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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”

#31

Post by namdnay »

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…

Careful, targeting is not the same as dynamic. You could very well have 10 ads approved, and choose which one to display based on the time of day, location etc

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

#33

Post by acoard »

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…

I'm no expert, but one observation I had is podcasts seem to follow this model. Most podcast ads I hear are read by the hosts themselves, though a small number splice in targeted advertiser-provided audio (eg a UK soccer podcast will play me local Canadian ads).

For the podcasts that follow the former model, they don't seem to rely on timeslots (i.e. payment just for ad being shown), though some may be involved. Instead, it seems they rely on coupon codes to measure conversions. I assume the podcast gets paid per coupon code redeemed. Barring show sponsors, in my experience ever single podcast ad read by a host will use a coupon code.

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

#34

Post by mountainb »

ceejayoz wrote: post #28
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…

> Every newspaper in America has obvious scam ads on its homepage. It's genuinely baffling, given largely bad-faith "fake news" accusations, that news organizations are willing to light their credibility on fire like this. It feeds the nonsense, and justifiably so.

Turn off an ad blocker for a day after years of running one and you will routinely get solicitations for fake tech support lines, fake crypto ransom demands, and so on even if you are only browsing mainstream sites. This even goes for both iOS and Android phones. Digital display ads are major vectors of crime and the websites and the ad networks that serve them should be held liable for the damages that they cause to victims by facilitating the crimes. They are basically driving the cars for the burglars and helping them literally target victims like the elderly. Then they just say 'oops lol we're not liable.' It's a joke. The government should go after them like it dismantled the Japanese empire in the 1940s. Take everything they have and put the executives in prison for decades.

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

#35

Post by Larrikin »

dantheman wrote: post #17

If I'm going to see ads, I'd prefer targeted ones personally. Show me something I might want - product discover is actually hard, if an ad can show me something that solves a need/want I have that's great for me and for the company.

The ad is targeted by showing you a relevant ad on a relevant site. Looking at a hiking site, they'll have boot ads, looking at vacuum cleaner reviews, there are obviously going to be vacuum cleaner ads. Advertisers collecting every single personal detail they can so they can show you the boots you already bought months ago on an unrelated topic just makes the world a worse place.

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

#36

Post by Loughla »

dantheman wrote: post #17

If I'm going to see ads, I'd prefer targeted ones personally. Show me something I might want - product discover is actually hard, if an ad can show me something that solves a need/want I have that's great for me and for the company.

I'm the literal opposite. If I have to see the ads, I don't want my data harvested, stored, and shared in an effort to serve them to me. Identify the target audience of the site you're buying ads from, and identify if that is a target audience that you can appeal to. Then buy ad time.

Like TV. That way my data is safe, and I'm still exposed to your ads that are relevant to people visiting 'x' site.

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

#38

Post by danpalmer »

vrc wrote: post #11
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…

Yep spider.io. Many years ago I knew someone who worked there. I believe he's still at Google.

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

#39

Post by 24gttghh »

parliament32 wrote: post #9
splitrocket wrote: post #5

How is this not actionable? I'd get in touch with my state AG's office as well as the FBI.

Assuming this isn't Reddit, but just a bunch of users with AdNauseum installed, what do you expect them to do? Present a captcha before letting a user click through an ad?

That's one way to kill the ad industry, and I'm all for it!

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

#40

Post by Loughla »

acoard wrote: post #25
unreal6 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It seems like the main point you take issue with isn't dynamic ad content, but the next point: >Ban user tracking and targeting. You do bring up a good point though. Reducing dynamic ad content and user targeting reduces advertising "supply." Instead of showing 10 ads at once, you show 1 ad per timeslot. Small businesses wouldn't have the in-house capacity to search for lower-cost ad options directly. They'd have to…

>most podcasts use this manual curation model with the hosts themselves reading out the ads.

And I am far, far more likely to explore a product endorsed by a favorite podcast than I am to click into a random link on the very same podcast's main site.

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