Articles by: "Kean Graham, CEO and Founder – MonetizeMore"

How publishers can defend ad revenue from the threat of invalid traffic

April 17, 2023 Kean Graham, CEO and Founder – MonetizeMore

In recent years, various fraudulent advertising schemes have resulted in significant financial losses for publishers and advertisers. The digital advertising sector alone suffered a staggering loss of $65 billion in 2021 due to ad fraud. According to Statista, this figure is expected to increase to $100 billion by 2023.

This situation is already concerning, but what makes it worse is that the reports fail to consider the percentage of violations that occur due to ad setup policies. These violations include ads that overlap with other content or ads (in part or whole), ads that are completely hidden due to display or CSS errors, or ads that fail to behave as intended. For instance, an ad may render off the page or obscure other elements when viewed at certain browser widths.

Even considering invalid traffic alone, a leading industry report estimated that around $35bn of ad spend annually is wasted showing ads to bots or crawlers. In recent years, publishers have become much more aware of this problem. However, it is important to remain vigilant and defend against this problem and potential loss of revenue.

How to identify and prevent IVT

When looking to limit invalid traffic. A good place to start is to identify your site’s audience and traffic sources. Use analytics to analyze traffic patterns, looking out for anomalies or spikes in the data that don’t seem organic. A page or domain might have been targeted if a lot of the traffic increase comes from a particular area or the time on site drops dramatically.

Google recommends segmenting your traffic using analytics (or other similar alternatives) to help track and review traffic across your sites. This allows monitoring of visitors who view the pages and their behavior there. Segmenting your traffic by source will enable you to see how they perform relative to one another. This can again alert you to anomalies, allowing you to identify potential invalid traffic quickly.

Publishers should also be very diligent when it comes to checking ad implementation. Every ad should follow Google and IAB guidelines regarding the space around ads, visibility, intrusiveness, display properties, etc.

Exploring the automation alternative

However, many publishers are moving towards a more automated method of filtering. That’s because bot attacks are getting more and more sophisticated, and ad setup policy violations are becoming harder to eradicate (or easier to miss).

Ideally, when choosing an automated IVT solution, you want to fully understand what the product is doing and how sophisticated it is. Many vendors break down invalid bot traffic into “general” (spiders, crawlers, and robots that can be identified based on their non-human behavior) and “sophisticated” invalid traffic.

Sophisticated invalid traffic is a lot more technical and harder to catch. It usually requires advanced analytics and significant human intervention to identify, analyze, and prevent threats. These include bots and spiders that look like human visitors, hijacked devices, hijacked sessions with hijacked devices, invalid proxy traffic, adware, malware, fraudulent incentivized promotion, falsely represented sites that present themselves for legal purposes, cookie stuffing, manipulation/falsification of location data, and more. An automated solution should be able to deal with both types and be continuously updated as new threats arrive.

You also want the product to alert you to ad setup page violations or ad placements outside of IAB guidelines. These can seriously impact the reputation of your site and the bids you might attract from advertisers.

Some solutions only provide an ad fraud report post-auction, but that could be too late. Ideally, your solution should restrict ads from serving where it appears either an ad placement violation exists or invalid traffic is detected to prevent network ad bans and ad revenue deductions (clawbacks). An optimal IVT solution can help you better understand the traffic your website receives to help you minimize revenue loss.

Final thoughts

While the threat of invalid traffic and ad setup policy violations may seem overwhelming, automated solutions can offer a more efficient and practical approach to addressing these challenges. As the landscape of invalid traffic and ad fraud evolves, it is critical to stay vigilant and proactive to avoid and address these challenges in order to optimize advertising revenue.

About the author

Kean Graham is the CEO and Founder of MonetizeMore, a leading ad monetization partner for web publishers and app developers. Under his leadership and guidance, the company has scaled to 15B+ monthly impressions for over 1000+ publishers worldwide.

Perspectives | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

What publishers should know about in-app advertising in 2023

January 11, 2023 Kean Graham, CEO and Founder – MonetizeMore

According to Statista, around 3.4 million apps are available on Google Play Store. Additionally, the Apple Store has about 2.2 million apps.

The high number of mobile apps signifies a serious revenue-driving opportunity for media companies. App Annie’s State of Mobile Report 2022 shows that mobile ad spending hit a colossal $295 billion in 2021 (23% growth from the previous year).

Whether you are considering moving into mobile, or simply want to up your game, here are answers to the critical questions publishers will have as they consider in-app ad monetization.

Which ad formats work the best for in-app monetization?

Ad technology has come a long way since its inception, and multiple ad formats are at publishers’ disposal. Choosing a suitable ad format can be difficult – but it’s essential.

Many app developers stick to banner ads because they are the most widely deployed ad format. But to maximize revenue, it is critical to keep up with the times. Nowadays, there are a variety of engaging ad formats that retain users and keep their app experience intact.

We recommend that publishers explore rich media ads, interstitial ads, native ads, and rewarded ads. Experimentation is key, and the best way to learn what works best for your app’s inventory is through a split test. Here are some ad sizes that have historically performed well for our app publishers:

Banner Phone (320×50)
Medium Rectangle (300×250)
Fullscreen Interstitial Portrait (320×480)
Fullscreen Interstitial Landscape (480×320)

Is gamification of ads an ideal solution?

Gamification allows users to interact with ads in fun and engaging ways. By turning ads into mini-games, audiences are more likely to enjoy interacting with them, and even be more likely to remember the advertised products or services.

This technique is similar to rewarded ads, except that users actively play a game instead of simply watching an ad. This helps keep their attention and provides a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment once the game is completed.

Overall, the gamification of ads is a solution that could help address user fatigue with more traditional advertising methods.

Instream vs. outstream video ads: what works?

In-stream ads are played within the same video player that a user is viewing video content. Outstream ads, on the other hand, are served on a display ad unit and do not require a video player.

So, which one is right for you? It depends on your goals, budget, and available video content inventory. If you want to drive more revenue with high eCPMs and improved click-through rates, then in-stream video ads may be a good option. Outstream ads may be a better choice if you want guaranteed viewability and enhanced user engagement for the app users.

How to pick the right ad format type for your app?

Not all apps are equal, so they all need a different ad format depending on the app’s design and niche. For example, native ads fit best for an app like Instagram, where users can slide past an ad in their feed without disrupting their user experience. At the same time, rewarded ads work best for gaming apps because they incentivize users to stick around for an ad or two to get a reward that will enhance their game experience.

Figuring out what kind of ad formats give you the highest conversion rate can take time. Obviously, we believe that partnering with an ad monetization platform will help enormously. (For example, this can help you easily A/B test your app inventory to see which ad format works best.)

However, if you’re looking to optimize ad revenue in-house, here’s a table we created that’s based on rigorous testing of billions of ad impressions across hundreds of apps. It’ll give you a headstart.

Niche	Best ad format
Gaming	Rewarded
E-commerce	Native
Social media	Native
Fitness	Interstitial
Travel (bookings, information)	Sticky
On-demand service apps	Native/Interstitial
Video streaming	Instream
News/Blogging	Outstream + Sticky

Final thoughts

In-app advertising is one of the most effective ways to reach mobile audiences. Given that people spend more time on mobile apps than on the web, in-app advertising offers publishers an excellent opportunity to improve ad engagement and performance. In-app ads will continue to grow in popularity in 2023, but they are only effective if they don’t disrupt the user experience too much. Thus, publishers must do their research and due diligence to create a scalable strategy. Above all, prioritize the user experience and find a balance between revenue and returning users.

About the author

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

Why FLEDGE might be the best thing hatched in Google’s Sandbox

October 5, 2022 Kean Graham, CEO and Founder – MonetizeMore

We’re more than half way through 2022, and we still do not know exactly what’s happening with third-party cookies. On the one hand, Google announced that it will be delaying the phase-out of third-party cookies until 2024. The ad tech giant has also promised us a well-built solution that can sustain publisher revenue without third-party cookies.

In fact, a big reason for the delay is that Google has not been able to figure out a solution yet. The privacy sandbox started in August 2019 has been underwhelming, failing to bring forth a solution that preserves user privacy while allowing publisher income to flourish.

That said, a few exciting proposals emerged from the privacy sandbox. Promising ideas included FLoC, TURTLEDOVE, and trust tokens, which were among the most popular. However, none of these held the key to the most critical problem in the ad tech industry right now: how publishers can maintain and increase their revenue while protecting user privacy simultaneously.

One proposed solution that promises to better suit the needs of publishers and advertisers while protecting user privacy is FLEDGE, a privacy sandbox proposal within the TURTLEDOVE family. It may be the solution the ad tech industry is looking for because it addresses the end goal of privacy via interest and behavior-based digital advertising.

The concept of FLEDGE stems from the fact that, while contextual advertising is a vital asset in the absence of third-party cookies, it might not be able to render the revenue needed.

Let’s take a look at the potential of FLEDGE as well as some of its competitors to better understand the approaches being explored and what these experiments and possible outcomes could mean for publishers.

Can FLEDGE save the day?

The uncomfortable truth is that after the failures of FLoC and other privacy sandbox proposals, there is a lot of hope riding on FLEDGE.

FLEDGE is short for First Locally Executed Decisions over Groups Experiment and it uses remarketing audiences. FLEDGE functions on the understanding that interest groups can be created by assigning users, which can be done by publishers, advertisers, and ad tech vendors in tandem.

Owners of interest groups can add members with the help of a JavaScript function: Javascript function, “joinAdInterest Group(), which is called out to a user’s browser when they visit a website. And then, the following process is performed to display a relevant ad to a user.

Why FLEDGE looks Promising

Limited control over users’ browser details

It’s important to note that FLEDGE only allows the assignment of users’ browser details in interest groups for only 30 days. After the one-month mark, publishers or advertisers must complete the same process again, which gives them only limited control over this data, thus protecting user privacy while helping the former earn short-term revenue.

Fenced frames provide more security

When a winner for an auction is declared in the ad space sales cycle, the ad information is only sent to a secure frame within a web page called the Fenced Frame. This prevents brands from collecting user data, protecting user privacy as a result. But the publishers’ and advertisers’ revenue isn’t compromised in the process.

Granular event-level reporting

FLEDGE allows outcome reporting to publishers and advertisers after the ad is displayed to a user. As we all know, granular reporting is key to improving advertisement creatives and overall ad serving quality which helps publishers earn more revenue.

Other alternatives competing with FLEDGE

Apart from the promising potential of FLEDGE, many other options in the ad tech industry are emerging as viable competitors. Here’s an introduction to the main ones:

PARAKEET

Direct competitor to FLEDGE, PARAKEET has been developed by Microsoft and stands for Private and Anonymized Requests for Ads that Keep Efficacy and Enhance Transparency. PARAKEET uses a proxy model that stores a unique ID for each user, and this proxy server stands between the advertiser and the ad space. When the SSP/website requests an ad, the proxy server mediates to serve a pretty accurate ad in alignment with the user’s preference while masking the user’s data, including their location, gender, etc.

TOPICS

As the name suggests, Topics capitalizes on the topics a user is likely to follow and displays ads based on that knowledge. This is another privacy sandbox proposal brought forth by Google. It is a kind of contextual advertising but much more granular.

OTHER PROPOSALS

Some other alternatives in the market are not direct competitors of FLEDGE but hold potential. These include:

Proposed solution	Description
Email Hashing	This converts a user’s email ID to a hashed string which can then contain data and behaviors attached to it. Unlike third-party cookies which contain information about anonymous users, hashed emails protect user privacy while allowing retargeting companies to get relevant information.
Probabilistic IDs	These are direct competitors of Deterministic IDs which capture the exact data of the user, thus invading their privacy. Probabilistic IDs used shared IP addresses, time zones, and other such inexact parameters to build probabilistic user profiles that offer around 75-90% accuracy for targeting.
Clean Rooms	These are online spaces where companies like Google and Amazon can share data with advertisers without violating user privacy.
Encrypted Signals	This is an initiative launched by Google which allows publishers to share encrypted first-party signals with advertisers. This can be implemented via Google Ad Manager.
Publisher Provided IDs	This is another Google Ad Manager feature but it is only available for the 360 version. As the exact definition states, ‘Publisher provided identifier (PPID) allows publishers to send Google Ad Manager an identifier for use in frequency capping, audience segmentation and audience targeting, sequential ad rotation, and other audience-based ad delivery controls across devices.’ Google is calling them the #PPIDs.

Looking forward

Publishers’ frustration is understandable, seeing the uncertainty associated with third-party cookie demise and the failure of some of the proposed solutions. But FLEDGE might be the solution that holds the most promise, considering how elegantly it preserves user privacy while helping publishers increase revenue. Publishers should keep their hopes high because FLEDGE may just transform into the solution that they have eagerly awaited.

About the author

Kean Graham is the CEO and Founder of MonetizeMore. He is a pioneer in ad optimization, covering areas such as AdSense, AdX, GAM, header bidding, and ad network optimization.

He firmly believes in empowering publishers to increase their ad revenues more efficiently and effectively via technology, PubGuru University, and YouTube Tutorials.

April 18, 2023: Google’s FLEDGE rebrands as ‘Protected Audience API’ as the tech giant continues Privacy Sandbox trials