US Ad Fraud 2017: Buyers and Sellers Fall Prey to More Sophisticated Forms

Executive Summary

Buyers and sellers now have to worry about more advanced forms of fraud siphoning away digital display ad dollars.

• It’s difficult to know just how much money US advertisers and publishers lose to ad fraud annually, but estimates based on select samples of impressions would suggest fraud is a multibillion-dollar problem worldwide.
• As industry fraud detection and prevention tools have advanced, so too have the lengths to which fraudulent parties go to deceive buyers. With most tools now adept at identifying and even preventing dollars from going to nonhuman traffic and other forms of general invalid traffic, more sophisticated forms of fraud are on the rise.
• US advertisers see varying levels of fraud depending on where they buy their media, which formats they buy, the types of fraud prevention tools they use and how active they are in looking to identify instances of fraud. Advertisers typically see higher instances of ad fraud in higher-value areas, such as mobile and video, and in less transparent programmatic arenas, such as the open markets.
• Continued vigilance on the part of buyers and ongoing advancements to make sellers as transparent and legitimate as possible will be critical to help prevent digital ad dollars from flowing to perpetrators.