digital ad fraud comes in many forms; this is an infographic to show the different types of ads and the amount of fraud of each type, by stage of the purchase funnel.

1. Ad Fraud By Type
impressions
clicks
leads
sales
Est. Fraud Dollars
Display 50% $4B
Video 60% $2B
Mobile 40% $2B
Search 30% $6B
$7B
NOTE: “mobile” consists of display
and search so part of the mobile spend
is allocated to impression fraud and
part to click fraud.
$7B
- 1 - Augustine Fou

2. Ad Fraud is Multi-tiered
Mainstream sites with bot traffic
• Legitimate publishers with real content that humans
want to read
• An unknown percentage of traffic is due to bots (good
and malicious)
Sites that “cheat”
• Stacked ads, auto-refresh
• High ad-load, low viewability
• Purchased traffic, audience expansion
Sites created for ad fraud
• Created by template/algo
• Enormous quantity of ads
• All traffic/impressions from bots
PUBLISHER
FRAUD SITE
user
bot
user
crawler
user
bot
bot
bot
bot
bot
bot
bot
Domain Level Fraud User Level Fraud
- 2 - Augustine Fou

3. Dr. Augustine Fou – Digital Consigliere
“I advise clients on optimizing
advertising across all channels. One
main area of focus is reducing ad waste
due to fraud – fake impressions, clicks,
leads, and sales.”
FORMER CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, HCG (OMNICOM)
MCKINSEY CONSULTANT
CLIENT SIDE / AGENCY SIDE EXPERIENCE
PROFESSOR AND COLUMNIST
ENTREPRENEUR / SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
PHD MATERIALS SCIENCE (MIT '95) AT AGE 23
ClickZ Articles: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-clickz
Slideshares: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-slideshares
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/augustinefou
- 3 - Augustine Fou
@acfou

4. Related Articles
http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/the-good-guys-of-
ad-fraud-2014-augustine-fou
http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/motive-for-digital-
ad-fraud-investigated-by-augustine-fou-31487332
http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/video-ad-fraud-hidden-
in-plain-sight-investigated-by-augustine-fou
http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/search-ad-fraud-
101-by-augustine-fou-technical-forensics
- 4 - Augustine Fou