really doesn’t matter in practice. It’s all priced in. The actual cost of serving an ad is absolutely tiny, fractions of a penny. Fraud eats into margins, but really not by much. Advertisers are paying for performance and it’s fully expected that a tiny fraction of ads lead to the desired outcome, but that’s why ads are cheap on a per impression basis.
It's a cute, academic take. You can also say "the only thing that matters is annual profit, we'll just let the people who mess up go bankrupt."
CLV is hard to calculate in some industries, and CPC is nearly impossible to attribute in many more.
CLV is hard to calculate in some industries, and CPC is nearly impossible to attribute in many more.
This came from another thread (and is by user iamacyborg interviewing Augustine Fou) but it is a great listen - clearly explaining the ad (fraud) market. I feel Inhave a better grasp of the mechanics now and will never ever buy online ads again...
The actual title: "$60 Million or $60 Billion, the Ad Fraud Question"
The URL should also be updated to the official one: https://www.mql.fm/002-60-million-60-billion-ad-fraud-questi...
This URL also has a play button that does not require DRM (DRM decoding API I'm guessing?). When I click on the original URL I get "No DRM" but with this URL it works fine for me.
I have built a social advertising marketplace in another life. It is RIPE with fraud that can be quite difficult to slow or truly stop.
Forgive me for not RTFA first but I'd like to collect some impressions here. What platforms are people seeing the most suspicious behavior on? I've found that an overwhelming majority of my Reddit engagements are garbage. Most clicks spend less than a couple seconds on my site.
- Twitter delivers an unnatural amount of traffic with minimal conversions. If it isn’t bots it is a lot of accidental clicks. It is almost certainly bots.
- Google Display is always suspect. Really any traditional website display ads are pretty terrible unless you stick to strictly remarketing.
- Google and Microsoft Search IF you do not turn off partner search has a lot of ad fraud. If you turn these off and target properly results are very good.
- Google Display is always suspect. Really any traditional website display ads are pretty terrible unless you stick to strictly remarketing.
- Google and Microsoft Search IF you do not turn off partner search has a lot of ad fraud. If you turn these off and target properly results are very good.
Lol 300 parameters collected to see if an impression is real? So they’re sorting arrays to see I’m a real user? Wtf.
Go burn someone else’s CPU, I’ll install an adblocker.
Also, an app on iOS, even when malicious, can not read outside of its app boundaries, like passwords etc. It cannot side-load other apps. Only on Android.
Go burn someone else’s CPU, I’ll install an adblocker.
Also, an app on iOS, even when malicious, can not read outside of its app boundaries, like passwords etc. It cannot side-load other apps. Only on Android.
Here's a post from 2020 about the data one anti bot firm collects: https://smitop.com/post/whiteops-data/
They collect even more now.
They collect even more now.
Twitter is just the tip of the iceberg.
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