Ad Fraud in 2022
- Updated on: 2022-06-16
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Ad fraud is predicted to cost marketers $81 billion dollars in 2022, and as malicious software and bot programming gets more and more sophisticated, this number only stands to rise. Digital advertising is no longer even close to optional, thus marketers must proactively make sure they understand how ad fraud is evolving – and be prepared to combat it.
Two major ways to fight ad fraud include utilizing fraud detection software and staying on top of data analytics. In a world where bots apparently make up 52 percent of internet traffic, according to The Atlantic, it can be overwhelming for marketers to address click fraud. To help prevent this, HubSpot recommendedleveraging targeting, as it will "lessen your chances of encountering click fraud. Being more specific about the geographic locations your ads target and avoid can also provide an added layer of protection from click fraud."
Check out the resources below to learn more on combatting ad fraud.
Ad Fraud Statistics.Business of Apps, May 2022. Like any sphere of economy in which large sums of money are moved, the world of online advertising is an attractive one to fraudsters. Indeed, the impersonal nature of the transactions, a complex and often-opaque supply chain, and a reliance on easily-fiddled metrics mean that ad fraud is one of the biggest challenges facing advertisers, publishers, and ad-tech enterprises alike today. To make things even worse, mobile ad fraud brings new level of sophistication on the fraudsters' side to avoid countermeasures and continue to drain advertisers' budget with fraudulent mobile traffic. One of the most difficult challenges around mobile ad fraud is that no one really knows exactly how big a problem is – so ignore it at your peril, or at least the cost of a significant chunk of your advertising budget. What is ad fraud and mobile fraud as the latest permutation of the problem? In what contexts does it primarily occur? What is the cost of digital ad fraud to businesses estimated to be? Business of Apps answers these questions and offers more ad fraud statistics. An example:
Ad Fraud Evolution: What to Expect? ADEX, April 2022. Technological development has two sides: along with useful innovations, malicious software also arises. As such, with increased cybersecurity and advanced tools, we also receive high-tech bots that are harder to deal with. Which are the key principles of ad fraud development? What kind of logic stands behind it and what to expect in the near future? ADEX has been tracking the ad fraud evolution for years, and shares some insights here.
How to Prevent Click Fraud. HubSpot, April 2022. You've set aside some marketing dollars to spread awareness and attract people to your brand and your website. You've looked into a variety of advertising options, and determined that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a sound way to spend your marketing budget. After all, you only pay when users click on your ad, so you only pay to advertise to people who are at least mildly interested in what you offer. And PPC advertising can provide a healthy return on investment – unless you become the victim of click fraud. Here HubSpot explains what click fraud is and details the tools that are available to protect yourself and your investment.
Why Combatting Ad Fraud Might Be Your Best Marketing Investment in 2022. Forbes, February 2022. According to the results of a global 2019 study by Juniper Research, ad fraud costs the marketing industry an estimated $51 million per day, and these losses are likely to increase to $100 billion annually by 2023. In fact, nearly 18 percent of all internet traffic in the marketing industry can be attributed to nonhuman bots, which are actively engaged in ad fraud. With the U.S. being the biggest market for ad fraudsters, the issue has now been recognized by digital media professionals as one of the major challenges facing the industry, alongside third-party cookie deprecation. In recent years, the marketing industry has been on a mission to come up with solutions for this pervasive problem. Currently, the two approaches believed to be the most effective in combatting ad fraud are ad fraud detection and data analytics. Forbes explains more here.
How to Spot Ad Fraud, and How to Combat It. WARC, December 2021. In this article, Dr Augustine Fou, marketing science consultant, outlines three steps marketers should take right now to help combat ad fraud:
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Josch Chodakowsky is a director of research and innovation at ANA.
