Featured Story
60,000 CTV apps Can you name more than 5? Fraudsters can. Don't be fooled by the shiny object of Connected TV (CTV) advertising. While it's a growing
platform for digital advertising, there's also an increase in invalid traffic and ad fraud. Learn how industry standards, collaboration on solutions, and working with trusted partners can reduce the risk of CTV ad fraud and build a safe, sustainable ecosystem for advertising.
Connected TV (CTV) has created a new, thriving platform for digital advertising, but with this growth has come an increase in invalid traffic and ad fraud. To combat this issue, Michael Spaulding, Senior Product Manager, Ad
Traffic Quality, has shared Google's commitment to fighting invalid traffic on CTV, stating that players across the digital advertising ecosystem need to build a commitment among partners to share best practices for defending against invalid traffic. This includes the implementation of relevant industry standards, such as the CTV/OTT Device & App Identification Guidelines and IFA Guidelines, both of which foster greater transparency and reduce the risk of invalid traffic on CTV.
Collaboration on standards and solutions is also key, and the broad implementation of the IAB Tech Lab's app-ads.txt and its web counterpart, ads.txt, have brought greater transparency to the digital advertising supply chain and have helped combat ad fraud. The Media Rating Council (MRC) has also engaged with stakeholders to develop its Server-Side Ad Insertion and OTT (Over-the-Top)
Guidance, which provides a consistent set of guidelines specific to CTV for organizations that seek MRC accreditation for invalid traffic detection and filtration. Furthermore, informal working groups have collaborated on solutions that allow companies to ensure video ad requests are coming from a valid Roku device. While all these efforts are commendable, more work is needed to build momentum and further collaboration on solutions. Google has been defending its ad systems against invalid traffic for nearly two decades and is applying a similar approach to minimize the risk of CTV ad fraud, balancing innovation with tried-and-true technologies. The company has developed a machine learning platform built on TensorFlow that has enabled them to expand the amount of inventory they can review and scale their defenses against invalid traffic to include additional surfaces, such as
CTV. They have also taken a more conservative approach with the CTV inventory they make available to ensure that they aren't exposing advertisers to unnecessary risk. While the tactics behind invalid traffic and ad fraud will inevitably become more sophisticated with the growth of CTV, it is essential for the industry to pull together to address these new threats head on and stay one step
ahead of them. This can be achieved by building a CTV advertising ecosystem that is safe and sustainable for everyone. Despite efforts to combat ad fraud, it remains a significant problem, costing advertisers and publishers an estimated $65 billion globally in 2022, with the United States accounting for more than $13 billion of this figure. The numbers are forecasted to climb 50% by 2023. No
area of the digital ecosystem can escape fraud entirely, but through cooperation and the adoption of best practices, the industry can reduce the risk of invalid traffic and foster a clean, trustworthy, and sustainable ecosystem for CTV advertising. Large amounts of dollars have been shifting into CTV advertising, as it's the latest shiny object and every advertiser wants to look modern.
During the pandemic, streaming increased because more humans were at home and had nothing else to do. However, the number of CTV apps that exist may surprise you. There are over 60,000 CTV apps, and most people can only name between 1-5 of them. Humans typically use a very small number of streaming apps, with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, and AppleTV being the top
subscription-based streaming services used. The hourly pattern of legitimate CTV streaming differs from fraudulent CTV streaming. Legitimate streaming shows that the highest streaming of the day is still in the early evening into midnight and then drops off dramatically. Meanwhile, fraudulent streaming shows most of the volume showing up right after midnight and going until 4 am, then
dropping and staying low throughout the day. While streaming during the daytime hours nearly doubled during COVID, CTV fraud multiplied 100-fold, making it easy to believe there were more streaming ad impressions to be purchased. CTV fraud is already a well documented problem. Fraudsters were making faked CTV ad calls using mobile apps like Grindr. Criminals are now manufacturing fake CTV ad impressions, simply by calling it CTV ad impressions instead of display and video ads, in order to get 10X higher CPMs. One of the CTV scams "involved 28.8 million household IP addresses, spoofed about 3,600 apps and 3,400 internet-connected TV device models.”
Fraudsters were pretending to be legitimate apps and devices, bouncing the data center traffic through residential proxies to make it appear to come from “28.8 million” households, and rotating among “3,600 apps and 3,400 internet-connected TV device models” to disguise the fraud. To combat CTV advertising fraud, advertisers need to take action. First, they need to recognize the problem and
understand that they cannot trust all of the CTV ad impressions they are purchasing. Second, they need to take measures to verify the legitimacy of the ad impressions they purchase, such as verifying the devices and apps used to stream the ads. Third, advertisers need to work
with trusted partners and vendors that have a proven track record in fraud detection and prevention. This isn't that hard, so why isn't everyone doing it?
|
All the news you need today, in a format that isn't TL:DR, summarized for the busy executive.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly important in marketing as it helps businesses automate processes, personalize customer experiences, and gain insights from vast amounts of data. AI can automate routine tasks, personalize experiences for customers, analyze large datasets to uncover patterns
and insights, and provide new opportunities for automation, personalization, and insights. AI can support marketing efforts in various industries, including retail, healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. There are many AI tools available for use in marketing, including HubSpot, Adobe Marketing Cloud, Marketo, Acquisio, Hootsuite Insights, Optimizely, Conversica, and IBM Watson Marketing. It is important for businesses to evaluate their needs and choose the tool that best fits their goals and
budget. Meta has awarded $29.4 million in grants to 564 news organizations as part of its Meta Journalism Project (MJP), with direct funding being made through 17 MJP programs. The grants ranged from $5,000 to six-figure sums received by The Boston Globe and others, with the median amount received being $25,000. The Tow Center has
centralized information on the grants in a new database. The top beneficiaries included The Boston Globe, Newsday, The Seattle Times, and others. Centralizing the data and making it publicly accessible is important for overseeing one of the world's most influential social media companies, Columbia Journalism Review writes. Meta has previously promoted investments into local journalism and its $300 million program to support news organizations in 2019. The Washington Post's TikTok team is connecting with young people who rarely consume legacy media by entering their space on the social media platform. More than half of the 18- to 29-year-olds in the US use TikTok, with 21.5% of global users aged between 18 and 24, and nearly half under the age of 29, according to Statista. TikTok's immersive, personality-based format creates a
more direct connection between journalists and their audience, which can offer a better opportunity to explain the journalistic process and respond to queries, according to Chris Vazquez, associate producer on the team. Washington Post senior video reporter Dave Jorgenson said that by building a connection with followers, the newspaper has established itself as a trusted source of information for young people. However,
the growth in TikTok as a search engine for information has raised concerns about the accuracy of information provided on the platform. As a result, Northwestern Medill Professor Craig Duff argued that trusted sources, like The Washington Post, need to be present on TikTok to fill the role of verifying facts. Overall, the TikTok team at The Washington Post sees its goal as creating news that will appeal to the younger generation, which often consumes media in small, bite-sized bits on
social media. The team believes that by creating content that is relatable and easy to understand, young people will trust The Washington Post as a reputable news source. Media mix modeling (MMM) is emerging as a viable alternative to multitouch attribution (MTA) for performance marketing, given the challenges posed by the death of cookies and
privacy regulations. MMM is an analytical system that ingests all kinds of online and offline marketing data, including campaign performance, sales or promotions, performance history, and seasonality, to produce insights on how specific marketing campaigns affected KPIs. Unlike MTA, MMM doesn't rely on cookies or unique identifiers to be accurate and works at scale, not on a user level. Brands that remain stuck in the analytics front will resign themselves to a fate of inflated CPAs and
investment over-indexing, which could lead to huge challenges with the parameters of future privacy regulations. Testing the waters of MMM is recommended, and brands need at least one to two analytics resources and a full creative team to create and adapt multimedia assets for their evolving mix of channels. The increasing number of privacy laws
across the globe and multinational corporates’ preference for tighter grip on technology is limiting marketers. The loss of traditional targeting and tracking signals such as third-party cookies and IDFAs is being replaced by a variety of overlapping technologies. The issue for marketers is that many of these technologies have not been established as de rigueur, while the legal basis and the skillsets required to operate the utilities are not always readily available. To address this,
MadTech Advisors CEO Bob Walczak has launched MadTech Connect to provide a universal connector between different platforms. However, privacy requirements and GDPR have meant that legal teams are mandating a more buttoned-up approach to marketing, which can require direct platform integrations and limit the number of companies marketers work with. GumGum, a contextual-first digital advertising platform, has hired Kalina Kehayova as Digital Executive and Larissa Jürges as Programmatic Solutions Manager in Germany. Larissa, who previously worked at Teads, will provide support to clients and agencies in running successful campaigns using GumGum's innovative technology. Kalina, who previously worked at OMD, will focus on new client acquisition, establishing partnerships with existing clients, and developing long-term
collaborations. Simon Tritsch, Commercial Director, DACH, said that both Larissa and Kalina are committed to building transparent and trustworthy solutions that will guide advertisers into the future. According to Wunderman Thompson Commerce & Technology’s B2B Future Shopper report, 67% of B2B buyers want to conduct their online buying via
an avatar in the metaverse. However, the report highlights a disconnect between the way B2B buyers want to shop and the options available to them. While 68% expect to increase their use of digital channels for purchases, over half (51%) say sellers don’t understand the friction points in the current online buying process and 45% feel it’s more complicated than making offline purchases. The report recommends that B2B sellers offer a tailored, omnichannel experience and consider mobile,
marketplaces, and social channels.e Nick Brien, former CEO of ad tech firm Amobee, has joined Enthusiast Gaming Holdings, a Los Angeles-based publisher of gaming publications and content, with a focus on accelerating new Web3, metaverse, NFT, subscription and advertising models. Brien will work with the company to develop new revenue
models from “creator” content, subscription revenues, new forms of sponsorship and emerging Web3 business models. While initially working with brands and agencies in a conventional way, Brien says Enthusiast’s platform could be “the tip of the spear” to the metaverse for many of them. Geopath, the audience location measurement service for out-of-home
media in the US, has released new data adding hundreds of thousands of transit media inventory not previously accounted for. The data, covering a full year, updates the reach and frequency model to include transit media, such as display ads in transit terminals and stations, as well as posters placed on buses and commuter railroads. Geopath’s new reach and frequency model will enable marketers to understand the audience weight of their campaigns in a given local market. The inclusion of
transit media adds hundreds of thousands of pieces of out-of-home inventory to the mix. GroupM has partnered with global nonprofit Internews to vet the quality of local, national and international news sites for programmatic media buys as part of its "Back to News" push. The initiative, described as an industry first, gives
GroupM clients access to vetted ad inventory on news sites vetted by Internews' Ads for News initiative, which aligns brands and agencies with over 10,000 trusted local news sites across 50 countries. The sites and domains will be vetted by Ads for News into inclusion lists that can be applied to programmatic private marketplaces or a package of inventory against a biddable price. The initiative aims to establish inclusion lists in 60 international markets by year-end. Molson Coors is appealing a recommendation by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs that it should stop implying that competitors’ light beers “taste like water”. Last year, Anheuser-Busch Companies brought the case against Molson Coors to NAD over a claim made in an ad for Miller Lite. NAD said that claims of bad taste or no taste
require substantiation, and that reliable sensory testing could show if a beer tastes like water. Molson Coors said it will appeal to the National Advertising Review Board, based on its belief that the ads do not expressly identify Michelob Ultra or any other light beers. |
You're looking for an edge in your online marketing.
Interest: ADOTAT.com is the answer. Our library of resources has been compiled by some
of the world's top internet marketing experts, and it's constantly updated with new information, case studies, and strategies.
We want to help you succeed online - that's why we offer this information for free. It's our way of giving back to the community and helping people achieve their business goals.
Sign up now and gain access to our entire library of resources!
Want to advertise? Contact pesach@lattin.us |
|
|
FROM SNOW CRASH TO THE METAVERSE: NEAL STEPHENSON’S VISION FOR THE FUTURE. Neal Stephenson, a renowned science-fiction author and co-founder of Lamina1, a blockchain-based start-up that aims to build an expansive metaverse, recently discussed his views on the metaverse with Tim Bradshaw, the FT’s global technology correspondent. Stephenson’s breakthrough 1992 novel Snow Crash predicted many technological advancements, such as cryptocurrency, Alexa, avatars, virtual-reality goggles, multiplayer online games, and destructive
computer viruses, that are now part of our everyday experiences. The concept of the metaverse, which is a virtual universe where people interact with each other through audiovisual bodies called avatars, was also first introduced in his book. READ MORE
NOW
THE METAVERSE’S SECURITY DILEMMA: DECENTRALIZED OWNERSHIP VS. CENTRALIZED
PROTECTION. Web3 is the evolution of the internet, where the centralized control mechanism is eliminated, and data ownership is given back to the users. The technology that underpins Web3 is blockchain, which is a distributed ledger that provides secure and immutable data storage. Web3 has been touted for its decentralization and user-centricity. However, when it comes to security and threat detection, Web3 is outgunned. Web3 has
five main blockchain security threat vectors, including user vulnerabilities, API and Oracle vulnerabilities, off- and on-chain data vulnerabilities, smart contract vulnerabilities, and node vulnerabilities. READ MORE ABOUT THIS
FTC CHARGES COMPANY FOR REVIEW HIJACKING ON
AMAZON Online shopping has become a common practice in recent years, and it has become increasingly important for customers to rely on product reviews to make informed decisions. As a result, online marketplaces like Amazon have created features that allow customers to rate and review products. However, it has become a growing concern that some companies are manipulating these features to deceive
customers. For the first time, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed charges against a company for “review hijacking.” READ MORE
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF IN-GAME ADVERTISING?
Intrinsic in-game
advertising and measurement may be the future of marketing and advertising. Cary Tilds, Chief Strategy and Operations Officer at Frameplay, believes that the power of immersive and interactive content will drive significant engagement for all brands, big and small. This concept applies not only to gaming and the Metaverse, but to all content and media channels. READ MORE NOW
YES, BLACK INFLUENCERS ARE TREATED DIFFERENTLY AND PAID LESS. Black influencers are treated differently, paid less, and seen as less serious than their white counterparts. This is a problem that has persisted in the influencer marketing industry, even with the increased focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in marketing. Black influencers face significant challenges, such as pay inequity and a lack of brand partnerships, that make it difficult for them to succeed in the industry. READ MORE |
|
