Traffic Quality Webinar

Proprietary & Confidential. Copyright © 2014.

Addressing Non-Human Traffic & Providing Transparency

Susan Bidel

Senior Analyst, ForresterAri Levenfeld

Senior Director of Privacy & Inventory Quality,

Rocket Fuel

Making Leaders Successful

Every Day

Digital Advertising’s Dirty Little

Secret: Fraud

Susan Bidel, Senior AnalystDecember 2014

© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Agenda› Syphoning Revenue from the Whole Ecosystem

› Lack of Transparency Facilitates Fraudulent Activity

› Publishers and Advertisers Alike Need to Clean House

› Recommendations





› Recommendations


Fraud defined

Fraud in digital advertising is characterized by reaping financial rewards through the deployment of

technologies that mislead advertisers on where their ads are running and/or who or what is clicking and interacting with

those ads.


40%

Lost in Display

$11.6 Billion in 2014 according to Solve Media22% increase

over 2013

“In display, it’s driven

by botnets, ad stacking, and

impression laundering.”Kaylie Smith

Rubicon Project


Botnets


Ad Stacking


Impression Laundering


Tool Bars


Video Appeals to Fraudsters

The quality of supply isn’t great, since it’s more expensive to create.

So CPMs are higher against this limited supply, making video a

better target.Steve Sullivan

Vice President

Ad

Technologies

IAB

““


Mobile Fraud is Difficult to Detect

[We] don’t expect to see the same volume of fraudulent traffic as

with desktop.“ “

Steve Sullivan


Agenda

› Syphoning Revenue from the Whole Ecosystem



› Recommendations


Fraud Not Yet a Major Marketer Concern

› Transparency concern

› Growing year over year


But It’s On the rise

› Fraud emerging as a major concern among marketers


Marketer Responsibility

› Stop seeking bottom dollar deals

› Require complete transparency about where ads are running

› Consider other measures of success beyond the click


Agenda

› Syphoning Revenue from the Whole Ecosystem



› Recommendations


Embrace Transparency

› Marketers

• Know who you’re dealing with and where

your ads are running

• Require completely transparent list of all

sites

Buyers should buy only against a white list with domain transparency.“

“

Larry Allen

Sr. VP Development

Xaxis



Exchanges can filter toolbars, but they also have an incentive to grow audience scale.

“Andrew Casale

VP Strategy

Casale Media



› Publishers

• Don’t stack ads – it’s unethical

• Stop compromising traffic quality to fulfill

campaign requirements

Publishers become over-reliant on paid traffic sources, maybe buying 50%-60% of their traffic from second-

and third-tier networks….

“

Qasim Saifee

Sr. VP Monetization Platform

OpenX





› Recommendations


Employ Programmatic to Fight Ad Fraud

Programmatic offers unparalleled optics at the impression level to fight fraud

› Insist exchanges impose quality control on buyers and sellers

› Publishers: buy your own site

› Marketers: be wary of CPC and CPA deal that look too good

Thank youSusan Bidel

+1 212.857.0751

[email protected]


Ari Levenfeld, Senior Director of Privacy and Inventory

Quality

● Hired by Rocket Fuel 4 years ago

specifically to address inventory quality

● 15 years of quality and policy experience

● IAB QAG certified

● Member of IAB TOGI

● IAB Anti Fraud Working Group

● MRC Invalid Traffic Working Group


HOW WE FIGHT FRAUD


Removing Bad Traffic at the Pre-Bid Level

Currently up to 40% of traffic is discarded… 500 BILLION impressions / month

And at Rocket Fuel we’ve seen 8% rise in impressions we routinely reject


Removing Bad Traffic at the Pre-Bid Level

AI


How Do We Spot Real Humans?


We have an inventory quality model - the same artificial intelligence and models we use to optimize our

clients’ campaigns is also dedicated to identifying and blocking suspicious activity.

Example: Millions of features, petabytes of data evaluate bid requests in less than 100 milliseconds.

Artificial Intelligence


We compare data in bid requests and across impressions. When we see things that don’t make

sense, we block. Example: A user who provides a different UserAgent in the bid request and in the

impression.

Stuff That Doesn’t Add Up


100% certainty of what’s happening at other end of computer screen is hard. But we’ve come up with a

unique CAPTCHA-like test for “humanness”, and we’re patenting it.

Example: Bots Don’t Buy Things

Patent Pending Technology


We work publicly and behind the scenes with other ad tech companies to share data to eradicate fraud.

Example: IAB Traffic of Good Intent Task Force.

Pool Resources with Industry


DO I HAVE BAD TRAFFIC?


Most People Do… It’s Unavoidable


Aiding Industry to Combat Fraud

Rocket Fuel Traffic Scanner is

a traffic monitoring tool giving

marketers full transparency

into quality of traffic across

online ads and media

properties with any

programmatic partner.

Available in 3 countries

covering digital campaigns

around the world


What Should I aim For?

Rocket Fuel introduced the Quality Challenge for Digital Marketers to stay above 95%

Marketers should require that their partners know and state the quality of their impressions

validated and publicly reported on by an accredited 3rd party or through Traffic Scanner.

Rocket Fuel’s

Quality Score

Traffic Scanner - 96.55%

Forensiq - 96.28%


What Else Can I Do About This?

● Work with companies that give deeper information about bad traffic

● Stay updated on the latest that comes from industry bodies like the IAB Anti-

Fraud Working Group

● Partner with companies like Rocket Fuel, who routinely remove bad traffic at

the pre-bid level, have a high traffic quality score, and are constantly improving


QUESTIONS?