Ad fraud has always been an issue for marketers, with fraudulent clicks skewing results, wasting budgets, and damaging a brand’s reputation. It has always lurked in the shadows and continues to evolve and appear in several forms. From malicious apps to bots and more, it has advanced in such a manner that it affects the whole digital advertising industry. According to a report by statistics aggregator Statista, ad fraud consumed a whopping $80 billion in ad spend in the previous year, and it anticipates the number to hit $100 billion by the end of 2023.
Safeguarding the ad budget has therefore become a critical element for marketers. However, someone new to this anomaly in the markets may not have the idea to tackle it efficiently. Therefore, marketers can initiate their ad protection by following these three steps.
#1 Setup and tracking
The first step in preventing ad fraud is to set up the system correctly in order to ensure that all the KPIs are covered. Furthermore, marketers must also make sure to implement the correct tracking at the beginning itself to get off to a good start. Then, the tracking allows you to frequently monitor your advertising campaigns. Look for any abrupt increases or decreases in metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions. Unusual patterns in KPIs, such as clicks or impressions emanating from a particular region or time of day, are sometimes produced by fraudulent operations. Monitoring this data will enable you to take preventative action and catch fraudsters in the act. By keeping an eye on your campaign’s performance, you may identify and halt fraudulent actions before they cause you to incur expenses.
#2 Establishing trustworthy partnerships
An excellent strategy to safeguard your campaign against fraud is to choose credible, trustworthy, and thoroughly vetted publisher partners who are committed to transparency. They would not only provide live dashboards but also be open to third-party tags. This is necessary, as with different ad verification suppliers, there is a tendency that the data might not be consistent. Therefore, look for a publisher partner that offers a non-biased approach to ad fraud and who can also deliver full funnel and Omni channel capabilities. You may be on your way to avoid ad fraud by including this step of verification through reputable publisher partners in your ad budget.
#3 Considering apt tools
The third step is to use fraud prevention tools in order to monitor any traffic coming from dubious domains and block such websites. The tools that marketers are willing to select must identify if the campaign is getting delivered as per the set-up rules. This will allow it to detect deviations and prevent them in real time, along with all clicks and conversions that result from bad traffic. It will also ensure marketers do not lose their valuable marketing budget, and it will also facilitate optimizing the campaign based on correct performance reports. Moreover, ad prevention tools must be integrated with other MarTech solutions to monitor the entire user journey. This will provide complete transparency to the marketers, identify the source of invalid traffic, and prevent it in real time.
All things considered
Ad fraud has become more complex in recent years, making it more difficult to detect by looking for similarities in advertisements. They can be difficult to understand and overwhelming for those who are new to the digital world. Ad fraud not only costs money, but it also harms your reputation, performance, and statistics. It is critical to understand the many forms of ad fraud in order to prevent and identify it.
Today, ad fraud can be combated through the use of technology and data. Initially, marketers can protect their campaign budget by setting up quickly, reviewing the campaign on a regular basis, and developing trusting relationships with publisher partners. Furthermore, numerous tools and solutions are available to assist in monitoring, measuring, and optimizing campaigns, as well as detecting any suspicious or fraudulent activity.
Aside from the three steps mentioned above, there may be several other factors to consider when preparing for ad fraud protection. However, marketers and brands must first understand their customers’ needs before selecting feasible solutions.
The above article is authored by Mathew Ratty, Co-Founder and CEO of TrafficGuard.
