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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”

#161

Post by weare138 »

jamiequint wrote: post #136
weare138 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue though is the complete lack of transparency with the major online ad networks. We're relying on the fox to guard the hen house. They get paid whether the click is valid or not. I don't think we should reasonably expect the Google's and Facebook's of the ad world to spend money preventing fraud when that generates less profit overall. Until we start regulating the industry, no ad company is going to spend mo…

Almost all bidding on FB is oCPM and Google is tCPM, which means that clicks don't really matter at all in terms of Google/FB's ability to monetize. Transparency shouldn't matter for people bidding for conversions. The only transparency you need is to know where the visitors are coming from. If anything fraud (really misclicks for FB and Google search since there is no fraud incentive) is also bad for them as well as…

>which means that clicks don't really matter at all in terms of Google/FB's ability to monetize

What? They get paid for the clicks, not the impressions. Serving ad impressions costs money, the clicks make money. I don't quite follow your line of reasoning here.

>Transparency shouldn't matter for people bidding for conversions

Why wouldn't it? How do we know the bidding process is fair and the clicks we're paying for are valid? We don't and that's the problem. We wouldn't tolerate this type of behavior from companies in other industries. We need to quit giving tech companies a free pass and start holding them accountable.

>If anything fraud (really misclicks for FB and Google search since there is no fraud incentive) is also bad for them as well as it provides false signal of intent to their algorithms.

It only has to be good enough to convince people to keep using it. There's no financial incentive to eliminate fraud completely, or even try, without regulation.

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

#162

Post by [deleted] »

jamiequint wrote: post #145
nvr219 wrote: post #93

I completely forgot Reddit even has ads. I was watching a screen share on someone else's computer who was looking at a news article and I was completely shocked at the experience. How do people live without adblock?

Some people aren't selfish assholes and want the sites they use to continue to exist.

[deleted]

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

#163

Post by criddell »

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…

Shouldn't ad buyers just assume that the high fraud rates are baked into the price? If Reddit gets rid of fraudulent clicks (whatever that means), then the ad price will probably go up.

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

#164

Post by jasonmorton »

Many ads are not clicked on by a real person, but a bot, or someone clicking ads as fast as possible because it is their job.

Many comments would be considered "fraudulent" in the same sense, in that they were not authored by a real person, but a bot, or someone writing comments as fast as possible because it is their job.

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

#165

Post by jariel »

This is less of a problem for pay-for-action type ads.

If you send X number of people to your site with Y conversions, it doesn't really matter that 'bots don't buy' - because the $Z spent on ads for Y conversions is the metric used.

It's much more of a problem for impressions or for ads without directly measured value.

It's one of the reasons Google makes so much money, the spend is generally optimized for the return, not for 'how many visitors are fake'.

Though it's a problem.

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

#166

Post by stevesearer »

Pick-A-Hill2019 wrote: post #160
stevesearer wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my site we follow a couple of the practices you mention: - No dynamic ad content (we do allow geo-ip targeting for continents and countries, but this is using a self-hosted maxmind list) - Half-month or Monthly advertising time slots In addition to those practices, we also do the following: - Self-host our ads - Sell our own ads and have direct relationship with the ad buyers - No animated advertising (only static…

When you say 'on my site' would it be correct to say that you are talking about the one in your 'about' section? If so I was motivated to take a look as a way of expressing support for your design choices. However, you are using a Google-Analytics script???? Nothing wrong with that Buuuuttt.... uhm, yeah.

Yeah, I would like to not use GA too in the ideal world too :/

That said, we do use the Anonymize IP setting and have all of the demographic / interest settings turned off for Google Analytics.

We basically whittled 3rd party stuff down to GA and a Google font, so while not 100% perfect, I am pretty happy with the strides we have made.

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

#167

Post by lenzm »

malwrar wrote: post #122
lorthemar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Pay for ad time slots, not user impressions. This is probably the worst thing you can do to online advertising. It's probably one of the only good things about the online ad industry. If you book time slots, only the biggest players will be able to compete for that slot. Essentially killing the entire selling point of online ads, which is giving a chance to smaller players a chance at the game. I don't want to, ever…

You don’t necessarily need to implement bidding on a dedicated slot—-the TV comparison assumes you’re sending the same thing to each user. This isn’t TV though, you can display different ads to different people of you wanted. How about a system where probability of seeing an ad is weighted by how much money an advertiser pays? Then you just normalize across bidders and choose on that curve. Then perhaps the time slot…

I think you're conflating two points - the granularity of targeting and the auction method. Everything will get simpler if you reduce the number of targeting variables. The auction method seems less relevant to me, that's simply a financial matter.

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

#168

Post by sam0x17 »

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…

My thought on this has always been ad networks need to flip the script. Detect how much users like the content/services they are being sent to via ads (things like whether they come back on their own, upvotes, etc., can be used to detect this). Then dramatically reward the ads people found useful to click and dramatically punish (they have to pay more) the spammy ads everyone regrets clicking on.

I would rather live in this kind of internet.

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

#169

Post by AgentME »

surround wrote: post #76
zokier wrote: post #73

I find it so weird idea that people really click on ads. I don't know if I've ever done so (intentionally). As such I would have expected more like 90% of clicks to be fraudulent.

I’ve never bought anything because of an advertisement.

I buy popular brands I see on ads often enough (especially if you consider food items). Granted, there was a reasonable chance I was going to buy the products anyway, but seeing the ad probably raised the chances. I think every time I thought about the product, there was a chance that I was going to pull the trigger on buying it, and seeing the ad prompted another thought about the product. Also, when I see ads, I often have a thought like "I see this ad more often than the competitor's ads. Are they doing better? Maybe it really is because their product is better than the competitor's".
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