This POV, co-authored by our in-house experts, outlines the advancement of Bot fraud, explains how Bots steal, and offers four points to protect online investments from Bot fraud.

1. BOT FRAUD IS A
REAL PROBLEM
… BUT NOT UNDEFEATABLE.
May 2014

2. © 2014 Havas Media Group 2
Bot Fraud is a Real Problem … But Not Undefeatable.HAVAS MEDIA FOCUS
Over the years, digital Ad Verification has become an essential part of man-
aging digital advertising campaigns. Ad Verification tools audit the deliv-
ery of impressions within appropriate content, geographic targeting, ad
viewability, and Bot fraud detection to ensure clients are maximizing the
value of their campaigns.
While most aspects of ad verification are relatively straightforward (Was
an ad viewable? Was it delivered within proper geo parameters? Within
proper content? etc.), Bot fraud is more complex and has become an
increasingly real problem. Bot fraud is defined as non-human traffic de-
signed to generate false ad views, ad clicks, and site visits. As a result,
advertisers end up paying for poor quality impressions that had no chance
of delivering sales or conversion. According to the IAB, it represents as
much as 25%-30% of all online traffic. Bot fraud has evolved over the past
12 months to a much more sophisticated state than anyone had expected.
There is a secondary economy thriving on creating Bot-cookies. Bots (ver-
sus humans) are being sold to advertisers across exchanges (i.e. OpenX,
AdECN, Ad Desk, Right Media, etc.), premium publishers (i.e. AOL, Yahoo,
MSN, WSJ, NYT, etc.) and through DMPs (i.e. BlueKai, Turn, Lotame, etc.).
The Bot fraud economy is very complex. Different players contribute at
different stages of the process which makes this new approach difficult to
suppress and moreover control.
The most egregious places for Bots
to thrive is within the digital RTB
environment, but it is prevalent in
almost every publisher to varying
degrees. While RTB for digital
media has become an extremely
efficient and effective strategy, it is
often a “black box” with respect
to algorithms, audience group-
ings, and bidding. As the RTB
investment continues to grow ex-
ponentially, this black box is ripe
for Bot fraud.
Advancement of Bot Fraud

3. © 2014 Havas Media Group 3
Bot Fraud is a Real Problem … But Not Undefeatable.HAVAS MEDIA FOCUS
Programmers develop malware (harmful code) and sell it on the open mar-
ket to Bot operators (persons intending to commit fraud). Bot operators
may or not operate alone. Most often, they are part of a larger network.
While you may detect and shut down one Bot operator, this does not
mean that the code isn’t being or will be used by someone else.
There are various ways Bot operators defraud advertisers, including:
1. Fake Sites. Launching as a fake publisher, buying Bot generated impres-
sions to demonstrate traffic and selling unlimited amount of inventory
seen by Bots, not humans.
2. Fake Audiences. Deploying a large pool of Bot users to premium and
popular sites to be “cookied” and grouped as desired audiences on both
the DSP and DMP systems for sale.
3. Fake Traffic. Offering up the sale of Bot traffic to any publisher(s) who is
looking to boost their ranking with syndicators such as ComScore, Nielsen,
etc.
4. Fake Impressions. Offering up the delivery of free impressions through
Bot farms (DMPs of Bots) used to deliver impressions and achieve reach
goals for agencies and advertisers.
The fraud prevention industry has tackled this surge of sophisticated Bot
fraud in several ways. Concerned publishers leverage evolving technol-
ogy to monitor unusual traffic patterns from suspicious referral sources.
RTB players are offering up Bot detection and verification services as part
of their standard media offering to assure advertisers their investments
are safe. Vendors such as WhiteOps claim to have the largest and most
robust database of Bots, fingerprinted to alert you anytime they see that
Bot. Other vendors such as DoubleVerify claim to use an algorithm which
detects fraudulent sites and Bot impressions by uncovering non-human
behavior in real-time. These vendors can use ad blocking technology to
prevent the ad from even being served when they detect Bot traffic.
How Do Bots Steal?
Protection from Bots

4. © 2014 Havas Media Group 4
Bot Fraud is a Real Problem … But Not Undefeatable.HAVAS MEDIA FOCUS
It is likely that fraudsters will always stay one step ahead of verification sys-
tems. While we encourage all our advertisers to invest and protect their
digital investments – we also know that the tried-and-true process of
monitoring actual business performance is the most valuable. Bots do not
necessarily translate to business outcomes such as orders, conversions, or
sale transactions. By employing ad verification and blocking technology
along with monitoring business performance by partner, placement, and
activation, advertisers can weed out bad partners from their media plans.
To protect your online investment from fraud, consider these four points:
1. Leverage Ad verification across the entire campaign. We recommend
using a central verification partner across all publishers and activations to
benchmark performance using similar methods and metrics.
2. Deploy blocking, make-goods, and formulate blacklists. Consider taking
immediate action once a set of placements and/or publishers are defined
by either dynamically blocking the serving of Ads. Where blocking is not
possible, seek “make goods” or guarantees and work with the verification
partner to build custom black-lists to avoid future high-risk Ad delivery.
3. Strengthen your media insertion orders/contracts. Build in provisions
against questionable partners, publishers and placements to guarantee
recourse when violations occur.
4. Verification must play a role in attribution. Ensure your attribution models
are developed on real human behavior. Eliminate Bots and fraud from
your attribution modeling datasets to avoid contaminating results with
fake data and incorrect results.
Final Thoughts & Recommendations

5. © 2014 Havas Media Group 5
Bot Fraud is a Real Problem … But Not Undefeatable.HAVAS MEDIA FOCUS
About the Authors
Jonathan Zajicek
Director of Analytics & Research
Jonathan has been a Director of Analytics and Research and Havas Chicago analytics lead
for 2 years. His roster of clients include Sears, Kmart, Valspar, Reynolds, Hefty among oth-
ers. He comes from a client side background where he managed analytics teams focusing
on direct response insurance and E-commerce.
Whitney Berns
SVP, Digital Director
Whitney is responsible for the advertising operations and strategic partnerships at Havas
Media. She manages the agency relationships with leading technology companies to
deliver best-in-class ad delivery, tracking, and optimization services to all clients. Whitney
brings over 15 years of experience in digital media, including Search, Display, and Social.
She is a pro-active problem solver with the ability to collaborate across multiple groups
both internally and externally.
Adam Kasper
Chief Media Officer
Adam Kasper is Chief Media Officer of Havas Media, North America and has primary re-
sponsibility for building and evolving the media offering at the company. Adam has served
as a key member of the executive management team of Havas Media since 2008. He is a
20-year veteran of the digital and media industry, a regular speaker at industry events, con-
tributor to publications and in 2013 was named an OMMA/MediaPost All-Star for media.
Michael Kaushansky
EVP, Chief Analytics Officer
Michael has been involved in the field of analytics for more than 15 years, with a strong
focus on consumer insights, media effectiveness, statistical modeling, and digital marketing
analysis. Through his work, he helps clients get more value out of their media investments.
He is a recognized leader, and often speaks at industry events on digital attribution and
data strategy. Michael partners closely with strategy, media, and creative teams to enable
brands to take advantage of a plethora of media data.

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