#programmatiadfraud

Programmatic advertising is often described as a “black box” due to the complex, largely automated processes that operate behind the scenes, making it challenging for advertisers to see where their ads end up, how budgets are spent, and the actual impact of their campaigns. 

Massive Volume Makes It Hard to Track: Massive volume of ad impressions served daily, programmatic operates on an enormous scale, making it difficult to monitor each ad placement. Ads are distributed across thousands of websites, apps, and devices, creating a web of tough placements to trace without advanced tools.  

Viewability metrics Alone aren’t Enough. They don’t tell the full story. Many advertisers focus on viewability, but an ad might be “viewable” but still appear in an irrelevant or low-quality context, or worse, on a fraudulent site. Viewability is just the tip of the iceberg in determining if an ad placement is valuable. 

CPM is not the true reflection of ad performance: A go-to metric in programmatic, Cost-per-thousand (CPM) doesn’t necessarily reflect ad performance. As they do not show the genuine engagement generated or conversions. Moving beyond CPM for ad performance measurement and focusing on true performance metrics gives a clearer picture of campaign effectiveness.

The rise of programmatic advertising has shifted the focus towards accuracy and automation. It surged from $9.75 billion in 2023 to $12.46 billion in 2024, an annual growth rate of 27.8% and is expected to continue expanding, reaching $28.12 billion by 2028 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.6%. However, with AI coming into the picture, performance programmatic platforms are prone to ad fraud even more. The need for optimization of programmatic media buying with comprehensive ad fraud solution  across the advertising funnel is the necessity to yield results.  

More and more advertisers are pushing for a stronger and harder success KPI in programmatic campaigns. The shift from visibility only to performance-first is underway. With new and upcoming programmatic platforms selling inventory on impressions, it is today evident that impression fraud is 10-15% of campaign spends in the MENA region, as per mFilterIt reports. There is a ROI uplift of 7-10% when advertisers identify and block for Made-For-Ad sites and Ad Frequency cap violations. 

For advertisers, an ad traffic validation tool is the need of the hour to weed out fraud, optimise programmatic traffic and improve the hard KPIs of their campaigns. Also, programmatic platforms & ad networks have started providing ‘Certificate of Verification’ to advertisers to ensure their ad inventories are validated.   

Programmatic advertising has transformed the way brands interact with their target audiences by automating the buying and placement of ads with the help of powerful algorithms that provide precision, efficiency, and scalability.  to increase the success rate which is lacking in traditional advertising.  

Precise Targeting: Using precise targeting in programmatic ad marketers use data to identify target audiences. It allows brands to send modified messages based on demographics, activities, and even real-time intent.  

Real-Time Optimization: Programmatic campaigns help in delivering real-time analytics, allowing brands to monitor performance and adjust the campaign according to their need. This enables marketers to optimize ad creatives, placements, and budgets in real-time, resulting in better results.  

Scalability Across Platforms: Programmatic advertising connects people to a wide range of platforms, including social media and display networks, as well as connected TV and audio streaming services. This enables marketers to maintain the presence across several touchpoints without having any extra burden on managing individual channels separately.  

The simplest and most efficient way to protect the interest of your brand is to use ad fraud detection tool to combat the new tactics of fraud in programmatic ad ecosystem:  

In the case of F-Cap Violation using a creative serving hub, that sets the views per user per day to a certain limit with real-time monitoring to ensure no user sees the ad more than that set limit, helps to maximize reach and engagement.   

Further, the viewability metrics can be checked by implementing a viewability attention score based on how much attention users give to ads. This can provide a more apt picture of whether the ads are truly seen and engaged by real users or not.   

Low-quality impressions through Made-for-Ad Sites can be avoided by detecting and blacklisting these MFA sites. Suppose an ad network red flags a site as MFA, the specialized algorithms will automatically blacklist this site from the ad placement list.   

The rise of programmatic advertising has shifted the focus towards accuracy and automation. It surged from $9.75 billion in 2023 to $12.46 billion in 2024, an annual growth rate of 27.8% and is expected to continue expanding, reaching $28.12 billion by 2028 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.6%. However, with AI coming into the picture, performance programmatic platforms are prone to ad fraud even more. The need for optimization of programmatic media buying with comprehensive ad fraud solution  across the advertising funnel is the necessity to yield results.  

Lead punching is one of the fraudulent practices used by dishonest publishers or affiliates to deliberately submit false lead information, using real names, phone numbers and email ID of a person. This information is easily accessible across multiple sources at a minimal cost, which makes it easy for fraudsters to exploit. They use this data to fill out lead forms, ensuring the details appear legitimate.  

However, in reality the real person is not aware of filling in the lead form or even having interest in the service. Therefore, when the sales team follows up, these supposed leads deny submitting any form or even knowing about the company.   

This forms easily 30-40% of the total leads which a typical client receives. So not only is the advertiser losing media budget by paying for these junk leads, but they also end up burning call center costs in calling up these leads. Marketing teams also add these leads into a CRM and do Email / WhatsApp marketing on these. Now they waste further money in reaching people who have no interest in their products. 

The rise of programmatic advertising has shifted the focus towards accuracy and automation. It surged from $9.75 billion in 2023 to $12.46 billion in 2024, an annual growth rate of 27.8% and is expected to continue expanding, reaching $28.12 billion by 2028 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.6%. However, with AI coming into the picture, performance programmatic platforms are prone to ad fraud even more. The need for optimization of programmatic media buying with comprehensive ad fraud solution  across the advertising funnel is the necessity to yield results.  

More and more advertisers are pushing for a stronger and harder success KPI in programmatic campaigns. The shift from visibility only to performance-first is underway. With new and upcoming programmatic platforms selling inventory on impressions, it is today evident that impression fraud is 10-15% of campaign spends in the MENA region, as per mFilterIt reports. There is a ROI uplift of 7-10% when advertisers identify and block for Made-For-Ad sites and Ad Frequency cap violations. 

Advertisers spend an average of 15% of their programmatic budget on MFA sites, but some may spend as much as 42%. While 35% of programmatic spending is wasted on low-value environments like MFA sites, according to a recent study by ANA (Association of National Advertisers).  By focusing on robust ad fraud detection advertisers can combat the various forms of fraud that undermine their campaigns across digital advertising platforms. Prioritizing impression validation is essential for maximizing return on investment and maintaining trust in the advertising ecosystem.   

MFA Sites not only drain budgets but also pose a challenge to a brand’s safety. Limited reach and exposure, no real user engagement misleading clicks,  click fraud, artificially inflated metrics, poor conversion rates, low-quality/intent traffic and brand un-safe content tarnished brand image and lead to budget drainage.