Beginner's guide to ad fraud

Advertising fraud is a common problem. Unfortunately, no one really knows how common this problem really is or the impact it has had on digital advertisers. Estimates for the amount that ad fraud has stolen vary by billions of dollars, and studies on the effects of malicious bot traffic (known as IVT) often conflict.

One of the main reasons for the discrepancies is the opaque nature of the digital advertising industry. Most of the time, analytics on advertising come from the companies that sell advertising. Adding to the frustration, there are few regulations in place to protect advertisers. The regulations that do exist are difficult to enforce because ad fraud often crosses borders and jurisdiction is difficult to establish.

That leaves individual companies to fend for themselves. With so little solid information available, many companies simply rely on the ad agencies and networks they work with to police themselves. However, there’s very little incentive for the ad industry to change because they make money whether the views are real or fake.

So what can you do about ad fraud? Well, the first step to fighting ad fraud is to understand what it is and how it works.

• 03Introduction
• 04Common schemes
• 19Common solutions
• 24Best practices