The industry has been rocked by the revelations exposed through the report from Adalytics, an ad quality firm, alleging the systematic misleading of advertisers by Forbes into believing they were buying media on Forbes.com when they were in fact buying media on a undisclosed and low quality ‘made for advertising’ (MFA) subdomain, www3.forbes.com.
As with many events like this the reaction is an eruption of pent of suspicion and frustration regarding transparency in the media supply chain. Advertisers and agencies are all feeling the impact as their executions past & present are subject to further review. In many cases the bad actors won't be easily identified and many will have participated and endorsed fraudulent activities unknowing of the nefarious affairs taking place.
Ad fraud and a corresponding push for 'ad quality' most often analyse the supply chain of media, how advertiser budgets translate into impressions to actual humans. The connections through publisher supply-side platforms (SSPs), demand-side platforms (DSPs) and the many instances of real-time bidding (RTB) have a storied history and much has been made of the value destructive economics that have been created. Many mouths needing feeding on the journey to an ad exposure. Interrogation of the processes will no doubt uncover further instances of fraud as well as potential cost optimisations in what is widely accepted to be a over served adtech eco-system.
And ad fraud is having a significant impact of advertiser and publisher businesses across the glow with key findings in this recent Juniper Research reports showing:
- 22% of all online ad spend is lost due to ad fraud in 2023
- 30% of mobile ad spend is lost to ad fraud in 2023
- $172 Billion of ad spend is projected to be lost due to ad fraud by 2028
- $23 Billion per year can be recovered by using fraud mitigation platforms
Moving beyond the 'split milk', advertisers and publishers alike are looking to 1st party data and their corresponding verified people-based identities to deploy media budgets to reach their desired audiences. Whilst it will take time for the inventory supply chain to improve there is immediate security to be found in targeting which leverages deterministic inclusion, exclusion and look-a-like to deliver to actual people. Bringing 1st party data to table in allowing advertisers and publishers to move forward with confidence in what appears to be an ever murkier industry.
Leading brands and media-owners are pushing forward and realising transparent revenue streams by accelerating the activation of 1st party data in advertising with zero compromise to privacy or security.
Contact AUDIENCES to discuss how to accelerate activation of your 1st party data.