Click Fraud is a much, much bigger problem than you think.

Most people have heard of click fraud, but few people understand just how big a problem it is. If you run online advertising, the chances are you’re already a victim of click fraud.

It impacts both search and display networks – sometimes for different reasons – and the companies you’d think would be most concerned about this wide-ranging fraud are often strangely silent on the issue and muted in their responses. By some estimates, 1 in 4 clicks are fraudulent in nature. This isn’t a niche problem the other guy might be having – it’s a problem that undermines the legitimacy of online advertising.

That’s what we’re talking about in this week’s podcast. We’ll explore how and why this happens, and discuss what you can do to protect yourself (and your clients) from it.

Notes:

Earlier this year, Google found that ad fraud was a widespread problem for major media companies.The company found “thousands if not millions” of video and display spots from companies including NBCU, CBS and The New York Times listed for sale on multiple ad exchanges after these companies turned off their programmatic inventory for 15 minutes. This means unauthorized websites were fraudulently selling the ad inventory.

Found in Bing’s Website URL (Publisher) Report:

https://www.health.zone/
http://www.netfind.com/
https://www.shopfone.com/
http://www.when.com/
https://www.know-legal.com

All resolve to exactly the same search platform – same font, same functionality, same organization – all running on Bing’s partner program.

Links:

Bing Website URL (Publisher) Report
https://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/post/may-2014/bing-ads-academy-website-url-(publisher)-report

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