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THE MANY FACESOF AD FRAUD AND HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

#StopAdFraud

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IN 2016

WE HAVE DELIVERED GREAT RESULTS FOR:2,000+ Agencies

6,000+ Brands

200,000+ Campaigns

FOUNDED IN

2001

INNOVATORSIN AD

TECHNOLOGY

675+CENTRONS IN

37 NORTH AMERICAN

OFFICES

TOP 10DIGITAL MEDIA

SPENDER

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WELCOME TO

This month’s feature: The Many Faces of Ad Fraud

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THIS IS A SPECIAL WEBINAR PRESENTATION

SPOTLIGHT

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2016 IAB Service Excellence Award

recipient for OpenRTB

contributions

Director, RTB Platform Operations

IANTRIDER

YOUR EXPERT TODAY:

#StopAdFraud

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EN

DA QUESTIONS WE’LL ANSWER

ABOUT AD FRAUD TODAY:What is it?

How does it work?

Why does it exist?

Who is the victim?

Who is responsible?

How can you protect yourself?

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IN THENEWS

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The Association of National Advertisers conducted a 61-day study looking at the severity of bots across

49 advertisers, 1,300 campaigns, and 10 billion impressions.

BOTS WILL CAUSE:

in losses in 2016

$7.2BILLION1-70%

of all video impressions

2-30%of display

ads

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?#StopAdFraud

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A COMPLEX LANDSCAPE WHERE NOT ALL MARKETPLACES ARE CREATED EQUAL

QU

ALI

TY

ALL THEOTHERS

REACH

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CONFUSED?#StopAdFraud

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DEFININGFRAUD

Ad fraud is the practice of serving digital ads that have no chance of being viewed by a human user or are misrepresented.

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HUMAN GENERATED

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF FRAUD

BOT GENERATED

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POP-UP POLL!

I’m always watching for fraudb

I’m very selective with my media buysc

#StopAdFraud

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TOPROTECT YOURSELF FROM FRAUD?

a I review past purchases and look for fraud

I use technology to helpd

Fraud? Am I supposed to do something about this?e

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YES, BOTS ARE A LEADINGCAUSE OF FRAUD

SIMPLEBOTS

SOPHISTICATEDBOTS BOTNETS

#StopAdFraud

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WHAT IS A SIMPLE BOT?

• Clearly robotic; unnatural patterns of behavior

• May or may not identify itself as a bot

• Easiest to detect

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WHAT IS A SOPHISTICATED BOT?

• Attempts to disguise itself as human

• Never identifies itself as a bot

• Not easily detectable

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WHAT IS ABOTNET?

• A collection of computers running bot software

• Often infected home computers

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BUT HUMANS CAUSE FRAUD, TOO

CLICKFARMS

INVISIBLEADS

SPOOFING/LAUNDERING

UNINTENTIONALNAVIGATION

#StopAdFraud

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WHAT IS A CLICK FARM?

• Groups of humans intentionally generating traffic for the purpose of inflating impressions/clicks

• Often called “paid to promote” or “paid to click”

• Users have no interest in ad

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WHAT IS AN INVISIBLE AD?

• An ad that is served to humans but can’t ever be seen

• Positioned out of the browser “viewport”

• Stacked ads

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WHAT IS SPOOFING/LAUNDERING?• Domain is misrepresented

(e.g., an undesirable site claims to be cnn.com)

• A shell site is set up to host the ads and an IFRAME is used to actually display them on another, less desirable site

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WHAT IS UNINTENTIONALNAVIGATION?

• “Zero-click traffic”

• Pop-ups

• Pop-unders

• Unwanted add-ons that redirect users

• Redirects from misspelled domains

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HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?

Centro currentlyBLOCKS 3,321 DOMAINS

Due to human traffic fraud that reduced impression volume on

certain exchanges by

50%

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The price of anopen eco-system

is a few bad apples.

A low-quality publisher does not

mean it serves fraudulent

Impressions.

LOW QUALITY IS NOT NECESSARILY FRAUD

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SITE BUNDLING

ADINJECTION ARBITRAGE

MISREPRESENTINGSITES AND QUALITY

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WHAT IS SITE BUNDLING?

• Masked domain

• Multiple sites included (i.e., domain is reported as “adnetwork.com,” ad network gives a site list but neglects to list low-quality or undesirable sites)

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WHAT ISAD INJECTION?

• Browser add-ons or toolbars with extra code included

• Replaces existing ads on a page

• Adds new ad units to a page

• Deprives publishers of revenue

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WHAT ISARBITRAGE?

• Buying an impression via RTB and then immediately reselling it into an ad exchange

• May be resold multiple times, obscuring origin and quality

• May be a display impression turned into a video impression

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IF YOU SEE SOMETHING,DO SOMETHING…

STEP 1FIRST IMPRESSIONS

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IF YOU SEE SOMETHING,DO SOMETHING…

STEP 2LOOK UPSTREAM

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IF YOU SEE SOMETHING,DO SOMETHING…

STEP 3IDENTIFY BAD BEHAVIOR

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IF YOU SEE SOMETHING,DO SOMETHING…

STEP 4FIND FINGERPRINTS

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THE CHALLENGE OF OPEN MARKETPLACES

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MOST AD FRAUD IS LEGAL(TECHNICALLY)

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INCENTIVE TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY

$1.00 of Advertiser MoneyA

GE

NC

Y

Agency Trading Desk

DS

P

SS

P PUBLISHER

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WHO IS THEVICTIM?

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WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

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THE ROLE OF THE PUBLISHER

“Fake traffic has become a commodity. There’s malware for generating it and

brokers who sell it. Some companies pay for it intentionally, some accidentally, and

some prefer not to ask where their traffic comes from…”

— Businessweek

#StopAdFraud

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THE ROLE OF THEADVERTISER/AGENCY

ADVERTISERSWant cheaper

inventory, but thisencourages fraud.

AGENCIESWant to spend

at all costs, but thislowers standards.

#StopAdFraud

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THE ROLE OF THE AD TECH PLATFORMSA combination of human and tech measures monitor and block fraud.

ADVERTISERS

$$$

PLATFORMOPS

DSP SSP

X

X

X X X

PUBLISHERS

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WHAT ARE THE TAKEAWAYS?

SO, IAN,

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BEST PRACTICES TOGUARD AGAINST FRAUD

Audit previously bought media for indicators

of fraud

Proactively monitor fraud

Buyselectively

Usetechnological

countermeasures

#StopAdFraud

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TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP

PRE- BID SEGMENTS

VERIFICATION SERVICES

PRIVATE MARKETPLACES

TIERED INVENTORY

LEVELS

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OTHER TACTICS TO USE

TURN OFF CLICK-BASED OPTIMIZATIONS

AVOID EASY-TO-FAKE CAMPAIGNS GOALS

EMBRACE DEFENSIVE BUYING TACTICS

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LIKED WHAT YOU HEARD TODAY? Join us every month

for 3Ton30: Quick digital lessons

for fast-movingmarketers

Here’s what’s coming up:May 18thth

Topic: Digital Trends and How to Drive Performance

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STAY UP-TO-DATE ONDIGITAL TRENDS AND ALL THINGS CENTROBY FOLLOWING USON SOCIAL MEDIA

@Centro

@Centro_Inc

facebook.com/centro.llc

linkedin.com/company/centro

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THANKYOU.

Ian TriderDirector, RTB Platform Operations