Articles by: "Steve Guenther, Vice President, Digital Auditing—Alliance for Audited Media"

3 Digital advertising resources to help publishers optimize sales

September 21, 2021 Steve Guenther, Vice President, Digital Auditing—Alliance for Audited Media

In an advertising ecosystem that often can seem complex and opaque, digital publishers must find ways to stand out from other websites that offer advertising.

The industry has developed several resources to foster greater supply chain transparency and help publishers take greater control of their inventory, stand out for their commitment to quality and earn more revenue. It is important for digital publishers to be aware of these resources and integrate them into the selling process to maximize revenue opportunities.

Here we look at some of these resources and share how they benefit publishers and buyers.

1. Private marketplaces

Programmatic technology has made it easier for marketers to buy advertising at scale. However, not all exchanges provide them with publishers that have been vetted by a trusted organization.

Private marketplaces give buyers access to quality inventory while participating publishers also benefit from higher CPMs and by knowing the ads placed on their sites are from legitimate marketers.

You’re probably aware of TrustX, a premium private marketplace developed by Digital Content Next. It offers buyers access to inventory directly from more than 250 member publishers, bypassing resellers and intermediaries. Similar exchanges are taking hold globally including The Ozone Project in the U.K. and the Maple Network Exchange in Canada. By joining a premium private marketplace, publishers can find strength in numbers and greater exposure to buyers looking to buy inventory from quality publishers.

2. Industry programs

Several organizations have created programs to identify publishers that have taken steps to stand out, whether that’s by providing transparency, offering quality local journalism, or integrating industry standards and best practices into the buying process.

The Alliance for Audited Media’s Digital Publisher Audit is an in-depth, continuous audit of a publisher’s website traffic and business practices to verify that a publisher is effectively minimizing ad fraud risk. This new assurance solution addresses ad fraud at the publisher level and complements other industry initiatives like private marketplaces. We include all AAM-audited digital publishers on the AAM Audited Domain List, which can be downloaded from AAM’s website. It can also be found at the IAB Tech Lab Transparency Center, a resource that buyers can access to learn more about sellers and the compliance programs and industry standards they adhere to.

The Local Media Consortium is an association of local newspapers, broadcasters and online news outlets committed to quality journalism. The LMC Local News Advertising Inclusion List includes thousands of local media advertising opportunities for national brands.

And finally, The Trustworthy Accountability Group sets standards that promote greater supply chain transparency and includes organizations from across the industry including brands, agencies, publishers and tech providers. The TAG Registry lists members that are committed to increasing trust in digital advertising.

By taking part in these programs, publishers can be easily identified by media buyers who access these resources to build inclusion lists and prioritize quality partners.

3. Supply chain validation

Publishers also can use industry tools to easily gain insight into who sells their inventory and discover ways to make the process more efficient.

The IAB Tech Lab develops solutions to bring greater transparency to the supply chain through tools such as ads.txt (app-ads.txt) and sellers.json. The organization recently launched a new service that analyzes publishers’ ads.txt files to validate who is authorized to sell their inventory. Supply Chain Validation allows publishers to verify that their ads.txt file adheres to technical specifications by alerting sellers when issues arise such as an incorrect or missing entry, which can lead to missed revenue or an unauthorized sale. The service also compares the publisher’s ads.txt file to their selling partners’ sellers.json files to determine if there are any inconsistencies between the two. The results are then published in the Transparency Center and are also available from the IAB Tech Lab via an API.

As a premium publisher, it is important to integrate industry solutions into your selling strategy to stand out to advertisers. Putting the right processes in place will give your site — and your ad sales efforts —the best chance for success.

Advertising | Perspectives

Digital media transparency: publisher best practices

May 25, 2021 Steve Guenther, Vice President, Digital Auditing—Alliance for Audited Media

As concerns about media transparency rise, marketers are becoming more selective about where they place their media investment. They are asking questions like: Where are my ads being shown? Are they being served to humans or lost to fraud? Are they delivering maximum ROI?

The industry has developed several solutions that bring greater transparency to the supply chain. This also helps marketers identify publishers that provide quality advertising platforms. When layered together, each of these complementary solutions offers more comprehensive protection. They also minimize fraud risk and assure marketers that their ads are being seen by humans.

Here are a few ways publishers can use these solutions to optimize their websites, improve system performance, and minimize fraud risk.

1. Implement Industry Tools

It is important for marketers to understand how their digital ads move through the supply chain. The IAB Tech Lab develops standards and solutions to increase supply chain transparency. IAB Tech Lab tools such as Ads.txt, App-ads.txt, sellers.json, and OpenRTB 3.0 (Ads-Cert) give marketers insight into the buying process by identifying authorized sellers of inventory. It is helpful for publishers to implement these solutions. However, they should also be sure to incorporate other IAB Tech Lab tools into their websites as they are released. In fact, implementation should not be considered a “one and done” process.

Once these tools are implemented, it is important to regularly update and edit these files to ensure accuracy. Publishers can analyze their site to learn who is selling their inventory with this new resource, Sellers.guide. Providing buyers with up-to-date information makes it easier for them to see who is authorized to sell your inventory as they compare your list with their ad tech vendor’s sellers.json file.

2. Follow Standards and Guidelines

As digital ad fraud became more widespread, the industry recognized the need for standards and guidelines to help disrupt the cycle of fraud in the marketplace. Organizations such as the Media Rating Council (MRC) set standards to define and measure invalid traffic.

The MRC also created a process to gauge a vendor’s adherence to these standards through accreditation. Using an MRC-accredited ad server is one step publishers can take to minimize fraud risk. By partnering with accredited vendors, publishers assure advertisers that they are doing everything possible to provide accurate metrics that meet or exceed industry standards.

3. Take a Proactive Approach

Publishers can also demonstrate their commitment to quality by being proactive in other ways:

Regularly update website content and social media channels
Track and monitor all traffic sources for IVT
Familiarize your team with industry guidelines and best practices so these standards are followed throughout your organization
Participate in a third-party website audit. This demonstrate to advertisers that you are providing them with a quality platform and a valid human audience

Following industry guidelines and best practices helps minimize fraud risk. It also proves to advertisers that you are providing them with a quality platform that delivers a real audience and results. Publishers must talk to advertisers to make them aware of all the steps they have taken to protect their investment and deliver results. The more advertisers realize the advantages of partnering with quality media, the more ad revenue they will direct toward legitimate publishers.

Perspectives

Is your website at risk for ad fraud?

September 10, 2019 Steve Guenther, Vice President, Digital Auditing—Alliance for Audited Media

The amount of money marketers waste on digital ad fraud is enormous, with one estimate reaching as high as $42 billion worldwide this year. But advertisers aren’t the only ones losing. Publishers also lose when ad fraud diverts revenue from quality websites to fraudulent ones.

Legitimate publishers might think they are protected, but even quality sites can fall victim to ad fraud. Here are four questions that will help you evaluate your risk:

1. Do you purchase traffic?

Many publishers use third-party sources to drive traffic to their sites. Not all traffic sourcing is harmful. Marketing practices such as email campaigns, sponsored social media posts and search engine marketing are legitimate ways to bring quality audiences to your website. However, the risk of introducing invalid traffic increases when publishers purchase traffic. Traffic sellers may guarantee a certain number of human visitors at a low price. That said, bot traffic can be engineered to look human enough to pass through fraud detection software.

While bots may increase your numbers, they don’t make purchases or offer any real value to advertisers. If advertisers aren’t getting any conversions from their ad placements and campaign ROI isn’t meeting expectations, they’ll invest elsewhere. The best way to keep bots off your site and deliver real audiences to advertisers is to engage in legitimate marketing practices and avoid purchasing traffic.

2. Have you implemented industry solutions?

As ad fraud becomes more widespread, industry organizations are creating solutions to address areas where publishers may be vulnerable. One example is domain spoofing. Fraudsters create fake sites to look like real ones and divert ad revenue intended for real publishers. In response to this tactic, IAB developed ads.txt and app-ads.txt to help demand-side platforms detect unauthorized digital sellers in programmatic buys. In these files, publishers list all authorized sellers of their inventory and upload these lists to their websites. DSPs then crawl these files to make sure that they are buying from legitimate SSPs.

The industry is taking the next step to improve security in programmatic buying and selling with signed bid requests, which is part of the IAB’s OpenRTB 3.0 Framework and complements the ads.txt protocol. This allows a buyer to validate that a bid request is from the intended publisher and that key elements have not been altered.

Another recent development is sellers.json and OpenRTB SupplyChain object. With sellers.json, SSPs and exchanges list all authorized sellers and resellers within the supply chain along with seller IDs. Buyers check both ads.txt and sellers.json files to make sure the IDs match. If they do, then they know that those entities are authorized to sell the inventory. The SupplyChain object allows buyers to see all vendors participating in a bid request. Since multiple resellers are often involved in the sale of one impression, these tools help buyers keep track of all of them including the final seller, whereas ads.txt only lists direct authorized vendors of a publisher’s inventory. These initiatives work in tandem with ads.txt, which is why it’s important for publishers to keep their ads.txt files up-to-date and accurate.

3. Do you have third-party oversight?

Using ad fraud detection software is an important step for publishers to detect and measure invalid traffic on their sites. But since different vendors use different methodologies, relying only on one solution can allow some fraudulent activity to slip through the cracks.

While technology is vital to employ in the fight against ad fraud, human oversight is just as essential. An independent, third-party website audit identifies areas of risk that technology alone might not detect. An audit takes a deep dive into all aspects of website monetization including the processes, procedures and controls that the publisher has in place to reduce the risk of fraud. If an anomaly or suspicious traffic source is identified, the auditor brings these concerns to the publisher’s attention with suggestions for improvement. Third-party audits provide an extra layer of protection against fraud and help publishers stand out to advertisers by demonstrating that they provide transparency and maintain a high-quality advertising platform.

4. Are you taking a holistic approach?

While there are many tools available to minimize ad fraud, one solution alone cannot solve the entire problem. It’s important for publishers to take a multi-layered approach to widen their net. Make sure the vendors you partner with are accredited and adopt industry initiatives like those mentioned above.

Most importantly, establish good business practices for sourcing traffic and traffic monitoring. Communicating these best practices to your staff will help them understand their responsibility to combat fraud. Lastly, partner with a reputable auditor to add an extra layer of protection and demonstrate your commitment to transparency. By incorporating a variety of tools into your fraud arsenal, you’ll have a greater chance of preventing fraud while developing a reputation for being a safe place for advertisers.

Want to learn more about how fraud occurs on legitimate websites? Download our white paper Three Truths That Help Confront the Digital Ad Fraud Crisis.

Perspectives

The war on ad fraud: Why publishers need an armory to win the battle

June 18, 2019 Steve Guenther, Vice President, Digital Auditing—Alliance for Audited Media

It’s difficult to track the true cost of ad fraud, with estimates varying from $5.8 billion to $23 billion in 2019. But no matter what the estimate, fraudsters are taking advantage of the programmatic ecosystem’s complexities to funnel ad dollars to fake websites that should be going to legitimate publishers.

Yet digital publishers have power in the fight against ad fraud. In fact, the websites that are doing everything right can be a major part of the solution to the digital ad fraud problem. Publishers can take steps to reduce fraud and get rewarded for their quality content and audience.

The impostor problem

Media buyers have thousands of sites to choose from when buying ads programmatically. Their problem isn’t a lack of options; it’s having assurance that the sites are legitimate with human audiences. Fraudsters can create bots to look like humans, and fake sites to look like premium sites.

That’s where the fraudsters are winning. They enter the advertising ecosystem with an army of bots that look legitimate enough to fool media buyers into believing they’re placing an ad in front of their target audience at a lower cost than a premium site. Quality sites end up competing with illegitimate sites that look legitimate, though they don’t offer advertisers human audiences.

Fake websites and fake users give advertisers no return on their investment. Both publishers and advertisers lose because the money intended for a legitimate publisher is diverted into the pockets of bad actors.

One solution isn’t the solution

There are many valuable anti-fraud tools available today including fraud detection software and inventory/seller verification initiatives such as ads.txt. While it’s important for publishers to incorporate accredited solutions into their anti-fraud arsenal, it’s also important not rely solely on any one solution.

For example, the 2019 ANA/White Ops Bot Baseline report revealed that less than half of all ad impressions are able to be fully, transparently validated by measurement tools. Fraud detection companies use different methodologies that produce varied results whether the ad campaigns or the publishers’ pages are tagged.

As another example, sourced traffic may be engineered to pass through fraud detection technologies. A publisher may think that the ad fraud detection tools they have in place are preventing fraud from occurring on their website, but sourced traffic may introduce bots unknowingly.

Since there are many angles to the ad fraud problem, it takes a multi-layered, integrated approach to confront the problem as well. Publishers have opportunities to go beyond current solutions and stand out as quality publishers.

What publishers can do

It’s important that publishers use a holistic approach to ad fraud prevention and detection that incorporates a variety of solutions to ensure all aspects of a website are covered from traffic sources to ad delivery. There are several steps publishers can take to limit their exposure to ad fraud and reduce the risk to their media buying clients.

Follow best practices for driving traffic to your site

Take advantage of your content that attracts human audiences and promote it through legitimate marketing methods such as paid ads, e-newsletters or social media. Don’t source traffic, which can invite invalid traffic to your website. Monitor traffic sources to identify any suspicious patterns. Filter traffic from bots and data centers to prevent ads from being served to invalid traffic.

Educate your clients

Communicate how your quality content gives media buyers a greater return on investment. Inexpensive ads may generate lots of clicks at a lower CPM than ads on premium websites, but nonhuman clicks will never convert into paying customers. Quality content attracts human audiences. Next time you have a client meeting, simply ask, “Are you sure you are advertising on quality sites?” An educated advertiser will understand the value of investing in human audiences and quality publishers will get rewarded for their hard work.

Implement industry solutions

While no one solution can solve the entire ad fraud problem, integrating multiple tools into your overall fraud protection plan can go a long way. Adopt tools such as ads.txt, IAB Tech Lab’s OpenRTB Version 3.0, and accredited ad fraud detection software.

Engaging in an independent, third-party website audit can identify areas of risk and help publishers make improvements. A website audit also assures advertisers that steps are being taken to provide them with the highest level of transparency and a safe place to reach their target audience that will provide a greater return on their media investment.

Learn more about what you can do to help minimize ad fraud by downloading the AAM white paper: Three Truths That Help Confront the Digital Ad Fraud Crisis.

Perspectives

5 steps to protect your website from digital ad fraud

April 2, 2019 Steve Guenther, Vice President, Digital Auditing—Alliance for Audited Media

There are many estimates for how much the digital advertising industry loses to ad fraud every year. Whether the number is $6 billion or $60 billion, fraud is a critical issue that causes advertisers to waste their ad spend and digital publishers to miss out on revenue that is stolen by fraudsters.

There are steps that everyone in the supply chain—including publishers—can take to protect their businesses against fraud. Here are a few suggestions to reduce your website’s risk for becoming a target for ad fraud.

1. Don’t Purchase Traffic

Legitimate publishers work hard to create quality content and drive audiences to that content. There are vendors that sell a fixed number of website visits for a fixed price. If the promise of generating a fixed number of website visits for a few dollars seems too good to be true, that’s because it probably is. A publisher might not know that the traffic is robotic because it was designed to pass through fraud detection as human. The best way to keep bots off your site is to avoid buying sourced traffic. Drive human audiences to your website through legitimate marketing activities such as email campaigns, sponsored social media posts and search engine marketing.

2. Separate Humans from Bots

There are some easy-to-implement preventive tools publishers can use to increase human interaction and limit bots. Encourage users to register for website access or implement a paywall. CAPTCHAs are another method that give users simple tests that only humans can answer. Newer CAPTCHA programs are efficient at determining whether a visitor is a human with little or no user input. Another non-intrusive technique to detect bots is referred to as a “honeypot,” which is an invisible image or form field on a webpage. While humans can’t see it, bots parsing through the html code will interact with it. Once identified, this nonhuman traffic can be filtered out of site measurement reports.

3. Continuously Monitor Traffic

It is important for publishers to understand where their site traffic is coming from and to continuously monitor traffic sources. A critical part of every digital marketing campaign is setting up the landing page URL to determine which campaign is responsible for traffic. A publisher might drive traffic by running a social media contest or sending an email blast. These types of marketing activities can be easily identified in web analytics. However, if the source is unknown or if the traffic exhibits suspicious characteristics such as spikes at unusual times or if it’s coming from one location or device type, these are red flags that the publisher needs to address. Publishers can take the proactive step of protecting media buyers by filtering traffic from bots and data centers and encourage their advertising partners to do the same. This prevents ads from being served to nonhuman traffic and increases exposure to real viewers.

4. Don’t Rely Solely on Fraud Detection Companies

Ad fraud detection services are a significant part of how the market transacts because they measure general and sophisticated invalid traffic and add friction to combat fraud. There are, however, limitations to any technology and different methodologies used, so it’s important to implement good business practices and human intervention to guard against bot traffic on your site and help minimize the risk of fraud.

5. Follow Best Practices

Quality publishers do everything possible to minimize the risk of exposing their clients to fraud. By adhering to best practices, you can assure advertisers that you are taking necessary steps to attract human audiences and eliminate bots.

Work with accredited vendors you can trust (and make sure those vendors do the same).
Establish good business practices for monetizing your site such as those mentioned above.
Educate your staff to make sure they know that they are responsible to follow best practices.
Keep up with current and upcoming industry solutions. Publisher adoption of ads.txt, for example, helps demand-side platforms detect unauthorized digital sellers. With the release of OpenRTB version 3.0, which includes “Ads.cert: Signed Bid Requests,” the industry is taking the next step to improve transparency and security in the buying and selling process by ensuring that bid requests cannot be tampered with by downstream parties.
Engage in an independent, third-party audit to identify areas for improvement and show advertisers that you are taking steps to provide transparency and a safe place to reach their target audience.

Learn more about what you can do to help minimize ad fraud by downloading the AAM white paper: Three Truths That Help Confront the Digital Ad Fraud Crisis.

Perspectives | Research

3 steps you can take now to make the digital ecosystem safer

May 18, 2015 Steve Guenther, Vice President, Digital Auditing—Alliance for Audited Media

We’ve all seen the headlines and statistics:

Advertisers will lose $6-10 billion to bots in 2015.

More than half of ad impressions are not seen.

A quarter of all video impressions are fraudulent.

Brands are not safe from bots and invalid traffic.

As an experienced digital auditor, the Alliance for Audited Media goes behind the scenes to examine the sources and systems of the underlying issues plaguing the digital advertising ecosystem. In a new white paper series, we delve into the issues of viewability, fraudulent and invalid traffic, and brand safety and transparency. All from a side you might not have read yet—the auditor’s perspective.

Based on our research, there are steps that all industry players – media buyers, vendors and publishers – can immediately take to make the digital ecosystem a safer place. Here are three takeaways that you can put to work today:

1. Prepare for 100 percent viewability
On the surface, viewability is a logical goal that seems readily attainable. Publishers should serve ads that can be seen by a human. Reality is far more complicated, of course. Different publishers work with different vendors. And different vendors—even those that are accredited—can use different measurement methodologies. Add in issues with browsers, screen sizes, ad delivery mechanisms and things quickly get very complicated. The industry is working toward solutions, but in the meantime, here’s what you can do now to prepare for 100 percent viewability:

Media Buyers: Know where your ads are going and where they ran: Work with reputable publishers and networks. Talk with vendors about measurement methodologies to better understand discrepancies. Demand audited systems and data to ensure you’re able to transact with trust and transparency.

Vendors: If you’re considering an MRC accreditation against the viewability standards, schedule a pre-audit engagement – now required by the MRC – with an independent third party to cost-effectively prepare your technology and processes for compliance with industry standards.

Publishers: Evaluate the advertising real estate on your pages and optimize placement for the best opportunity to be measured and seen. Disclose to clients which viewability solutions you employ and prepare them for possible discrepancies and reconciliation methods.

2. Recognize that not all invalid traffic is fraudulent but all fraud is invalid
There are several very good reasons a website may have for generating invalid traffic including internal traffic or test environments. But there are many more ways a site can generate fraudulent traffic, here’s what you can do to combat it:

Media Buyers: Ask your media partners how they detect invalid traffic. Only use vendors and technology partners certified to industry guidelines. Agencies should take the additional step of following the IAB’s best practices for workflow, campaign set-up, site tagging and measurement processes.

Ad Networks and Exchanges: Vet your inventory and continuously monitor it for changes. Provide advertisers with site-level information about where ads are running and who is seeing them. Become certified to IAB guidelines. Build brand safety technology into the ad server or domain engines that participate in RTB.

Publishers: Use internal controls to monitor traffic increases and implement ad tech solutions that are certified to industry standards. Perhaps most importantly, become certified against the IAB Quality Assurance Guidelines, which offer a framework for brand safety and trust throughout the industry.

3. Eliminate the bad players hiding behind good technology
Programmatic media buying has allowed advertisers to more precisely target audiences while helping publishers sell more inventory. It’s also created another avenue for potential fraud in the digital ad supply chain. Here’s what you can do to stop fraud:

Media Buyers: Only use exchanges that work with legitimate, validated publishers and take steps to refuse buying low-quality inventory. If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Vendors: Get audited to IAB guidelines. Those vendors that comply with IAB measurement guidelines believe in providing accurate, reliable and consistent measurements every day.

Publishers: Avoid the temptation of buying undesirable traffic to fulfill commitments to advertisers. “Cheap” and “quality” traffic rarely go together.

The fact is that there’s no single answer to the issues facing digital advertising—but accountability and transparency are the foundation of any solution. Know your vendors and media buyers beyond just a name on a screen. Have a conversation and reach an understanding before a campaign begins. Support the work of the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) to add background checks and weed out the bad actors before they gain entrance.

Each of us can and must play a role in bringing transparency to the digital media ecosystem. If all sides of the industry come together against those that are infecting the system, we’ve got a real chance of creating a safe marketplace where everyone can transact with trust. Read AAM’s entire digital white paper series to learn more about the industry initiatives at play and find your role.

Guenther is vice president of digital auditing services at AAM. As a founding partner and vice president of ImServices Group—an Alliance for Audited Media company—he has more than 25 years of experience in digital technology auditing. Guenther has been instrumental in helping develop many of today’s key standards and practices for the interactive advertising marketplace including the IAB’s Quality Assurance Guidelines, various IAB Measurement Guidelines (including the MRC Viewable Impression Guidelines) and the IAB’s Ad Campaign Measurement Process Guidelines to name a few.

In 2014 AAM and ImServices merged. Guenther leads the integrated digital audit team in helping clients address fraud detection and prevention, ad delivery verification, viewability and brand safety through platform certification audits, independent validation through the IAB’s Quality Assurance Program (QAG) and MRC accreditation support that includes pre-audit assessments, a step now required by the MRC.