Major study reveals staggering levels of online ad fraud

Source: The Globe and Mail

Advertisers globally are expected to lose $6.3-billion (U.S.) in 2015, paying for ads that no humans actually see. That is because 11 per cent of banner ads online and a full 23 per cent of video ads were viewed by fraudulent sources such as “bots” and not by real consumers, according to a new study.

And the study’s authors have said the real numbers across the entire industry are likely even higher than that.

The research released on Tuesday, commissioned by U.S. industry group the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) from online bot detection firm White Ops Inc., represents the largest study of advertising fraud ever publicly released. It quantifies a massive problem – not just for advertisers, but for publishers struggling to get by in a digital economy and for consumers whose home computers are hacked to play a role in these fraudulent schemes.

... Here’s how the fraud works: networks of bots are designed to look like real humans, often by installing themselves on people’s personal computers. By surfing around the Web the way a real human might, and being associated with that computer’s human browsing habits, those bots start to look like the real consumers that advertisers pay to reach.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/research-reveals-staggering-levels-of-online-ad-fraud/article22016329/