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Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

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Re: Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

#21

Post by onion2k »

amenod wrote: post #18

I am genuinly curious how they manage that. In a world where every user is followed I don't think the robots have a chance to fool the anti-fraud algorithms. At least with the bigger players (Google, Facebook) they don't.

Imagine a botnet has managed to get itself installed on Grandma's computer and is injecting 1 false ad impression for every 3 real impressions. The botnet can install things on the computer. You can't (if you're Google, assume Grandma isn't using Chrome). To stop the fraud you'd need to work out which of the 4 impressions is the fraudulent one. That's an incredibly difficult problem to solve...

Re: Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

#23

Post by [deleted] »

jnty wrote: post #3

Not sure I fully buy the argument that the industry is actually genuinely losing that $6bn. If I buy plates in bulk but find that 25% are usually broken in shipping, I will tend to pay 25% less for each shipment on the assumption that this will happen - the supplier might even have already priced this in. Online advertising is a much more fluid market and very metrics-focused - I find it hard to believe that most sma…

[deleted]

Re: Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

#24

Post by blumkvist »

illumen wrote: post #6
akrymski wrote: post #5

Someone please explain why this is a problem. The way I see it is that advertisers pay for results. If you spend $100,000 on ads and make less than $100,000 in extra profit - you're paying too much for ads. The fact that 23% of ad views don't convert just pushes down the price of an "ad view", ie those fake views are priced in to your CPM rates already. This does not effect your ad budget however. People that get hur…

Most advert buyers are not sophisticated. So fraud matters.

Most people speak out of their ass.

Re: Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

#26

Post by murbard2 »

true_religion wrote: post #16
murbard2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not knowing the rate of ad fraud does make things worse, but is not necessary to explain why it's a problem. Even if the ad fraud rate was absolutely uniform across all websites, there would be a deadweight loss. The ad fraudsters are extracting money from someone.

If the ad fraud rate were uniform across all websites, then advertisers would simply pay less CPM because its less converting traffic. If website A is all fraud, and website B is 0% fraud. Then on the same network, you'd have a 50% fraud rate, and website A would be paid money it doesn't deserve (as it deserves nothing for its 100% fraud traffic). Fraudsters are being subsidized by legitimate traffic.

No. The price is determined by supply and demand. So you're saying demand would fall - much as demand for a good falls when you impose a sales tax. There would be deadweight loss from the lack of traffic and advertisers would still end up diverting funds towards adbots.

Re: Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

#27

Post by murbard2 »

unreal37 wrote: post #20
murbard2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not knowing the rate of ad fraud does make things worse, but is not necessary to explain why it's a problem. Even if the ad fraud rate was absolutely uniform across all websites, there would be a deadweight loss. The ad fraudsters are extracting money from someone.

The money comes out of the pockets of publishers. Collectively, they are making less than they should be for a pageview or a click. The advertisers have a budget for ads, and they will only pay that. At some point, when the ad is not effective and profitable, they will redirect that same ad money somewhere else. It's the Internet publishers that are losing.

They're both losing, the advertiser's loss is opportunity cost.

Re: Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

#28

Post by ChuckMcM »

It isn't surprising. Click fraud has always been an easy way for a creative programmer to generate "free" money. That said, it has also always been a complaint for ever that advertisers don't think they are getting their money's worth[1].

One answer is to switch to a pay for performance model like affiliates do, basically only pay when something is purchased not just on click or view. But brand advertising doesn't really have a good 'performance' metric.

As others have said though, its a 'fake' problem, just like credit card fraud is a 'fake' problem. The costs are baked into the charges so the vendors get their money either way. But having a story that BigCorp is taking pennies from its legitimate customers to pay for ads being clicked on by robots is a hard story to get sympathy for the advertiser :-)

[1] "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." -- John Wanamaker

Re: Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

#29

Post by Retra »

sp332 wrote: post #9
jnty wrote: post #3

Not sure I fully buy the argument that the industry is actually genuinely losing that $6bn. If I buy plates in bulk but find that 25% are usually broken in shipping, I will tend to pay 25% less for each shipment on the assumption that this will happen - the supplier might even have already priced this in. Online advertising is a much more fluid market and very metrics-focused - I find it hard to believe that most sma…

There's a big difference if 25% of your plates are accidentally broken in shipping vs being smashed with a hammer in the warehouse.

Your 'big difference' is _intent_, a flighty, volatile emotion that no rational person will ever care to account for.

Re: Robots, Not Humans, Fake 23% of Web Video Ad Views, Study Finds

#30

Post by sp332 »

Retra wrote: post #29
sp332 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference if 25% of your plates are accidentally broken in shipping vs being smashed with a hammer in the warehouse.

Your 'big difference' is _intent_, a flighty, volatile emotion that no rational person will ever care to account for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
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