Advertisers will lose $6.3 billion globally to bots in 2015
The ANA partnered with White Ops, a security company with experience eradicating ad fraud on an initiative to determine the level of bot fraud occurring across the digital advertising industry. The ANA recruited 36 member companies to participate. The participants worked with a wide variety of agency partners, including media agencies, full-service agencies, and in-house agencies. White Ops tagged participants’ creative in August and September 2014 (181 U.S. campaigns) to determine fraud activity. The study measured 5.5 billion impressions in 3 million domains over 60 days.
The Bot Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising (Full Report)
Bots are everywhere, but not in equal numbers. The joint ANA/White Ops study, conducted in August and September 2014, included a diverse range of brands, across nine vertical categories, with total ad budgets ranging from $10 million to more than $1 billion, as measured by Kantar. This 57-page report uncovers the startling and alarming impact of bots on digital media and offers an action plan that marketers and the industry at large can implement today to begin eliminating bot fraud.
Take Action Against Bots: Action Plans for Buyers and Sellers
Call to action is for key industry players to work both collaboratively and individually to substantially reduce bot fraud. Steps the industry, buyers and sellers can take are easily implementable and effective.
ANA/White Ops Study Reveals Extent of Advertising Bot Fraud (Press Release)
Almost a quarter of video ad impressions and more than half of third-party sourced traffic is fraudulent, according to a study of bot fraud in the digital advertising industry by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and the online fraud detection firm White Ops. The press release is here.
About the ANA
The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) provides leadership that advances marketing excellence and shapes the future of the industry. Founded in 1910, the ANA’s membership includes more than 640 companies with 10,000 brands that collectively spend over $250 billion in marketing and advertising. The ANA also includes the Business Marketing Association (BMA) and the Brand Activation Association (BAA), which operate as divisions of the ANA. The ANA advances the interests of marketers and promotes and protects the well-being of the marketing community.
About White Ops
White Ops is a pioneer in the detection of, and defense against, bots and malware on the web. White Ops provides advertisers and others with the tools they need to decrease fraud, raise their bottom lines, and ensure the success of their online campaigns and enterprises. To detect automated browsers and malware-infected browsers, White Ops deploys thousands of dynamic browser tests that constantly evolve over time to withstand reverse engineering. This technology allows White Ops to differentiate, with precision, between bot and human interaction in online advertising and publishing, enterprise networks, e-commerce transactions, financial systems, and more, allowing clients to remove and prevent unwanted traffic and activity. By working with clients to cut off sources of bad traffic, White Ops makes bot and malware activity unprofitable and unsustainable for the cybercriminals who pursue it, an economic strategy that will eventually eradicate this type of cybercrime. For more information, visit www.whiteops.com.