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Insane state of today's advertising part 3

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Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#11

I'm actually rather surprised that companies like Google aren't offering solutions to integrate ads into the delivery of the page content itself rather than JavaScript at this point, as it's pretty easy to block the specific domains serving ads. It seems relatively straightforward; the ads would be pre-rendered on the server providing the response and could send the same info a script would for the most part, especia…

Too easy to fake impressions. And it would break with caching.

Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#12
[EDIT: As other commenters have mentioned, the simpler answer is that OP's ad is probably an instance of click fraud. Setting that aside, though, the phenomenon I describe below is likely still in effect, even with players playing by the rules.]

I imagine that every stakeholder wants verifiable information that the ad was viewed. It would seem to be a problem of both trust (if some centralized ad server was to stream the analytics server-to-server to the stakeholders, there's no guarantee that that central entity is telling the truth, no way to verify unique IPs, and every economic reason for it to lie) and scale (why pay for bandwidth/CPU for a centralized server to make server-to-server connections when the end user can foot the cost).

The problem is that the number of stakeholders has ballooned significantly, the same way that any sizable financial market will attract intermediaries like flies. And now we have an untenable situation.

AppNexus is possibly the only player I can think of who's built both trust and infrastructure to address this, and indeed they are rolling out products like this: http://productblog.appnexus.com/get-your-logs-streaming/ ... but it's very possible that the ecosystem becomes fragmented faster than it becomes consolidated.

Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#13

I'm actually rather surprised that companies like Google aren't offering solutions to integrate ads into the delivery of the page content itself rather than JavaScript at this point, as it's pretty easy to block the specific domains serving ads. It seems relatively straightforward; the ads would be pre-rendered on the server providing the response and could send the same info a script would for the most part, especia…

There are plenty of ad servers that offer APIs for doing that.

Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#14

I'm actually rather surprised that companies like Google aren't offering solutions to integrate ads into the delivery of the page content itself rather than JavaScript at this point, as it's pretty easy to block the specific domains serving ads. It seems relatively straightforward; the ads would be pre-rendered on the server providing the response and could send the same info a script would for the most part, especia…

I suspect the only way ad companies would trust this is if the pages were served from a third party (someone not directly making money off of the ads).

Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#15
I've seen some other pretty abhorrent behavior as well. The specific instance that comes to mind is an ad that would load all the resources and content of its click-through landing page into a hidden part of its own iframe. Then in the off chance you click the ad, your browser cache is already warmed and the resulting landing page loads fast. All of that for the 0.1% of us that click ads. It boggles the mind.

Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#16

I'm actually rather surprised that companies like Google aren't offering solutions to integrate ads into the delivery of the page content itself rather than JavaScript at this point, as it's pretty easy to block the specific domains serving ads. It seems relatively straightforward; the ads would be pre-rendered on the server providing the response and could send the same info a script would for the most part, especia…

I never quite understood why domain-blocking works so well for ad-blockers. I'm surprised why sites don't just use a reverse proxy or something to serve from those ad domains. What am I missing?

Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#17

I'm actually rather surprised that companies like Google aren't offering solutions to integrate ads into the delivery of the page content itself rather than JavaScript at this point, as it's pretty easy to block the specific domains serving ads. It seems relatively straightforward; the ads would be pre-rendered on the server providing the response and could send the same info a script would for the most part, especia…

Blockers already have content rules.

Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#18
post #2

Why are they doing it?

Money. They’re faking ad delivery.

Reflecting on your statement and the 'incompetence' statement... maybe they're trying to prove an ad displayed for a given duration of time. (As a consumer, I actually hate all ads; they belong as suggested discount incentives after searches; when I'm actually /looking/ for something.)

Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3

#19
A bit off topic, but something I'm interested in: would it be possible for a website to generate revenue by using client machines to mine crypto currencies? I would rather go to a website that uses up my CPU and network resources doing that than use up my CPU and network resources AND spam me with intrusive ads.

Edit: solid answers to my question. Thanks everyone.

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