New Research This Week Highlights Continued Murkiness of Ad-Tech Fraud

Digital advertising was supposed to make the process of connecting brands with consumers, through publishers, more efficient. But new research out this week underscores the potential for ongoing fraud, with advertisers lacking complete control over where and to whom their ads are shown. Despite billions of dollars spent and countless initiatives in digital advertising’s two decade lifespan, the problem is still rampant. Research published from independent ad-tech researchers Braedon Vickers and Krzysztof Franaszek found Gannett misled advertisers for nine months with a form of domain spoofing. Advertisers who thought they were buying inventory for the flagship USA Today domain instead had their ads placed on other smaller, local domains that Gannett owns. As a result, the ads were not next to the content or reaching the audiences media buyers intended. Gannett said in a statement the domain spoofing was the result of a human error that it fixed, albeit several months later. But industry experts say the research points to a larger problem: widespread fraud that persists despite ad tech, publisher and advertiser efforts to stop it. Ad Tech Company MNTN Acquires QuickFrame to Glue Together Creative and Media “There are a lot of the verification companies that are supposed to be watching,” said Chris Kane, founder and president of Jounce Media, a programmatic advertising consultancy. Kane said the research undermines trust in the industry. “I don’t know what actual controls are in place.” Brand safety tech called into question The research found fraud detection vendors all failed to stop the Gannett domain spoofing. All of these services are accredited by the Media Rating Council, meaning they are supposed to be valid, reliable and effective measurement services. Ruben Schreurs, chief product officer of media consultancy Ebiquity, said this should cause concern among advertisers. “[They’re] paying 50 cents CPM to use this verification partner but this seeps through?” he questioned. “They say they catch everything and they create a false sense of security,” Schreurs added. Existing controls allow for other types of fraud Aside from verification tech, another tool publishers can use against domain spoofing is ads.txt files, a protocol introduced by the IAB in 2017, that specifies the accounts authorized to sell a publishers’ inventory. In theory, this prevents bad actors from domain spoofing or selling inventory they don’t own. For Gannett, the ads.txt files failed to show the problem because the domain spoofing was happening within a large publisher network, not outside of it. “Ads.txt has its limitations, and one is that it only protects against domain spoofing by unauthorized accounts,” wrote Vickers in a report summarizing his research. “What if the spoofing is coming from inside the house?” There is potential for other types of fraud. Many publishers act as a reseller for other publishers, which is not always transparent to advertisers, especially in ads.txt files, said two ad-tech experts who requested anonymity to protect industry relationships. While not domain spoofing per se, advertisers are not always aware of all the publishers they may be advertising with when they work with a reseller, and ads.txt files are not always easy to audit, the sources said. “This is definitely important,” Kane said. “[This] is about the way sales teams represent their inventory to brands and agencies.” Auditing requires tech and human labor For media buyers, it isn’t enough to leave everything up to tech vendors. Combing through domains is also essential. Media president at Strom & Nelson Strategic Marketing, Michelle Strom, told Adweek a lot of the issues with domains were solved after she started using a preferred list on her programmatic buys. Strom said USA Today was part of its initial preferred list, and after around 24 hours of using the preferred list, all the unwanted domains led back to the publisher. USA Today's domain was removed completely after learning it was the source of domains their clients didn't want, Strom said. When it comes to being keen on where ad spend is going and where the ads are going, Strom said media buyers need to ask themselves “is this the best interest for the brand?” Ultimately, advertisers need to ask for more detail from ad tech companies about whether they’re enforcing the most basic checks for fraud and "should not assume" it's authenticated by fraud-safety suitors, she added. "[Advertisers] should ask for proof that the party, the ad tech companies that they are buying from, are actually enforcing the most basic checks for fraud,” anti-fraud consultant Dr. Augustine Fou told Adweek.