Presented at ad:techSF 2015 by Michael Tiffany, the co-founder and CEO of White Ops, a security company founded in 2013 to break the profit models of cybercriminals, and Brandon Miller, Sr. Engagement Strategist for Carmichael Lynch.
AD Fraud and AD Blockers have been the biggest threat for Digital Advertising industry. The whitepaper discusses 9mediaOnline's initiatives to tackle the threats.
What is online ad fraud and what does um do about itAlan King
Presentation on Brand Safety measures undertaken by UM London.
It's our view that agencies need to lead the charge against ad fraud. We use brand safety software as standard to protect clients' interests.
Previous studies that addressed the impact of losing third party (“3P”) cookies on ad revenue did not clearly differentiate between the impact on ad tech intermediaries versus on publishers. Instead of “advertiser CPMs” (what advertisers pay) this study uses “media CPMs” (what the publishers get) to better isolate the impact of tracking vs no tracking on publishers.
Presented at ad:techSF 2015 by Michael Tiffany, the co-founder and CEO of White Ops, a security company founded in 2013 to break the profit models of cybercriminals, and Brandon Miller, Sr. Engagement Strategist for Carmichael Lynch.
AD Fraud and AD Blockers have been the biggest threat for Digital Advertising industry. The whitepaper discusses 9mediaOnline's initiatives to tackle the threats.
What is online ad fraud and what does um do about itAlan King
Presentation on Brand Safety measures undertaken by UM London.
It's our view that agencies need to lead the charge against ad fraud. We use brand safety software as standard to protect clients' interests.
Previous studies that addressed the impact of losing third party (“3P”) cookies on ad revenue did not clearly differentiate between the impact on ad tech intermediaries versus on publishers. Instead of “advertiser CPMs” (what advertisers pay) this study uses “media CPMs” (what the publishers get) to better isolate the impact of tracking vs no tracking on publishers.
Field Guide for Validating Premium Ad InventoryDistil Networks
Many of the current technologies used to detect fraud are great at detecting the amount of fraud (e.g., post-bid analysis). However, we need more technologies and techniques that focus on how to stop fraud before it happens. Having continuous, real-time data is important for this; but equally important are the policies and disclosures of the publishers and ad networks themselves.
Key Takeaways:
- The State of Digital Ad Fraud -- Terminology, landscape and trends
- The advertiser and publisher perspective -- Top issues and concerns
- Tools of the trade and best practices -- The different technologies and approaches to detecting and mitigating digital ad fraud
- Anatomy of a successful premium ad inventory program -- Whitepages’ guiding principles, policies and procedures
Very useful description and guidelines from the IAB about traffic fraud and digital ad fraud.
SOURCE: http://www.iab.net/member_center/traffic_of_good_intent_task_force
Digital ad fraud is as rampant as other forms of fraud in other industries. what are some ways to think about prioritizing solving digital ad fraud, relative to other digital marketing activities that advertisers can spend money on?
DMS: Opening Workshop with Marchex: Driving Profitable Mobile Marketing Campa...Digiday
Consumers are embracing mobile devices, which already command 25 percent of our screen time. However, the diversity of these devices and how they are used present major measurement and data collection challenges for marketers. Marchex will discuss how our usage of smartphones and other mobile devices for offline purchases, such as phone calls, can be used to create profitable mobile marketing campaigns and provide deep and actionable marketing insights about customers.
Moderator: John Busby, vp Marchex Institute, Marchex @JohnMBusby
how the money flows from the advertisers through the ad tech intermediaries to longtail, fraud, and fake sites, with the help of botnets and traffic sellers
25 Disruptive Technology Trends 2015 - 2016Brian Solis
Brian Solis explores some of the biggest technology trends and possible twists on the horizon for 2015 and 2016.
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Talk from the EclipseCon 2013.
Mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers became an integral part of our modern world and single-board computers like Raspberry Pi are cheaper today than at any time before. Simple and open Machine-to-Machine (M2M) protocols like MQTT enable these devices to communicate in an efficient manner, even in scenarios with unreliable und instable networks. This talk shows how Eclipse Paho - an Eclipse umbrella project for M2M protocols - can be utilized for professional and personal projects to build efficient and scalable solutions for (mobile) devices.
Field Guide for Validating Premium Ad InventoryDistil Networks
Many of the current technologies used to detect fraud are great at detecting the amount of fraud (e.g., post-bid analysis). However, we need more technologies and techniques that focus on how to stop fraud before it happens. Having continuous, real-time data is important for this; but equally important are the policies and disclosures of the publishers and ad networks themselves.
Key Takeaways:
- The State of Digital Ad Fraud -- Terminology, landscape and trends
- The advertiser and publisher perspective -- Top issues and concerns
- Tools of the trade and best practices -- The different technologies and approaches to detecting and mitigating digital ad fraud
- Anatomy of a successful premium ad inventory program -- Whitepages’ guiding principles, policies and procedures
Very useful description and guidelines from the IAB about traffic fraud and digital ad fraud.
SOURCE: http://www.iab.net/member_center/traffic_of_good_intent_task_force
Digital ad fraud is as rampant as other forms of fraud in other industries. what are some ways to think about prioritizing solving digital ad fraud, relative to other digital marketing activities that advertisers can spend money on?
DMS: Opening Workshop with Marchex: Driving Profitable Mobile Marketing Campa...Digiday
Consumers are embracing mobile devices, which already command 25 percent of our screen time. However, the diversity of these devices and how they are used present major measurement and data collection challenges for marketers. Marchex will discuss how our usage of smartphones and other mobile devices for offline purchases, such as phone calls, can be used to create profitable mobile marketing campaigns and provide deep and actionable marketing insights about customers.
Moderator: John Busby, vp Marchex Institute, Marchex @JohnMBusby
how the money flows from the advertisers through the ad tech intermediaries to longtail, fraud, and fake sites, with the help of botnets and traffic sellers
25 Disruptive Technology Trends 2015 - 2016Brian Solis
Brian Solis explores some of the biggest technology trends and possible twists on the horizon for 2015 and 2016.
Topics include cyber security, mobile payments, drones, bitcoin, social media, digital, omnichannel, attribution, cx, music, movies, Hollywood
M2M for Java Developers: MQTT with Eclipse Paho - Eclipsecon Europe 2013Dominik Obermaier
Talk from the EclipseCon 2013.
Mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers became an integral part of our modern world and single-board computers like Raspberry Pi are cheaper today than at any time before. Simple and open Machine-to-Machine (M2M) protocols like MQTT enable these devices to communicate in an efficient manner, even in scenarios with unreliable und instable networks. This talk shows how Eclipse Paho - an Eclipse umbrella project for M2M protocols - can be utilized for professional and personal projects to build efficient and scalable solutions for (mobile) devices.
IoT with MQTT and Paho for Webpages - Eclipse Democamp München 2014Dominik Obermaier
Presentation from the Eclipse Democamp 2014 in Munich. This demo shows how to connect Webpages with MQTT to get real push notifications - with an IoT protocol! Uses the Eclipse Paho Javascript library and the HiveMQ Enterprise MQTT broker for built-in websockets support.
State of Supply Quality in Mobile ProgrammaticMoPub
In our recent whitepaper series on the state of supply quality, we investigate three particularly salient topics to marketers today: fraud, viewability, and ad blocking. While these issues aren’t new to digital advertising, they are a new issue for mobile — particularly because they manifest in mobile differently than other digital advertising supply sources.
Ana white ops - bot fraud action plan - 2015Romain Fonnier
Bots are everywhere, but not in equal numbers. The joint ANA/White Ops study, conducted in August and September 2014, included a diverse range of brands, across nine vertical categories, with total ad budgets ranging from $10 million to more than $1 billion, as measured by Kantar. This 57-page report uncovers the startling and alarming impact of bots on digital media and offers an action plan that marketers and the industry at large can implement today to begin eliminating bot fraud.
Ana White OPS - the bot baseline - fraud in digital advertising - 2015Romain Fonnier
Advertisers will lose $6.3 billion globally to bots in 2015
The ANA partnered with White Ops, a security company with experience eradicating ad fraud on an initiative to determine the level of bot fraud occurring across the digital advertising industry. The ANA recruited 36 member companies to participate. The participants worked with a wide variety of agency partners, including media agencies, full-service agencies, and in-house agencies. White Ops tagged participants' creative in August and September 2014 (181 U.S. campaigns) to determine fraud activity. The study measured 5.5 billion impressions in 3 million domains over 60 days.
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) publishes a study about bot traffic in Digital Advertising, in collaboration with White Ops.
At current bot rates, advertisers will lose approximately $6.3 billion globally to bots in 2015 (applying the bot levels observed across the study to the estimated $40 billion spent globally on display ads and the estimated
$8.3 billion spent globally on video ads).
The Bot Baseline - Fraud in Digital Advertisingyann le gigan
>>The Bot Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising
[ana.net 09.12.14]
Advertisers will lose $6.3 billion globally to bots in 2015.
http://www.ana.net/content/show/id/botfraud
Borrell Conference on Local Media (Mobile)Greg Stuart
This is a keynote I gavea in March 2011 at a Borrel Local Online Advertising around the topic of Mobile marketing's relationship to Local. Focus is on how Mobile is the "missing" piiece to Local Advertisiing.
[Webinar] driving accountability in mobile advertisingInMobi
Digital ad spending across the world is growing exponentially and mobile is owning the lion's share, adding value with every passing day. However, all is not well on the mobile front - it's time the mobile ecosystem woke up to reality and devised a plan to battle fraudsters who are eroding trust and stealing valuable ad dollars. To rein in the malicious players, all players including advertisers, networks, publishers and independent measurement platforms need to come together to address the 3 core issues of Brand Safety, Viewability and Fraud.
As digital marketing budgets continue to grow, so do concerns over ad fraud, viewability and brand safety.
This whitepaper examines the top threats to ad quality and offers an in-depth view of Conversant’s holistic approach to ensuring the highest level of ad quality for its clients.
Topics include:
- Marketplace challenges and the damage poor ad quality can cause
- The necessity of advanced proprietary ad quality technology
- Conversant’s holistic 8-part solution
- Data's crucial role in preventing fraudulent activity
I stumbled upon the world of Adfraud recently while doing some research on a personal assignment and was amazed at the magnitude of the issue is.
This presentation touches upon my findings, my understandings and finally my attempt to visualize a tool which can help deal with adfraud.
Feel free to use the presentation. Although giving due credit would be appreciated.
Managing Advertising Investments for a Human Audience
Recent data has shown us that bot traffic continues to rise across the internet, particularly in the areas of registration, voting, and commenting. These areas are those wherein human presence is not only crucial to the integrity of a given website, but directly related to publishers’ advertising investments. When non-human traffic takes the place of real consumers, publishers are victimized. As a result, media buyers are moving to high-quality, native ad placements on a cost per engagement basis. We created this infographic to take a deeper look into this growing problem:
The topic of ad fraud is rising up the food chain. Advertisers are starting to question whether the money they're plowing into programmatic advertising is being wasted. This session will address the major concerns brands have around fraud.
Are you a CMO looking to make an impact with your retail brand wherever your consumers are? Mobile is the solution for brand building, growth, and revenue. Learn how to unify brand awareness, engagement, and retention activities with a mobile campaign.
Mobile toolbox - 3e édition > Mobile en FranceDenis Verloes
Boîte à outils du journaliste mobile en situation de mobilité ou soucieux de fournir des contenus adaptés à la consommation mobile
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Mobile toolbox for mobile oriented journalists
Le groupe de communication HighCo et Intermarché présentent le premier coupon...Denis Verloes
Du 4 au 17 novembre, et pour la première fois en France dans un réseau GSA, Intermarché invite ses clients à bénéficier des premiers coupons mobiles sur 25 grandes marques nationales. Le dispositif repose sur une solution unique en France, 100% dématérialisée et sécurisée, conçue et mise en œuvre par HighCo, leader européen des solutions marketing pour les marques et le retail.
Avec les Tech Trends, le cabinet se penche chaque année sur l’univers en constante mutation des technologies au service de l’entreprise. Dans cette édition, les dix tendances abordées sont susceptibles d’avoir un impact significatif sur les entreprises dans les deux prochaines années.
Quelle nouvelle tendance en fonds d’investissement pourrait s’ajouter à vos efforts de financement par capital de risque en 2013 ? De quelle façon votre entreprise pourrait-elle tirer profit de la politique Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) comme outil essentiel ?
Pour le savoir, consultez la 12e édition de cette étude qui présente les principales tendances du secteur Technologies, Médias et Télécommunications pour 2013.
Ces prédictions sont basées sur des recherches approfondies, incluant des entrevues avec des clients et d’anciens membres de Deloitte, des analystes sectoriels, des chefs d’entreprises renommés dans le secteur des TMT et plus de 8 000 professionnels de Deloitte.
La chaire Économie numérique de l’Université Paris-Dauphine publie la troisième édition de son baromètre trimestriel de l’économie numérique, réalisé avec Médiamétrie, sur les attentes et les comportements des Français dans le domaine de l’économie numérique.
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Exploiting Artificial Intelligence for Empowering Researchers and Faculty, In...Dr. Vinod Kumar Kanvaria
Exploiting Artificial Intelligence for Empowering Researchers and Faculty,
International FDP on Fundamentals of Research in Social Sciences
at Integral University, Lucknow, 06.06.2024
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Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
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Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
Safalta Digital marketing institute in Noida, provide complete applications that encompass a huge range of virtual advertising and marketing additives, which includes search engine optimization, virtual communication advertising, pay-per-click on marketing, content material advertising, internet analytics, and greater. These university courses are designed for students who possess a comprehensive understanding of virtual marketing strategies and attributes.Safalta Digital Marketing Institute in Noida is a first choice for young individuals or students who are looking to start their careers in the field of digital advertising. The institute gives specialized courses designed and certification.
for beginners, providing thorough training in areas such as SEO, digital communication marketing, and PPC training in Noida. After finishing the program, students receive the certifications recognised by top different universitie, setting a strong foundation for a successful career in digital marketing.
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
Model Attribute Check Company Auto PropertyCeline George
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2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...
Trademob whitepaper click-fraud
1. Study: 40%
of mobile An analysis into the
effectiveness of mobile
clicks are ad spend, and a
accidental or discussion on click
fraud techniques,
fraudulent symptoms and solutions
2. The distribution of useless clicks
Mobile is booming, and so are mobile advertising budgets. However,
40% of
due to mobile click fraud and the high rate of accidental clicks, only
very highly targeted ads can effectively reach the target audience and all mobile
achieve a profitable ROI. To realise the full potential and possibilities clicks show
within this new marketing channel, a sophisticated mobile ad
a conversion
verification system is needed.
rate of <0.1%.
It‘s clear from recent media discussion that clicks need to be
monitored in order to ensure that ad spend is used wisely rather than
wasted.1 However, with a noticeable drought of actual studies into the
extent of mobile click fraud and the effectiveness of mobile ad spend,
Trademob decided to shed some light on the situation.
An analysis of six million mobile ad clicks served across ten different
ad networks found that an alarming 40% of bought mobile clicks were
worthless, i.e. the conversion rate of clicks to installs was less than
0.1%.2
Since the Pay Per Click model takes centre stage as the most prominent
reward system offered by most mobile ad networks, these worthless
clicks cost companies 40% of their mobile advertising budgets.
Click category based on after-click conversion rates.
Click-to-
Install rate
< 0,1%
40%
Useless
60%
Regular
So how can mobile advertisers become invincible to
ineffective clicks?
1
Shalom Berkowitz. (2012, July 3). ‚4 ways to identify mobile click
fraud‘. iMedia Connection. Retrieved from http://imediaconnection.com/
content/32195.asp
2
Trademob mobile click fraud study (2012, June)
3. Mobile click fraud or accidental clicks?
First, let‘s look at where these useless clicks come from. A closer look Click fraud
at the data shows that of this 40%, around half show patterns that are
highly symptomatic of click fraud, such as irregular traffic peaks and
and accidental
clicks coming from similar IP addresses, and the others appear to be clicks are
accidental clicks.3 seriously
harming ROI.
Sources of useless mobile ad clicks
Currently,
there are three
major fraud
techniques
being used.
Facts of study
Sample size 6 Million mobile ad clicks
Spread 10 mobile ad networks
Conducted by Trademob GmbH
Time of data collection June 2012
The good news?
With the right strategy both sources can be eliminated and the 40% of
ineffective ad spend can be saved.
3
Trademob mobile click fraud study (2012, June)
4. Accidental clicks
Accidental clicks happen Objectivity
when a user clicks on an ad by mistake. and advanced
tracking
This can be due to bad placement, a slip of the hand, or poorly
designed, misguiding mobile banners. These useless clicks cannot are equally
be associated with click fraud because genuinely accidental clicks do important
happen sometimes, especially owing to small mobile screen sizes.
in detecting
In 2011, a study by Pontiflex (Harrison) found that 47% of all mobile
accidental
clicks happened accidentally.4 Since then the mobile industry has clicks.
grown exponentially, smartphone and tablet screens have increased
in size, and user behaviour has shifted. Despite an observed decrease,
22% of clicks still happen accidentally and fail to convert.
The solution to this problem is identifying and blacklisting publisher
apps and other mobile traffic sources that, purposely or otherwise,
create multiple worthless clicks. There‘s just one problem here: in
order to make informed choices about publishers, pre- and after-
click data need to be matched and analysed, bringing us back to the
perpetual dilemma of thorough campaign tracking on iOS.
However, with ad verification techniques and new innovative tracking
solutions such as accurate fingerprinting, effective UDID- independent
campaign tracking and media buy optimization are possible.
Accidental clicks are really not a new issue in
the mobile industry and could be eradicated if
ad networks had the right tracking at hand. Still,
advertisers lose almost half of their budgets to
ineffective clicks.
Clearly, equally as important as advanced tracking is publisher-
independency and complete objectivity. Thus, advertisers should rely
on unbiased parties having access to the necessary tracking data to
optimize their ad spend.
4
David Kaplan. (2011, January 27). ‚Pontiflex: About Half Of Mobile App
Clicks Are Accidental. paidContent. Retrieved from http://paidcontent.
org/2011/01/27/419-pontiflex-about-half-of- mobile-app-clicks-are-
accidental/
5. Mobile click fraud
Click fraud refers to A constant
premeditated clicks that are not driven by a battle exists
genuine interest in the target of the ad link. between fraud
There are difficulties in officially defining click fraud due to the and anti- fraud
possibility of unethical parties discovering loopholes in the legislation. due to both
This however does little to protect advertisers, who are thus unable to
communities
dispute or verify reasons for click charges.
continually
A common understanding of click fraud is as follows: by arranging improving
false clicks on ads, shady publishers take advantage of Pay Per Click their
agreements and charge for clicks with extremely low conversion
rates. Performed effectively, this can significantly affect advertising
strategies.
costs and revenue potential.
Click fraud has been an issue for online advertisers since the internet‘s
formative years and has already been used by publishers to unfairly
deprive advertisers of millions of dollars. As a reaction to better fraud-
detection solutions, more cunning and sophisticated fraud systems
are conceived, leading to a constant battle between the fraud and
anti-fraud communities.
The recent mobile boom means more substantial investment in mobile
ads. Global mobile advertising spend was 5.3 billion USD in 20115
and is predicted to rise to 24 billion by 2016.6 With this in mind, it‘s
unsurprising that more and more click fraudsters are now targeting
mobile ads as well.
So how exactly do fraudsters fill their pockets with
the mobile advertiser‘s money?
Mobile click fraudsters haven‘t reinvented the wheel. They mostly
rely on traditional online fraud techniques and have more or less
successfully adjusted them to the new ecosystem. Three major fraud
techniques, comprised of plain and pure server-side fraud, and more
sophisticated types (namely botnets and client-side fraud) can be
observed. Fortunately, all types can be detected and eliminated with
the right expertise and tracking.
5
Mobile Advertising Market Valued at $5.3 Billion (€3.8 Billion) in 2011‘.
(2012, June 6) Interactive Advertising Bureau. Retrived from http://www.
iab.net/about_the_iab/ recent_press_releases/press_release_archive/press_
release/pr-060612_global
6
By 2016, Mobile Advertising Outlay Will Equal Current
Total Online Ad Spending.‘ (2011, June 23). ABI Research.
Retrieved from http://www.abiresearch.com/press/3706-By+2016,+Mobile+
Advertising+Outlay+Will+Equal+Current+Total+Online+Ad+Spending
6. Major mobile click fraud techniques
Plain fraud
Server-side
Publishers use (their own or hacked) servers to report millions of fake
clicks per minute, none of which ever actually happened. Though
made to look real by sending convincing data, these false clicks are
easy to detect with the right tracking solution.
Fake click
triggered on
publisher
server(s)
Sophisticated fraud
Botnets
Botnets are inventories of hijacked devices on which viruses are
installed, creating fake clicks which go unnoticed by the user due to
not being shown onscreen. Most botnets rely on non-mobile inventory
but fraudsters can manipulate click-data to appear to be mobile ad
clicks.

Click
autonomously
triggered
on hijacked
device
7. Client-side
Unlike plain fraud and botnets, client-side fraud involves actual
user interaction. This again goes unobserved by the user. By way of
example, a person might unintentionally click on an ad banner which
is hidden behind another banner, with the publisher then charging
the ad network for both the intentional and unintentional clicks.
Click (in)-
directly
triggered
by user
The bright side: detection of click fraud
Detecting plain fraud
Server-side fraud is probably the most basic form of click fraud and
Click bulks of
is relatively easy to detect. As clicks are sent from the same server(s),
they come from the same IP address and the header data which are
IP address and
transferred along with each click will show a similar device parameter fingerprints
composition, also referred to as fingerprint. With the right tracking can uncover
and algorithm, these bulks of clicks sharing the same IP address and
parameter composition can quickly be identified.
plain fraud.

IP Address
IP Address
Device Parameter Composition Device Parameter Composition
(regular traffic) (fraudulent traffic)
8. Detecting sophisticated fraud
The more sophisticated fraudsters have established their own Under
‘inventory management’ to increase the IP distribution and optimize
click reporting to conceal fraud the best way possible. However, these
investigation,
days, most mobile fraudsters only apply the minimum effort required fraud is found
in order to achieve their goals, and these cover-up strategies are still out through
immature.
inconsistent
Deeper analysis of click data by ad verification platforms can therefore activity and
also reveal more advanced types of fraud. We may still see peaks of irregular
clicks at unexpected times of day, for example.
patterns.
Daily click pattern reported by publishers Daily click pattern with irregular peaks
(reported by shady publishers)
But the biggest hurdle for shady publishers is that they don’t know
the campaign settings, so the click data may not match the selected
target.
Let’s say a mobile ad campaign is targeted to be shown only to iPhone Fraudsters
users located in Western Europe. A fraudster, noticing a high-paying
CPC click on his mobile website executed by a German user, decides
don‘t know
to increase his revenue stream using his ‘botnet’ made up of hijacked campaign
Android phones in India to report more of these well-paying clicks. settings such
Tracking reveals these discrepancies.
as target area.
Fraudsters report clicks from outside the target zone
9. Optimizing ROI through ad verification
Summary
Click fraud and accidental clicks could cost advertisers as much as 40% With
of their advertising budget, money which is far better spent where it
has a positive impact. Fortunately, this 40% can be moved back into
advanced
an advertiser’s efficient ad spend and help ensure the effectiveness of tracking
their mobile ad campaigns. and ad
verification,
In order to optimize a mobile ad campaign, it is vital to use ad
verification to spot and blacklist sources of click fraud and accidental useless
clicks who cost money but offer nothing in return. By tracking ad clicks can be
campaigns and analysing pre- and after-click data, it is possible to
stamped out.
sink publishers that underperform and invest in the ones that bring
revenue. Such a cross-network blacklisting of useless publishers
requires a deep integration with ad networks, access to publisher
and user data and an advanced tracking technology that can create a
unique fingerprint for each click source and match clicks with after-
click actions.
Choosing the right strategy
Besides sophisticated tracking data, an independent and objective
optimization is required to ensure that mobile ad spend is allocated
to its most effective sources.
It’s possible to invest only in publishers that bring
in app users and ROI. Via advanced fingerprint
technology, thorough optimization and an
objective approach, accidental clicks and fraud
can be detected and prevented.
While advertisers are obviously pure in their intentions to maximize
their ROI, they lack the tracking technologies as well as access to the
click- and publisher data. Even with the desired data at hand, analysing
and preventing ineffective clicks requires automated systems, a deep
technical network-integration and the right algorithm. Advertisers
will thus most likely face huge manual effort here, without achieving
the desired results. On the other hand, many ad networks lack the
sophisticated tracking solution and data. And given that they are
caught between three business goals (the advertiser’s satisfaction,
the publisher’s satisfaction and their own revenue stream), campaign
optimization is, by nature, corrupted. Advertisers thus depend on
objective intermediaries advocating their interests.
10. What can Trademob do?
As an aggregation platform, Trademob is able to focus on advertisers‘ A 100%
interests whilst remaining independent from publishers. Providing
accurate and proven fingerprint tracking, a close collaboration with
advertiser-
ad networks and a clear optimization focus, we ensure that our targeted
clients‘ marketing goals are achieved in the best, most efficient solution
way. As a result,can Trademob do?
What transparent and revenue-driving campaigns make
mobile advertising profitable for the advertiser and mobile marketing
enables true
As an aggregation platform, Trademob is able to focus on
budgets rise. Advertisers, ad networks and trustworthy publishers all campaign
A 100%
advertisers' interests whilst remaining independent from
benefit from our advertiser-targeted solution. fingerprint tracking, a
publishers. Providing accurate and proven advertiser-
optimization.
close collaboration with ad networks and a clear optimisation focus,
we ensure that our clients' marketing goals are achieved in the
targeted
Disclosing and blacklisting click a result, transparent and revenue-
best, most efficient way. As fraud and accidental clicks can solution
eradicate 40% campaigns make mobile advertising profitable for ROI.
driving of ineffective mobile ad spend and ramp-upthe
enables true
advertiser and mobile marketing budgets rise. Advertisers, ad
However, there are many more optimization settings such as; banner
networks and trustworthy publishers all benefit from our advertiser- campaign
type, timing, device, channel, and location. Therefore it comes as
targeted solution.
optimisation
little surprise that we see overall optimization for our clients’ targeted
Disclosing and blacklisting click fraud and accidental clicks can
mobile advertising40% of ineffective mobile ad spend and ramp-up ROI.
eradicate campaigns as high as 70%.
However, there are many more optimisation settings such as;
banner type, timing, device, channel, and location. Therefore it
comes as little surprise that we see overall optimisation for our
clients’ targeted mobile advertising campaigns as high as 70%.
Advanced
Advanced
campaign
campaign
optimisation
optimization
sees an ROI
App Users
increase of
sees an ROI
up to 70%
increase of ROI !
up to 70%.
11. Appendix:
Mobile click fraud techniques in
more technical detail
As we’ve only scratched the surface of mobile click fraud
types in the previous section, here’s a more detailed account
for those of you harbouring a hidden passion for IT.
12. Server-side click fraud
Historically, fraud originated from single machines like privately Current
owned PCs and servers, with increased professionalism progressing
into server clusters and cloud-hosters. As the number of machines
mobile fraud
is a limiting factor, each machine needs to deliver a good number of attempts are
fraudulent requests, ideally clicks and impressions, to generate an still largely
unsuspicious clickthrough rate.
very primitive.
The generation of the necessary partly-forged http-requests is carried
out by scripts or full-blown fraud-suites obtainable on the internet’s
black market. The most sophisticated come with a throttling of
requests to avoid ‘off-the-chart’ effects that could trigger a review and
also a multitude of faked browser-headers to show a good distribution
of users.
But even with the increase of hacked servers, this source of fraud
can easily be detected. The limit in server numbers means a tight
clustering of IP addresses as well as fingerprinting parameters. Also
with different tools and scripts in use by the fraudster, each cluster
can show a specific distribution of client-parameters.
In addition to the shown weaknesses in masking their unwanted
behaviour, javascript and other more complex client-side technologies
are often ignored in simple fraud attempts. This might be due to the
fact that per server performance and tight control over http-behaviour
is a dominant requirement for server-side fraud.
Botnets
When single servers are not available or too easy to blacklist, a cheap
and willing workforce of hacked consumer PCs is available to paying
‘customers’. Botnets, when perceived as a platform, can be utilised
for online and mobile fraud with a similar toolset as for server-side
fraud.
The renting is flexible, fees are low and the IP distribution is drastically
increased, though it still depends on the size and quality of the used
network. Due to the volatile nature of clients caught in a botnet,
detection and blacklisting can be harder to achieve by opposing ad-
networks or DSPs.
Botnet owners have developed an own ‘inventory
management‘ of their hijacked devices to cover
up their unethical activities.
13. Client-side
With the recent sharp increase right at the zenith of Web 2.0, client- Close
side technology has become the new playground for script- kiddies,
benevolent hackers and clever fraudsters alike. Somewhat tech-savvy
collaboration
webmasters with a significant user base may think their mobile page of the
needs a bump in revenue. They can be tempted, once they realise how anti-fraud
easy it is, to place banners inside invisible layers and put paying clicks
on close buttons or fake scrollbars. Due to the diversity in users on
community
international sites this kind of fraud will be harder to detect as long as can affront
they are able to slip through the ad network’s quality controls. more
sophisticated
It gets much more complex when fraudsters decide to parasite on
other sites, using cross-site scripting and SQL-injects as their most fraud in the
common angles of attack. This approach programs legitimate websites future.
to serve malicious javascript code which in turn makes the unaware
user generate visible or invisible clicks on high CPC- campaigns. All of
this is configured and frequency-capped by the fraudster‘s ‘inventory
management’ on yet another hijacked machine.
Client-side fraud techniques show the highest diversity of IPs and
device parameters, leaving fewer other data to identify a pattern.
Some publishers also decide to ‘charge’ their real clicks by a humble
factor of 2 to 10, showing at least some conversions in performance
reports. With this in mind, it is evident that there is a clear need for
a scientific approach and number crunching on past experience to
detect fraud when it comes to its advanced stages.
Conclusion
Though click fraud might sound sophisticated, in reality fraudsters
currently only apply the minimum effort required to achieve their goals.
Right now there is only very little creativity needed to overcome basic
macro-plausibility checks and much of their work goes undetected.
Simple fraud techniques still work out in a big way – an arms race
between the fraud and anti-fraud side has yet to be triggered. On the
bright side, it means that platforms with access to both pre-and after-
click data, can quickly expose fraudulent publishers.
Looking ahead, it is likely that fraudsters will change strategies when
a major part of the market is able to detect their activity. So fraud
detection and prevention will likely be challenged in the future and
will require a close collaboration among the anti-fraud community,
with cross-network and cross-campaign tracking and data analysis
forming the initial steps.
14. Questions?
Ask us.
The Data- Global, Independent, Transparent
Mobile Advertising for your App.
Driven App
Marketing
info@trademob.com, www.trademob.com
Platform Berlin, London, Paris, Madrid, New York