#programmatic fraud

In this competitive digital environment, brand messaging reaching the right audience at the right place has become imperative. To boost the brand’s success rate, programmatic advertising is the best way to ensure high accuracy and high turnover in depth. In 2023, programmatic advertisements accounted for 90% of the total ad spending. However, the big question is how brands and businesses are leveling it up to remain relevant in the market. Let’s discuss how programmatic advertising can be used the right way by implementing the right strategies.

Why Brands are Embracing Programmatic Advertising?

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.

Cost Efficiency: Traditional processes of buying and placement of ads can be time-consuming as they require negotiations and manual adjustments. With programmatic systems marketers can process millions of transactions in milliseconds, enabling brands to swiftly launch and adjust campaigns to close potential opportunities.

Programmatic Advertising in USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, India.

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.

Why Programmatic Ad fraud prevention?

Protect your brand with programmatic ad fraud prevention. Ensuring the invalid traffic is blocked from malicious sources not only safeguards advertising budget but also protect brand reputation.

Here’s how mFilterIt guides with trust and transparency in programmatic advertising:

Impression fraud

Impression Fraud analysis is better at the post-bid stage than pre-bid, measuring performance beyond viewability metrics. In pre-bid analysis, i.e. before the ad is served, fraud can be identified based on only two parameters, IP and User Agents. Also, the time for analysis is limited to 10 milliseconds. This results in a meager 2% fraud identification.

This is where a post-bid analysis trumps a pre-bid impression validation. Now that we have several more parameters fraud detection is done on deterministic and heuristic measures as well. This results in the detection of higher invalid impressions of 15–20%. This results in improved ROI on Ad spending. Post-bid impression analysis is a more beneficial method for detecting ad fraud.

Programmatic Advertising Fraud in USA, UAE, India, Saudi Arabia.

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.

Why Programmatic Ad fraud prevention?

Protect your brand with programmatic ad fraud prevention. Ensuring the invalid traffic is blocked from malicious sources not only safeguards advertising budget but also protect brand reputation.

Here’s how mFilterIt guides with trust and transparency in programmatic advertising:

Impression fraud

Impression Fraud analysis is better at the post-bid stage than pre-bid, measuring performance beyond viewability metrics. In pre-bid analysis, i.e. before the ad is served, fraud can be identified based on only two parameters, IP and User Agents. Also, the time for analysis is limited to 10 milliseconds. This results in a meager 2% fraud identification.

This is where a post-bid analysis trumps a pre-bid impression validation. Now that we have several more parameters fraud detection is done on deterministic and heuristic measures as well. This results in the detection of higher invalid impressions of 15–20%. This results in improved ROI on Ad spending. Post-bid impression analysis is a more beneficial method for detecting ad fraud.

Made for Ad sites

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.

Programmatic Advertising in USA, UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, Dubai.

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.

Why Programmatic Ad fraud prevention?

Protect your brand with programmatic ad fraud prevention. Ensuring the invalid traffic is blocked from malicious sources not only safeguards advertising budget but also protect brand reputation.

Here’s how mFilterIt guides with trust and transparency in programmatic advertising:

Impression fraud

Impression Fraud analysis is better at the post-bid stage than pre-bid, measuring performance beyond viewability metrics. In pre-bid analysis, i.e. before the ad is served, fraud can be identified based on only two parameters, IP and User Agents. Also, the time for analysis is limited to 10 milliseconds. This results in a meager 2% fraud identification.

This is where a post-bid analysis trumps a pre-bid impression validation. Now that we have several more parameters fraud detection is done on deterministic and heuristic measures as well. This results in the detection of higher invalid impressions of 15–20%. This results in improved ROI on Ad spending. Post-bid impression analysis is a more beneficial method for detecting ad fraud.

Made for Ad sites

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.

Programmatic Advertising Fraud in USA, UAE, India, Dubai.

Programmatic has become the powerhouse behind ad placements in the U.S. However, alongside its growth, ad fraud has also skyrocketed, posing a significant challenge for brands trying to make the most of their digital ad spending. Ad fraud costs U.S. advertisers billions each year, and the automated process makes it increasingly difficult to detect and prevent.  

According to mFilterIt reports, bot traffic remains one of the biggest culprits, making up an estimated 20-25% of programmatic ad impressions. Meanwhile, the ANA report says low-quality “made-for-advertising” (MFA) sites account for roughly 10-15% of programmatic spending, delivering little value as they exist solely to serve ads on poorly engaging or irrelevant content. Even the burgeoning Connected TV (CTV) sector isn’t immune, with up to 17% of CTV programmatic impressions deemed fraudulent. Ad fraud solution with integrated brand safety is the key to optimizing programmatic ad campaigns. 

Here are some additional reasons to consider programmatic advertising “Black box” 

Fraudulent Traffic and Ad Waste: Click fraud, bot traffic, and ad stacking are prevalent in programmatic advertising. Without adequate validation, advertisers might pay for impressions that never reach a genuine audience. 

Limited Performance Metrics: Programmatic platforms may restrict access to granular performance metrics, offering only top-level KPIs. This limits advertisers’ ability to make informed decisions and optimize campaigns effectively. 

Complex Supply Chain: Programmatic advertising involves multiple intermediaries, including supply-side platforms (SSPs), demand-side platforms (DSPs), ad exchanges, and data management platforms (DMPs). Each layer takes a portion of the advertising budget, but transparency on costs and value added by each is often missing. 

Lack of Transparent Data: Advertisers frequently lack access to the complete data trail across the ad supply chain. This makes it hard to track where ads are being served, who is viewing them, and whether they are reaching the intended audience. 

Data Discrepancies Across Platforms: Advertisers often face data inconsistencies between platforms (e.g., discrepancies between ad platforms and analytics tools). These inconsistencies make it challenging to evaluate ROI accurately.   

High Reliance on Algorithms: Programmatic platforms rely heavily on machine learning algorithms for targeting and bidding. These algorithms operate as “black boxes,” with little transparency into how they make decisions or optimize for specific goals. 

Brand Safety and Ad Placement Risks: Without control over ad placements, brands risk their ads appearing alongside inappropriate or harmful content, which can damage brand reputation. Solutions to ensure brand safety often come with additional costs. 

It is clear that despite the changes in privacy laws and the decline of cookies, programmatic advertising is here to stay. However, for marketers who want to keep reaping the benefits of this amazing advertising technology, it has become imperative to keep up with the current trends.

Top 7 Programmatic Advertising Trends

- Contextual Advertising

As cookies are phased out, marketers will quickly realize that first-party data solutions cannot be the sole alternative. After all, there is only so much data available right now.

Marketers will have to find innovative ways to target the right audience, and contextual advertising may prove to be a promising solution. With contextual advertising, instead of targeting user personas, advertisers place ads on websites based on the content of those websites which is contextually relevant.

This will benefit both users and advertisers. Users will not have to struggle with being subjected to irrelevant ads ruining the experience of the content they are trying to consume. At the same time, advertisers can rest assured that users are likely to show interest in their product/service since it is being advertised next to something contextually relevant.

Fraud Detection in UAE and Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines. Malaysia.

- Newer Ad Formats – Audio and Video Ads

Programmatic advertising has already evolved from simple display ads to video display ads.

This year, advertisers are expected to spend nearly $74.88 billion on programmatic video advertising, accounting for over 18% of the total programmatic advertising spend in the US. Videos are better at capturing attention and allow for more creative freedom.

It’s a no-brainer that their popularity will grow in the programmatic world, just as it has in all other areas of marketing.

What is Programmatic Advertising? 

Programmatic Advertising is a computerized method of technology for online buying and selling of advertisements. This technique uses software and algorithms to buy ads, making it more methodical and systematic than traditional methods. Instead of directly purchasing ad space from the publishers, advertisers employ different platforms as well as tools to focus on specific audiences and balance their ad expenditure in real-time. 

Challenges in Programmatic Advertising  

While programmatic advertising has a lot of benefits, it also has some challenges as well. Here are some challenges: 

Ad Fraud in Programmatic Ads   

A serious issue related to the programmatic ad ecosystem is ad fraud. These fraudulent activities could lead to the offers being wasted and may be very poor in terms of ad campaigns; for instance, fake impressions and click fraud. Advertisers need to apply robust measures to fraud detection and prevention to protect their investment. 

Programmatic Advertising in UAE

Brand Safety with safe Ad placements  

Another critical challenge in the programmatic challenge is brand safety, which refers to making sure that ads are not placed alongside inappropriate or offensive content. Ensuring this will help reduce the risk by taking steps for brand safety and involving trusted partners.