By Ari Jacoby, CEO

Last week, Las Vegas was a whirlwind of innovation and cutting edge technology as the marketing technology industry came together to discuss all the latest advancements. There was much to take in at the International CES, but a few major upcoming trends stood out.

Mobile was a common theme, and it is clear that 2015 will be the year the advertising industry finally achieves cross-device advertising and mobile attribution.

Consumers are now more connected than ever, via more devices than ever before. Nielsen’s most recent Digital Consumer Report revealed that Americans now own, on average, four digital devices. This creates a distinct challenge for advertisers, who struggle to find identifiers that are consistent on every device.

Social log-ins have become a popular method for doing this, but a new trend is emerging with scaled first-party data making cross-device advertising possible outside of social media. An added bonus – this first-party, deterministic data, offers certainty that advertisers are reaching the right consumers.

Measuring the contribution of all these devices was an issue for advertisers in 2014, especially where mobile was concerned. Accurately measuring mobile campaign attribution will finally become a norm in 2015.

Being able to determine ROI for mobile campaigns will be a huge push for advertisers to invest more budget, with confidence. In turn, the most value will accrue to those companies offering certainty to advertisers, both in the form of cross-device advertising and mobile attribution.

Let's put the brakes on bot fraud!

by Ari Jacoby, CEO

Cars have always been near and dear to my heart – if I didn’t live in Manhattan, I’d own several. As you can imagine, we are very excited to be participating at this conference, as automotive marketers are huge players in the digital advertising space. In fact, by 2015 the automotive industry will be second only to retail as digital advertising’s biggest investor. This puts the industry in a great position to take a fierce stance against bot fraud and viewability issues.

Solve Media puts out a bellwether industry market advisory every quarter. In Q1, we took a deep dive into the automotive vertical to see just how bad the fraud problem is for auto marketers. We recently revisited the auto vertical to pull the latest bot numbers, which you can see below. While suspicious traffic is still quite high, bot traffic fell below 10% on both the display and mobile platforms. At first blush, the numbers suggest some nominal progress, though we expect Q4 numbers will get worse as ad spend increases during the busy holiday season.

Alarmingly, the amount of suspicious mobile traffic nearly doubled between Q1 and Q3, though Q3 saw a dip in bot traffic in both desktop and mobile. US and global traffic saw a similar trend, the full results of which we will be releasing next month. We believe that, as the issue garners more attention, advertisers are taking action against bots and demanding that their agency partners buy more carefully, from higher quality partners.

Unfortunately, bot abuse is profitable and will be a long-term war. Automotive advertisers (and the advertising industry as a whole) must continue to take proactive measures to combat fraud. Along with seeking out engagement-based advertising, advertisers should consider asking their trading desks for verified human audience segments.

Solve Media study shows high levels of fraudulent traffic in CPG vertical

New York City – September 18, 2014 – Today, Solve Media released the results of its Quarterly Bot Traffic Market Advisory, revealing a healthy decrease in suspicious traffic from Q1. Global traffic showed a 16% decrease and national traffic decreased 19%. This follows the suspicious web activity trends seen throughout 2013, as reported in this former Bot Traffic Market Advisory.

An in-depth look into the CPG vertical uncovered a different trend, especially in mobile traffic. Mobile bot traffic in this vertical was 21% higher than global norms and 40% higher than US mobile traffic. According to Google’s Mobile In-Store study, eight out of ten smartphone owners research products before making a purchase. With more mobile traffic on CPG-related sites, it is no surprise that there is more fraudulent mobile traffic.

These higher bot numbers correspond with a spike in CPG mobile advertising spend. Mobile ad exchanges Smaato, Millennial Media and Nexage all saw significant increase in CPG mobile spend in Q2, especially in programmatic. Mobile advertising spend is estimated to reach $18 billion by the end of 2014, up 83% from last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Not surprisingly, CPG advertisers are taking a proactive stance in the fight against bot fraud.

“As CPG ad spending grows and the threat landscape increases, it makes sense that fraud is dramatically increasing. The fraudsters are following the money as CPG advertisers begin to invest more in mobile channels,” said Justin Somaini, Chief Trust Officer at Box. “This is why, as an industry, we need to prioritize preventing these advanced attacks. Data-driven solutions that drive cognition and emphasize engagement will eliminate bot traffic altogether.”       

With Q2 generally being a slow period for advertisers, Solve Media does not expect this decrease to continue. Ad budgets will be ramping up for the holiday season and suspicious traffic will likely increase throughout the second half of the year.

About Solve Media

Solve Media was founded by veteran entrepreneurs and technologists focused on data, security solutions and innovative Internet advertising. The company’s proprietary online and mobile advertising platform, the TYPE-IN, was designed to create highly effective opportunities for brands to engage with real consumers. With this platform, Solve Media guarantees brand message delivery, brand lift and return on investment for advertisers. Additionally, the platform creates new revenue opportunities for publishers and saves time for consumers.

By Ari Jacoby, CEO

We are very excited to be at Adexchanger’s Programmatic I/O today. It’s been a great conference so far, with the industry’s best and brightest coming together to discuss the future of intelligent (hyper-targeted) marketing.

It is clear from this conference that programmatic buying is becoming more sophisticated. Adoption rates are growing and all signs point to the fact that it will be the industry norm sooner rather than later. However, it is not without its challenges.

In a recent survey conducted by Solve Media, we asked 100 programmatic media buyers to list their biggest concerns with programmatic ad buying. Fraud and bot abuse was the number one response, with seven out of ten media buyers citing it as a concern. Difficulties with cross-channel attribution and a lack of quality video inventory were also major concerns, with over 50% of respondents citing these as challenges.

Not surprisingly, a big theme at Programmatic I/O has been how to address fraud within the marketplace. With all the technological advancements and changes to the advertising ecosystem, we’re glad that this issue is getting the attention it deserves.  Eliminating fraud in programmatic buying will go a long way towards reassuring hesitant marketers that it is a safe investment.

Guaranteeing a human audience will be table stakes sooner rather than later. We certainly have the data and technology to make this a reality. Bot detection and fraud prevention need to be an innate part of open exchanges and RTB.  As an example, WPP’s Xaxis has made great progress with its new offering, Xaxis Prime. Launched in early August, Xaxis Prime guarantees a 95% human audience through both pre and post campaign efforts.  We predict most of the players in their bracket will follow suit in the near-term.

Scaled first party data matters, as well.  Few have it, but it is clear that cross-screen campaigns and proper campaign attribution will follow anti-fraud as the next hot industry topic.

Global suspicious traffic remains major challenge despite media attention New York City – June 19, 2014 – Today, Solve Media released the results of its Quarterly Bot Traffic Market Advisory. Since the release of the company’s first report in September 2012, the bot fraud issue has gained significant industry attention. Recent headlines from major publications including The Wall Street Journal, Adweek and The Guardian serve to raise awareness, but large-scale action against global suspicious traffic lags. Solve Media’s Quarterly Bot Traffic Market Advisory for Q1 revealed that global suspicious web traffic remained at 54% for the second consecutive quarter. Global bot traffic reached 32%. Suspicious US web traffic continues to make up the majority of total traffic at 55%, down slightly from last quarter due to lower ad spend after the holiday surge. Solve Media took an in-depth look at the automotive vertical during Q1 2014. This research uncovered that 36.1% of traffic on automotive-specific sites acted suspiciously, with 22.2% of traffic confirmed as bot. As multi-screen touch points become an integral part of the car buying process, automotive advertisers are moving more of their budgets to online and mobile channels. This shift creates significant demand for premium inventory, and has invited fraud. Large automotive advertisers with significant ad budgets must use their influence to demand accountability and the proactive mitigation of bot fraud. For both efficiency and ROI, automotive advertisers should seek out high-performance advertising solutions that reach validated human audiences.

“The bot problem is not going to improve unless the companies with clout use it to demand an engaged human audience. Bigger budgets mean more power and influence, which puts automotive advertisers in the proverbial driver’s seat for demanding accountability in our industry,” said Ari Jacoby, CEO and Co-Founder, Solve Media. “If they refuse to settle for anything less than zero-waste ad spend investments, the industry will have no choice but to meet the demand. With the push for Secure Media from the biggest investors in digital advertising, providers on the sell-side must be prepared with effective solutions like performance-based media that guarantee cognition.” Solve Media’s publisher platform includes thousands of automotive sites. It has reported on bot data for the past two years based on insights from the 10,000 publishers in its network across display, video and mobile.

About Solve Media Solve Media was founded by veteran entrepreneurs and technologists focused on innovative Internet advertising, data and security solutions. The company’s proprietary online and mobile advertising platform, the TYPE-IN, was designed to create highly effective opportunities for brands to engage with real consumers. With this platform, Solve Media guarantees brand message delivery, brand lift and return on investment for advertisers. Additionally, the platform creates new revenue opportunities for publishers and saves time for consumers.

Solve Media Bot Traffic Market Advisory Update shows 51% of web activity in the US suspected to be fraudulent; a rise of 8% in Q3 2013

NEW YORK CITY — (December 19, 2013) – Solve Media issued its Quarterly Bot Traffic Market Advisory update today. For Q3, the data showed fraudulent web traffic tipping the scale in the United States for the first time, reaching an all-time high of 51%, an 8% increase over Q2 2013. Suspicious mobile activity in the United States also increased, up from 22% in Q2 2013 to 27%.

Looking globally, Q3’s data revealed that Estonia (83%), Singapore (79%) and China (77%) had the highest levels of fraudulent web activity overall. In the UK, suspicious web activity increased, reaching 47%, up from 44%.

“As fraudulent web traffic in the US rises, marketers must defend their hard-fought budgets by investing with publishers that ensure their branding is being seen by actual people who can truly complete purchases,” said Ari Jacoby, CEO of Solve Media. “With a verified audience, comes the guarantee that brand marketing will be effective online. As the market size of global display spending swells to $48.2B in 2014*, it’s a clear win for both publishers and advertisers to ensure audiences are human. To that end, we will see a rapid increase in investments made to protect audience integrity, as advertisers demand secure, verified engagements.”

For the third quarter in a row, global bot traffic remained consistent in a range of 22% - 29% for web advertising and 11% - 14% for mobile advertising. Suspicious web activity remained consistent globally in a range of 43% - 47%.

Solve Media, a leader in the security and digital advertising industries, has been monitoring bot traffic for four years. Currently, the company reviews a monthly average of over 270 million human verifications across more than 7,500 global publishers. Solve Media’s anti-bot CAPTCHA security platform specifically addresses bot traffic affecting publishers, advertisers and agencies by authenticating that audiences are, in fact, human.

“Today’s data is a wake up call for unprotected US publishers and advertisers alike - as an industry, we can no longer deny that bot traffic is eating away at the overall quality and effectiveness of our collective saleable audience. Think of it this way - a premium could be charged by publishers who commit to ensuring human verification of audiences - that level of security and guaranteed performance is where publishers should focus first as they attempt to create and sell new advertising products to brands,” said Chris Wysopal, Chief Technology Officer, Veracode and member of Solve Media’s Security Council.

Bots crowd web, video and mobile traffic and cause advertisers to pay for impressions, views and clicks that are not being engaged with by real people. Malicious bots undermine the security of the web and cause harm, including stealing publisher content, creating spam assets and phishing.

About Solve Media

Solve Media was founded by veteran entrepreneurs and technologists focused on innovative Internet advertising and security solutions. The company’s proprietary online and mobile advertising platform, the TYPE-IN™, was designed to create highly effective opportunities for brands to engage with real consumers. With this platform, Solve Media guarantees brand message delivery, brand lift and return on investment for advertisers. Additionally, the platform creates new revenue opportunities for publishers, and saves time for consumers. Solve Media is based in New York City and Philadelphia, with offices across North America and Europe.