1) The document discusses various examples of large companies like Chase, P&G, and Restoration Hardware cutting digital ad spending with no impact on performance, indicating ad fraud. 2) Uber sued a mobile ad agency for $82.5 million, alleging ad fraud based on discrepancies in reported clicks vs actual users. 3) The author argues that without 100% measurement, advertisers are not getting what they paid for due to widespread ad fraud issues like fake inventory, bots, spoofing, and non-viewable impressions. 4) Targeting and advanced ad metrics like geolocation are often faked or ineffective at reducing fraud.

1. Marketers take control
September 2017
Augustine Fou, PhD.
acfou [at] mktsci.com
212. 203 .7239

2. September 2017 / Page 1marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Chase: 99% reach had no impact
“JPMorgan had already decided
last year to oversee its own
programmatic buying operation.
Advertisements for JPMorgan
Chase were appearing on about
400,000 websites a month. [But]
only 12,000, or 3 percent, led to
activity beyond an impression.
[Then, Chase] limited its display
ads to about 5,000 websites. We
haven’t seen any deterioration on
our performance metrics,” Ms.
Lemkau said.”
“99% reduction in ‘reach’ … Same Results.”
Source: NYTimes, March 29, 2017
(because it wasn’t real, human reach)

3. September 2017 / Page 2marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
P&G: $140M in digital, no impact
“Procter & Gamble's concerns
about where its ads were
showing up online contributed
to a $140 million cutback in
the company's digital ad
spending last quarter, the
company said Thursday. That
helped the world's biggest
advertiser beat earnings
expectations. Perhaps even
more noteworthy, however,
organic sales outperformed
both analyst forecasts and key
rivals at 2% growth despite
the drop in ad support.
Source: AdAge, July 2017

4. September 2017 / Page 3marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Restoration Hardware: cut all keywords
“[W]e’ve found out that 98%
of our business was coming
from 22 words. So, wait, we’re
buying 3,200 words and 98%
of the business is coming from
22 words. What are the 22
words? And they said, well, it’s
the word Restoration
Hardware and the 21 ways to
spell it wrong, okay?
Immediately the next day, we
cancelled all the words,
including our own name.”
Source: BusinessInsider, Sept 2017

5. September 2017 / Page 4marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Uber Sues Mobile Agency for Ad Fraud
“Between 2015 and the first quarter of 2017,
Uber paid more than $82.5 million for the ad
effort coordinated by Fetch, court documents
show.
Uber alleges to have found… a Fetch
transparency report that showed the number of
weekly reported clicks on Uber ads on one
website was nearly equal to the site’s monthly
active users.
Uber was spending millions of dollars a week on
mobile ad inventory that was “purportedly
attributable to hundreds of thousands (even
millions) of Uber App installs per week,”
according to the complaint. However, when the
mobile ad effort was suspended, Uber said it
saw “no material drop in total installations.”
Source: WSJ, Sept 2017

6. If you don’t have 100%
measurement or very detailed
reports… you’re NOT
getting what you paid for.

7. September 2017 / Page 6marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Thought you bought ESPN? Nope
publisherA.com
ALL fake inventory because, PublisherA
does NOT sell any ads on any exchanges!
“Fake sites must pretend to be mainstream
ones in order to sell inventory.”

8. September 2017 / Page 7marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Thought you bought reach? Nope
$1 CPM
Top 10 sites = 66% of imps
$5 CPM
Top 10 sites = 74% of imps
$0.50 CPM
Top 5 sites = 100% of imps
$10 CPM
Top 10 sites = 71% of imps
Majority of your ads ran on 5-10 sites/apps

9. September 2017 / Page 8marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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98% impressions blown out in 1 hr
Most of budget wasted
between 12a – 4a; to bots
98% impressions blown
in 1st hour (12a-1a)
HOURLY CHART

10. September 2017 / Page 9marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Fraud filters don’t work. At. All.
1. Fraud filters are no better
than manual blacklists
2. In some cases it’s worse
when filter is on
3. Using fraud filters adds 20
– 24% to costs; manual
blacklists are free

11. September 2017 / Page 10marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Paid extra for geotargeting; 100% faked
Not Normal – in both campaigns
1. 100% mobile apps; 100% Android; same top 15 apps in both markets
2. 100% of impressions generated between 4a – 5a local time
3. 100% fake devices; 15 unique devices generated top 95% impressions
4. 100% data center traffic, randomized through residential proxies

12. September 2017 / Page 11marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Paid extra for targeting, no effect
“Verified Bots” “Verified Humans”
“Fraud-free Apps”Control: No Targeting
+$0.25 data CPM
+$0.25 data CPM+$0.25 data CPM

13. September 2017 / Page 12marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Targeting recent purchasers, didn’t work
“Frequent Buyers” “Heavy Buyers”
“Recent Purchaser - Books”Control: No Targeting
+$1.00 data CPM
+$1.00 data CPM+$1.75 data CPM

14. September 2017 / Page 13marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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90-99% of geolocation bad or faked
Source: Placed
Source: SafeGraph

15. September 2017 / Page 14marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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9% of apps caused 80% of fake impressions
1 (52% of impressions) 2 (48% of impr)
66% avg fraud
18% avg fraud
1. 9% of the apps caused 52% of impressions; 66% outright fraud
2. Remaining 91% of apps caused 48% of impressions, 18% outright fraud

16. September 2017 / Page 15marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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3 bad apps eat 75% of mobile budget
com.jiubang com.flashlight com.latininput
75% of the
dark red

17. September 2017 / Page 16marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
34 Mobile Networks >50% Fraud
Source: June 2017, Tune
average 20% fraud
100% fraud
> 50% fraud

18. September 2017 / Page 17marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Some ads are called without webpages
“Naked ad calls” are ad impressions
served without webpages

19. September 2017 / Page 18marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
About the Author
September 2017
Augustine Fou, PhD.
acfou [@] mktsci.com
212. 203 .7239

20. September 2017 / Page 19marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Dr. Augustine Fou – Independent Ad Fraud Researcher
2013
2014
Follow me on LinkedIn (click) and on Twitter
@acfou (click)
Further reading:
http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/presentations
https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/augustinefou
2016
2015