Heavy payouts and unrealistic numbers are the real face of ad campaign impressions. The inflated numbers from invalid sources do not lead to conversions. In the app ecosystem, invalid clicks and impressions are a major concern as they question the ad’s effectiveness and result in a waste of ad spend. Every step of the ad campaign that led to app installs and events gets plagued by malicious activities that dampen your return on investment.
Let’s dig up the dirt on the issue and shed some light on how invalid impressions can ruin your return on investments.
Myth Behind Impressions
Is a genuine audience viewing your ad? Heavy payout on invalid impressions costs brands massive wastage of ad spending. The validation of impressions can help a brand not just reduce ad spend. Most advertisers presume that fraud does not happen at the impression level but it’s a grey zone where fraudulent activities take place unnoticed.
It’s a deceptive practice in the digital advertising ecosystem where advertisers are charged for ad impressions that are not viewed by real human users or are otherwise misrepresented. Apart from wastage of ad spend they can negatively impact the effectiveness of ad campaigns and return on investment (ROI).
Here are some keys sources that generate invalid impressions:
- Impressions from MFA (Made-for-Adverising site). MFA sites are tailored for advertising purposes, ensuring a more intentional and engaged audience that does not result in conversions.
- Impressions from Low-quality content sites. The low-quality content site poses challenges in terms of the relevance and effectiveness of ad impressions.
- Multiple impressions served on the same device with Frequency capping (F-cap) violations. It can lead to overexposure and decreased impact, as the audience may become desensitized to the ads.
- Impressions from Ad Stacking. Multiple ads are layered on top of each other within a single ad placement. While only the top ad is visible, impressions for all stacked ads are counted, leading to inflated metrics.
- Domain Spoofing. Fraudsters misrepresent the website or app where the ad is displayed, making it seem like it is being shown on a premium site when it’s on a lower-quality or fraudulent one.
- Pixel Stuffing. Ads are hidden within small, transparent pixels on a webpage. These ads are technically “viewed” even though they are not visible to the user, resulting in fraudulent impressions.
- Cookie Stuffing. Cookies are forcibly placed on a user’s device without their knowledge or consent, allowing fraudsters to claim credit for ad impressions or actions across multiple sites.
- Proxy Traffic. Fraudsters use proxies to make it appear as though ad impressions are coming from different locations or devices, creating a false sense of diversity in the audience.
What do the advertisers need to do?
Impression validation
Let’s start with where advertisers need to be vigilant before it’s too late. It’s the post-delivery of impression to Minimize wastage when payouts are on CPM. Impression Data collected from MMP must be validated and invalid impressions blocked. Not as simple but effective if you have the right solution in place to safeguard your ad spending. The process ensures
- Clean Traffic with Safe Placements
- Optimized Campaign Performance
- Restrict payouts for Invalid Impressions
- Improve ROAS
The validation processes ensure that you payout on only verified impressions and maintain your impression integrity.
To make it clear let’s clarify what’s the problem with click credibility.
- Fraud Clicks have a direct Impact on Revenue. The ad network ends up paying for fraud clicks to its sub-publishers, especially when the advertiser is equipped with fraud detection.
- Reconciliation Issues on both sides. The ad networks or agencies face major reconciliation issues with their suppliers as well as clients since fraud clicks always create discrepancies.
- Build up an untrustworthy Market Environment. Due to fraud and traffic inconsistencies, the trust level of each player in the market remains low, thus impacting the overall market environment.
- Higher Dependency on Advertisers Reports. In the absence of a fraud detection mechanism, the Networks are dependent upon advertiser reports to ascertain the validity of a click.
Need for transparency and clarity for Advertisers
Advertisers need both pre-MMP checks, post-MMP checks, and basic time-sensitive checks. These checks should be advanced time-insensitive checks to ensure transparency and clarity that ensure click and impression integrity.
Basic checks are needed to prevent invalid clicks and getting blocked before entering MMP. This validation process should be done with minimum latency to ensure that it does not hinder the user experience and integrations.
For post-MMP Checks, Advertisers need advanced time Insensitive Checks which include pattern mapping. The advanced pattern checks require grouping of data to look for patterns. Also, pre-MMP checks should work in tandem with the pre-attribution checks to ensure overall traffic validation. Advanced ad fraud detection tool provides multilayer defense with pre and post-MMP checks along with the capability to block and blacklist specific sub-publishers and traffic sources.
Final Thought
The advertisers often ensure that impressions are the cleanest matric for making payout for ad campaigns but when it comes to conversions there are stark differences. For an effective and successful ad campaign and to build a clean ecosystem advertisers need a comprehensive solution that provides multi-level defense across the funnel.
Valid8 provides full-funnel protection of your campaigns from Invalid Traffic on the web and app to gain ROAS throughout the customer acquisition journey. It includes Branding Campaigns i.e. Programmatic Campaigns covering Frequency Cap Violations and exclusion lists for Made Ads (MFA) Sites with integrated Brand Safety. Optimize performance campaigns by identifying frauds in CPC, CPV, and CPL web campaigns and search keyword fraud. It also provides Visit-Lead Validation with visit analysis based on Visit Intent with Invalid Traffic Validation to ensure validated leads are integrated into CRM.
Connect with our experts to explore the possibilities and prevent drainage of your ad budget to optimize your marketing efforts.
