Jonn Nubian’s Post

While I can’t speak to the legitimacy of the accusations herein, this is still a worrying situation for advertisers everywhere. Publications whose reputations are staked on their image of legitimate business are not what many may expect to be perpetrators of MFA Ad fraud. That being said, we can better understand ad fraud by looking at the incentive changes on the supply side of these AdTech deals. Ad fraud particularly harms multicultural publishers, as their reach and impact receive decreased impact when improperly assigned to Ad spaces. #AdFraud #AdTech #ProgramaticSupplyChain

Ad fraud is a potential parasite to ad spend. Here are five key stats evidencing the ad waste problem, and what marketers can do to keep their ad spend effective. https://bit.ly/4bD5it6 #adfraud #adtech

With all due respect to Anthony Vargas, the subject of this AdExchanger article mistargets blame. We cannot be passing the buck by chastising ad verification vendors for missing an MFA fraud edge case. And even Media.net's likely complicity isn't where we should be pointing fingers. The perpetrator is the publisher, who created this MFA garbage dump and duped advertisers and agencies that trusted their brand for its quality and accountability. Since last week, has any SSP or DSP removed Forbes from their programmatic auctions? Have brands placed Forbes in the penalty box? Is Forbes still earning tens (hundreds?) of thousands in programmatic revenue every day? We all love the adtech punching bag. But in this case, redirecting blame because a watchdog failed to catch an unusual edge case misses the point that a trusted publishing brand breached its social contract and nobody seems to be doing anything but pushing its nose into the shit on the carpet and saying "bad dog." If we leave the incentives for fraud in place, it'll just keep happening.

More illuminating reporting about digital ad fraud from Adalytics. While many advertisers say they aren't concerned with MFAs, this analysis is proof positive that it's a widely pervasive issue. Demanding #transparency is the only way to be sure of where your campaigns are running and protect your investment from wasteful - and potentially harmful - ad environments. #demandtransparency #VAB

A new report from Adalytics, an ad quality firm, alleges that #Forbes systematically misled advertisers into believing they were buying media on Forbes.com when they were actually buying media on a secret, spammy ‘made for advertising’ (MFA) subdomain, www3 (.) Forbes (.) com Commenting, Chair of the UK Stop Ad Funded Crime (UKSAFC) group, Ian Moss, said: “The scale of fraud alleged by this new report is staggering. The UKSAFC has for some time been warning about practices like MFA sites which deceive brands into paying for what they believe is legitimate ad space – but is in fact a sophisticated way to defraud them of their ad spend. This report should serve as a wake-up call to industry and policymakers about how pervasive fraud is in the online advertising ecosystem. Policymakers must urgently introduce measures to improve transparency so everyone in the system can verify who is being paid and that views are legitimate. Only then can we tackle widespread ad fraud and restore confidence in online advertising.” Read the full story on The Drum here: https://lnkd.in/eBtZFfbw

Right or wrong, ad verification technologies are the scapegoats whenever there’s a blunder in #advertising. Be it fraud, ID spoofing or shady sites, these tools usually end up shouldering the blame. So it was no surprise when recent ad tech snafus dragged these companies into the spotlight. Marketers were left scratching their heads when Forbes was caught running a site for ad dollar arbitrage, wondering why their verification tech missed it. The same eyebrow-raising frustration hit when Colossus was mismatching cookie IDs. They couldn’t help but ask: Where were DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science during all this? #adverification

Oh, the delicious irony of the ad tech world—supposedly as transparent as the cleanest glass, yet often as clear as mud. Andrew Casale of Index Exchange stepped up at Digiday to unpack the shadowy side of programmatic advertising where, despite all our fancy tech toys, fraud is far from being a relic of the past. #mfa #fraud Picture this: a realm where Made for Advertising (MFA) sites thrive, not despite the age of enlightenment, but because of it. Casale, with the frankness of someone who's seen it all, laments the pseudo-evolution of traffic quality. We've gone from bot-driven to human-driven deceit—yes, the traffic now has a pulse, but it's hardly worth the bandwidth it consumes. What's more, even with tools that could spotlight these shenanigans, the industry prefers to play blind man’s bluff, letting "key performance indicators" lead the way right off a cliff. It’s high time for a clean-up, Casale argues, aiming to ax these MFA miscreants from ad exchanges. The man’s not just talking tough; he's calling for a revolution. Will the ad tech sector step up, or will it continue to let dubious metrics rule the roost? Only time will tell. https://lnkd.in/eMG6vMFz

The impact of ad fraud is enormous, diverting billions of advertising dollars into the pockets of fraudsters. It's not just about the financial loss, either. Ad fraud damages brands, skews data, reduces consumer trust and, ultimately, diminishes campaign ROI. But in this challenging landscape, telco-verified IDs are having a major impact. These IDs can accurately verify real humans, ensuring your ad spend is used effectively and your brand reputation remains unscathed. Read more in Novatiq’s latest blog post - [https://lnkd.in/e2CTc6Dy] #adfraud #programmaticadvertising #advertising #ads #adverisers

Made for Advertising websites (MFA) have continued to pester advertisers. This article from AdExchanger has some good recommendations for mitigating your exposure to MFAs. Log-level data is critical, just as affidavits are for linear TV. I'd also add that including partners such as Pixability DoubleVerify or Integral Ad Science will make a difference in your brand's possible exposure to bot traffic and fraud, as well as MFAs. #heyoodle #adfraud https://lnkd.in/eF6rMs4T

Useful & actionable - A neat breakdown of the recent Adalytics Report & Colossus SSP claims from MediaSense's Jamie Richards CMgr FCMI - with grounded and pragmatic steps for advertisers & their partners: