Publishers applied all sorts of ad tech to their sites and experimented with everything in an attempt to increase ad revenue. But some things didn't turn out the way they expected. In fact, some of these actions led to counterintuitive results - loss of revenue, loss of audience, lower CPMs, ad fraud, and other ills. Have you experienced any of these?

1. Unintended Consequences
for Publishers Using “Badtech”
January 2018
Augustine Fou, PhD.
acfou [at] mktsci.com
212. 203 .7239

2. “For years, publishers have been convinced
by badtech – aka “ad tech” – that there
were vast new riches to me made with
their tech …
… but the reality is publishers have seen
revenue decline, lower CPMs, audience
dilution, and new risks like ad fraud.”

3. “What follows are examples of actions
publishers took, thinking they would
lead to more revenue…
But in reality the opposite happened –
unintended consequences and other
bad stuff.”

4. January 2019 / Page 3marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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All parties are harmed by badtech
Good Publishers
(lower revenue, CPMs)
Consumers
(privacy violations)
Advertisers
(ad fraud, no outcomes)
Badtech Industrial ComplexBadtech Industrial Complex

5. Publishers started to
sell on exchanges

6. January 2019 / Page 5marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Badtech extracts 40-60%
Source: WFA, April 2017
Source: ANA, May 2017

7. January 2019 / Page 6marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Case examples of this …
Publisher only gets 30-60c on the dollar after middlemen fees
https://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2016/10/04/where-did-the-
money-go-guardian-buys-its-own-ad-inventory
2016
The Guardian
“for every pound an advertiser
spends programmatically on the
Guardian only 30 pence actually
goes to the publisher.”
2017
BusinessInsider
“$40,000 worth of ad inventory
through the open exchanges,
the publication only saw $97.”
http://adage.com/article/digital/business-insider-york-times-
shed-details-ad-industry-s-biggest-problem/311081/

8. January 2019 / Page 7marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Lower CPMs, MORE unsold
“How can you maintain $10 CPMs on your site
when buyers know they can get ads on your
site by buying it on exchanges for $1 CPMs?
They will wait till it goes
remnant, and then buy it.
You are CAUSING more inventory to go unsold.

9. January 2019 / Page 8marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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New risk of ad fraud - spoofing
Because… “Bad guys must pretend to be
good sites (by passing domain into bid
request) in order to get bids.”
publisherA.com
What portion of
the inventory is
real? vs spoofed
If you sell on exchanges, bad guys can pretend to
be your domain and steal ad dollars from you.

10. January 2019 / Page 9marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Unique audience given away
Journal of Clinical Oncology “cookie matching”
Unique audience of
oncologists – 100% share
of voice every month
Buyers think they can target
oncologists elsewhere for
much cheaper; don’t buy
from you any more.

11. January 2019 / Page 10marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Users’ privacy being violated
Source: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/11/15/no-boundaries-exfiltration-of-personal-data-by-session-replay-scripts/
“Exfiltration of personal
data by session-replay
scripts; and recording of
user actions on the site.”

12. Other risks

13. January 2019 / Page 12marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Selling on viewable impressions
Hypothesis:
Make more money selling
viewable impressions
Reality:
• Sellers cut their own sellable
inventory significantly
• Buyers are using viewability rates
to get refunds, rarely paid more
to publishers in reality
• Viewability measurement may
be wrong and not verifiable or
transparent
• Only bad guys have 100%
viewability all the time; buyers
shift dollars to them
Bad guys have higher viewability
AD
Bad guys stack
ads above the
fold to fake
100% viewability
Good guys have to
array ads on the
page – e.g. lower
sitewide average
viewability.
Dec 2017, Digiday: Publishers are underwhelmed by the payoff from hitting viewability standards

14. January 2019 / Page 13marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Malware ads hijack users
Malicious javascript can break out of ad
iframe -- take over the page, redirect user
Source: https://digiday.com/media/every-vendor-
problem-website-redirects-keep-plaguing-publishers/
Source: https://blog.confiant.com/nov-22-25-
attack-of-the-cyber-turkey-7a57a1ed498f

15. January 2019 / Page 14marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Pubs wrongly accused of IVT
Good publishers are blacklisted while bad guys continue fraud
Domain (spoofed) % SIVT
esquire.com 77%
travelchannel.com 76%
foodnetwork.com 76%
popularmechanics.com 74%
latimes.com 72%
reuters.com 71%
bid request
fakesite123.com
esquire.com
passes blacklist
passes whitelist
✅
✅
declared
1. fakesite123.com has to pretend
to be esquire.com to get bids;
2. fraud measurement shows high
IVT b/c it is measuring the fake
site with fake traffic
3. Fake esquire.com gets mixed with
real so average fraud rates
appear high.
4. Real esquire.com gets backlisted;
bad guy moves on to another
domain.

16. January 2019 / Page 15marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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High risk content-reco widgets
“They came with check in hand –
let’s take the check and stick the
widgets on our site”
Unforeseen risks:
• Brand safety risk – countless
examples of click bait, tasteless
content, malware ads, and fake
news/fake sites on your site
• Malware risk - loading large
quantities of suspect ads from
unknown advertisers.
• Revenue risk - users diverted
away from your site
• Reputation risk - auto-clicked
ads, using your domain as
referrer (trading on your brand)

17. January 2019 / Page 16marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Malvertising spreads via Taboola
Ads containing malicious code delivered into publishers’ sites
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/05/29/outbr
ain-expands-programmatic-appnexus-marketplace
Outbrain expands programmatic to
AppNexus Marketplace
https://marketingland.com/taboola-trade-desk-now-
offer-single-interface-native-ads-video-ads-210086
Taboola & The Trade Desk now offer
a single interface for native ads

18. Actions Taken by Good
Publishers

19. January 2019 / Page 18marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Good publishers act to reduce bots
Publisher 1 – stopped buying traffic
Publisher 2 – filtered data center traffic

20. January 2019 / Page 19marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Good publisher, progressively cleaning
10% red
3% red
“Filter GIVT and data centers; don’t call ads”
27% red
17% red
-7%
-10%
On-Site measurement
In-Ad measurement
Filter applied Stopped buying traffic

21. January 2019 / Page 20marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Good publishers protect users
42 trackers
24.3s load time
8 trackers
1.3s load time
“minimize 3rd party javascript trackers on pages”

22. January 2019 / Page 21marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Pubs have good business practices
“good business practices lead to good looking data”
Good Publishers “sites that carry ads”
• source traffic
• audience extension
• auto-refresh
• traffic laundering
• don‘t source traffic
• protect advertisers
• protect consumers

23. January 2018 / Page 22marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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About the Author
January 2018
Augustine Fou, PhD.
acfou @ mktsci. com
212. 203 .7239

24. January 2019 / Page 23marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Dr. Augustine Fou – Independent Ad Fraud Researcher
2013
2014
Published slide decks and posts:
http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/presentations
https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/augustinefou
2016
2015
2017

25. January 2019 / Page 24marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Harvard Business Review – October 2015
Excerpt:
Hunting the Bots
Fou, a prodigy who earned a Ph.D. from MIT at
23, belongs to the generation that witnessed
the rise of digital marketers, having crafted his
trade at American Express, one of the most
successful American consumer brands, and at
Omnicom, one of the largest global advertising
agencies. Eventually stepping away from
corporate life, Fou started his own practice,
focusing on digital marketing fraud
investigation.
Fou’s experiment proved that fake traffic is
unproductive traffic. The fake visitors inflated
the traffic statistics but contributed nothing to
conversions, which stayed steady even after the
traffic plummeted (bottom chart). Fake traffic is
generated by “bad-guy bots.” A bot is computer
code that runs automated tasks.