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“35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

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Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#11

Post by vrc »

danpalmer wrote: post #7

I get the impression that Reddit's ad network is just immature. We're finding that Reddit ads perform well and are cheap, suggesting that there isn't much competition for clicks. More mature ad networks such as Google's and Facebook's are better at reducing spam clicks. Google bought a company focused on this about 10 years ago, I'm sure Facebook put similar effort in. I'm sure this is something they'll work to impro…

Do you mean spider.io? I believe the internal team at Google had egg on their face when they had to admit they hadn't built anything and had to instead buy this company. But yeah it's definitely a sign that a network is maturing -- both facing and stopping this problem

Edit: Fun fact, one often undiscussed use for click-fraud was money laundering schemes, where people would own shitty landing pages with ads, and pay bot-net operators to click ads on their pages to legitimize money as "ad revenue"

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#12

Post by unreal6 »

earthboundkid wrote: post #8

Every newspaper in America has obvious scam ads on its homepage. The whole online ad market is diseased and needs to be uprooted. Common sense fixes: - Never allow dynamic ad content! Ads should be individually approved by publishers and not subject to change after approval. - Ban user tracking and targeting. It's a red queen's race and no one benefits. Everyone is better off once it's illegal. - Pay for ad time slot…

> Never allow dynamic ad content

To remove dynamic ad content ignores the value that can be unlocked through targeting to more specific individuals. It must be considered, especially for small businesses who may not be able to afford larger timeslots, as are being proposed here. I think it is important to remember that a huge part of this more personalized marketing approach is that it allows small companies (not the P&Gs of the world) to engage in the ad market far more productively, with niche products. To ignore these advantages does the benefits of the current dynamic market a great disservice.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#13

Post by user5994461 »

thrownaway954 wrote: post #3

adnauseam.io i don't know how many people actually install this extension, but it is specifically designed to clicks ads so you don't have to :)

Warning to not install this extension if you use google ads in any capacity (work/blog/other), it will get your account banned from google very quick for clickfraud.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#14

Post by ruined »

danpalmer wrote: post #7

I get the impression that Reddit's ad network is just immature. We're finding that Reddit ads perform well and are cheap, suggesting that there isn't much competition for clicks. More mature ad networks such as Google's and Facebook's are better at reducing spam clicks. Google bought a company focused on this about 10 years ago, I'm sure Facebook put similar effort in. I'm sure this is something they'll work to impro…

Reddit has been running ads for over a decade. If they are this far in and not doing basic fraud mitigation, something is wrong.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#16

Post by Joker_vD »

unreal6 wrote: post #12
earthboundkid wrote: post #8

Every newspaper in America has obvious scam ads on its homepage. The whole online ad market is diseased and needs to be uprooted. Common sense fixes: - Never allow dynamic ad content! Ads should be individually approved by publishers and not subject to change after approval. - Ban user tracking and targeting. It's a red queen's race and no one benefits. Everyone is better off once it's illegal. - Pay for ad time slot…

> Never allow dynamic ad content To remove dynamic ad content ignores the value that can be unlocked through targeting to more specific individuals. It must be considered, especially for small businesses who may not be able to afford larger timeslots, as are being proposed here. I think it is important to remember that a huge part of this more personalized marketing approach is that it allows small companies (not the…

Does this value really exist? I remember reading some claims that even the largest companies are actually pretty bad at targeting [0].

[0] https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190201

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#18

Post by shajznnckfke »

earthboundkid wrote: post #8

Every newspaper in America has obvious scam ads on its homepage. The whole online ad market is diseased and needs to be uprooted. Common sense fixes: - Never allow dynamic ad content! Ads should be individually approved by publishers and not subject to change after approval. - Ban user tracking and targeting. It's a red queen's race and no one benefits. Everyone is better off once it's illegal. - Pay for ad time slot…

How are you going to tell which traffic is fraud if you ban tracking?

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#19

Post by crumbshot »

thrownaway954 wrote: post #3

adnauseam.io i don't know how many people actually install this extension, but it is specifically designed to clicks ads so you don't have to :)

That looks great. I already use an adblocker, but playing a small part in interfering with their pay-per-click mechanisms sounds much more compelling.

Are there any downsides to using this?

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#20

Post by notatoad »

user5994461 wrote: post #13
thrownaway954 wrote: post #3

adnauseam.io i don't know how many people actually install this extension, but it is specifically designed to clicks ads so you don't have to :)

Warning to not install this extension if you use google ads in any capacity (work/blog/other), it will get your account banned from google very quick for clickfraud.

In addition to google, it's likely to get you at least shadowbanned on any site that has ads and does any sort of basic fraud prevention.
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