Fighting on the Ad Fraud Frontline: Detecting and Preventing Ad Fraud on CTV and Online

There is arguably nothing more vexing for CTV and online marketers than ad fraud, which can take on many forms. According to Kim Norris, Group Vice President, Advanced Advertising Sales at Spectrum Reach, ad fraud at her company is a high priority problem to solve.

Spectrum recently released a Brand Safety Guide which underscored the degree to which advertisers need to prevent ad fraud and protect their ad spend. According to their guide, on average in 2020, (a year where consumers were spending more time online and at home), small and medium-sized businesses lost almost $15,000 annually on ad impressions that were never seen by actual people. For agencies and their clients during the same period, ad spend losses reached $207,000 annually which was 10 times the amount of Server Message Blocks (SMB) according to PPC Global Click Fraud Report of 2020-2-21.

The types of ad fraud are staggering. Most are primarily IVT (Invalid traffic) which can include bots and other non-human interaction. There are bots which are viruses that drive up useless traffic, domain spoofing where lower quality inventory can be passed off to unsafe or low-quality websites, pixel stuffing and ad stacking which makes ads unviewable, location fraud which feeds ads in undesired regions, cookie stuffing and user-agent spoofing.

For Norris, one of the most pernicious is, “the misrepresentation of inventory. Low quality or short-form inventory is passed as high quality or long-form inventory, and mobile experience is passed as CTV because they are both OTT channels.” Premium inventory is easy to define. “Premium inventory is inventory that is sourced from Spectrum Reach’s brand strategy and marketing,” Norris explained, and added, “It is verified by a third party on the back end to ensure that it ran where they say it ran, that it was seen by a real person, and is optimized towards supply quality metrics such as measurability, viewability, and runs in a brand-safe environment.” This inventory is culled from Spectrum’s premium pool of inventory consisting of owned and operated properties, direct deals, carriage agreements, and partner relationships. This ensures no inventory is being aggregated blindly from indirect marketplaces or open exchanges.

To fully address ad fraud, Spectrum partnered with Moat which is a neutral third-party verification company who, Norris noted, “looks ‘under the hood’ at 100% of the inventory flowing through our system. They will confirm that it was seen by real people, that it’s not bot traffic, that there is no malware and it’s in brand safe content.” In this way, Spectrum does not grade its own homework and relies on a trusted, MRC accredited partner for an external audient of their campaigns.

The decision to go with Moat was a careful process. Bill Sheahan, Vice President of Product management for Spectum, noted that his company, “was in search of a media verification partner with specific capabilities that aligned with its overall goal of providing a brand-safe environment for its advertisers; one that verified that ads indeed reached their intended audience on trusted programming.” Several vendors were vetted to insure that vetting could be conducted across all platforms including CTV, mobile applications and web. “Spectrum Reach ultimately selected Oracle Moat Analytics for their superior technology, service and forward-thinking roadmap. Moat allows us to measure and verify all of our inventory and proactively flag any IVT before it propagates across our streaming ecosystem. As an MRC accredited partner, they are investing in sophisticated detection capabilities that allow us to stay one step ahead of some of the bad actors that are trying to infiltrate our supply chain,” he stated.

In addition to Moat, Spectrum is also the first local media sales organization to become a TAG Platinum member. “The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) is the leading global initiative fighting criminal activity and increasing trust in the digital advertising industry. TAG advances its mission by connecting industry leaders, analyzing threats, and sharing best practices worldwide,” Sheahan noted. This group was created by the 4As, the ANA and the IAB to work collaboratively with companies throughout the digital ad supply chain. “TAG member companies that receive all of TAG's available seals (now just 3 – Brand Safety, Ad Fraud, and Malware) achieve the coveted Platinum Member status. These certifications require in-depth application process as well as third-party audits to ensure they meet ongoing requirements for each particular seal,” he added.

Spectrum’s Brand Safety guide recommends the following actions to prevent ad fraud:

1.       Pick trustworthy partners with good reputations in the industry and use best practices to insure that ad campaigns are free of all types of fraud.

2.       Verify ads using an accredited third party verification partner to be sure your ad inventory, delivery to the advertiser and ad dollars are kept to the highest quality.

3.       Demand transparency from your marketing efforts. Ask to understand how the technology

works, what makes their inventory premium, where your ads are running, and who is seeing them.

And yet, with all of this effort, the industry’s efforts to combat ad fraud are in early stages. “We are still at a point where we are educating our advertisers about ad fraud, that it exists, and what we are doing to protect them. I believe it has increased trust between our company and our advertisers because we are educating them on the ecosystem while also providing them with a solution,” Norris explained.

Fortunately, Spectrum’s ad fraud initiative is well timed. “In the next 2 years, we expect ad fraud to become more sophisticated as more industry players put an emphasis on fighting anti-fraud and weeding out the low-hanging fruit with tools and processes that will drive bad actors further into the shadows,” Sheahan concluded.

 This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Artwork by Charlene Weisler

Power of Local and of Data. Interview with Spectrum's Kim Norris

It is certainly a strange time for those of us grappling with the pandemic's impact on media. Budgets are more uncertain as advertising is readjusting to a new reality. For someone like Kim Norris (pictured at top), Group Vice President, Advanced Advertising Sales at Spectrum Reach, who manages a team across all TV and digital sales channels, COVID-19 has posed strategic challenges, creative opportunities and a cause for optimism.

The Redefining of Television Before and After the Pandemic
"Pre-pandemic we were seeing a significant shift in the way that television was being consumed and the way advertisers were starting to think about TV as an advertising medium," she explained, as digital technology expanded into the ecosystem and with television increasingly migrating to the IP-based digital platform. "We have seen an expansion of capability," she noted, "fueled by the use of data and its use in planning where linear television is increasingly employing digital techniques. And all of this innovation has ramped up fairly quickly."

She explained that, "For us at Spectrum Reach, television service has been available on the Spectrum TV app for a number of years with ads. That technology, along with consumers time-shifting their viewing with VOD, has propelled television viewing across devices and platforms in our households. Cross-platform has become much more of a way to consume TV."

Consumer Viewing Patterns
For Norris, this evolution in consumer viewing patterns has only accelerated during the pandemic. "What we are seeing is an interesting spike in the viewership. All of television viewing has increased. We are seeing it across live television, across the Spectrum app and across VOD," she said. It is an especially unique situation for advertisers, who, according to Norris, need to reassess their messaging and take into account the sensibilities of the time while also keeping an eye on brand positioning and long term strategy. "Do they have the right creative?" she asked. "The irony is that we have so much activity, inventory and impressions at a time where some advertisers have had to stop and rethink their strategy. It is certainly interesting times for both television and advertisers."

Seeing Opportunities for Advertisers
The changing environment need not be a barrier to messaging. In fact, one could argue that viewers are paying greater attention in their viewing experiences. The opportunity is there for advertisers. "One of the ways we responded at Spectrum was to very quickly address the issue of creative. Your creative message in television of all kinds is very important," she stated. One of the first things that Spectrum did was to offer advertisers a turnkey approach to producing their own creative. "We are already on the path of offering self-provisioning creative platforms primarily for local and regional advertising," she explained, "and this is certainly available for big brands as well." Currently, Spectrum "was able to offer these services at no charge to our local advertisers. We saw a very quick response being able to flip creative very quickly. And more of the agency holding companies and the large national advertisers came back to television with different types of messaging."

One of the biggest changes Norris sees in the advertising ecosystem is the nature of the messaging. "It's almost a positive (change)," she said, "Brands are trying to speak to their consumers in a very human-like way with supportive messaging, such as at a hyperlocal level by letting people know what stores are open and a lot of social service work."

Notable Bumps in Viewing Patterns
Viewing patterns during the pandemic obviously shifted as a result of people sheltering-in-place. Norris, whose company focuses on impressions data especially in local, is able to adeptly monitor trends across platforms. She has seen increases in content type with specific success in Spectrum Reach. Spectrum News' local coverage since mid-March has resulted in its highest Nielsen ratings over a two-month period dating back to at least 2011 and likely in its entire existence. "We have seen a pop in localized content," as well as content that offers escapism. "Entertainment content (viewing) has increased and we are seeing that the total viewership is increasing. It's not just viewing across screens, they are viewing a lot more overall. VOD is increasing and people are searching for new content. There is a lot of social chatter about 'what are you binge watching this week?' across screens."

Norris noted that their business is driven by impressions, especially through their apps. This is an advantage when it comes to measurement and planning. "Our inventory is a direct correlation to consumer engagement on platforms. We've seen a high in May in terms of how many impressions we actually saw coming through the platforms as a result of usage," she noted.

The Greater Importance of Data
When it comes to data, Norris is an expert with years of experience both at Cablevision (where, full disclosure, she hired me for a set-top box data project) and now at Spectrum. "We have been able to pull together our first-party anonymized and aggregated data in combination with third-party datasets, which have allowed us to be able to do more data-infused planning in linear TV as well as more targeted planning across all screens," she said, and added, "I think what we are seeing is an increasing interest into what types of insights and analytics we provide advertisers around that."

Norris shared an example where an advertiser who previously appeared in sports programming could be efficiently re-expressed into non-sports programming with the confidence that they would be reaching the same targeted viewers on both a national and local level. The application of data to ascertain reach and further target audiences has been accelerating since COVID-19 according to Norris and sparking greater interest among advertisers.

Looking Forward
Since the outbreak, Norris has seen that "local is the new normal. There are so many differences in what is happening in states and regions, parts of the country. I think our ability to utilize household addressability or reach at a geo level or a state level, all of our capabilities around broad reach versus more targeted reach can help brands be specific in their messaging in a more localized manner."
As dire as events may seem today, Norris is optimistic about the future. "It's amazing to me to see how adaptable we all are in the human condition. The optimist in me sees this marketplace of advertising come back in the third quarter. And it will be back in some sense and force for us in the television space. The activity we are seeing cross-screen will accelerate ever more than we might have seen before the pandemic as consumers and advertisers get more familiar with the shifting TV landscape."

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Paul Haddad Explains How a4 Is Inventing the Way Advertising Works

Navigating the transition from collecting and mining data to actually applying it in addressable advertising is a talent that a4 President Paul Haddad (pictured at top) has in abundance. With an engineering background and extensive work in collecting data at the set-top box level from his tenure at Cablevision, he has a keen sense of how the addressable landscape looks and what the underpinnings of data and analytics need to be to ensure a seamless, real-time, targeted experience for both consumers and advertisers.

His evolution from entrepreneur to data geek (an epithet that we both agree is a source of pride) to president has been facilitated by his early work at Cablevision, the mentorship of then-department head Kim Norris (currently the division vice president), Spectrum Reach, the acquisition of Cablevision by Altice, Patrick Drahi’s support of disrupting status quos, Dexter Goei’s coaching on building growth-driven business and the recognition by the industry of the value and power of data and targeting.

A One-Stop Advertising Shop
Utilizing data culled from many sources and offers, a4 is "a one-stop shop for audience-driven, integrated, multi-screen advertising and end-to-end ROI analytics across the U.S.," Haddad said.  But as complete as that sounds, that is not all it is.  Owned by Altice, which purchased Cablevision in 2015, a4 is actually a large advertiser in its own right, representing Altice's $200 million budget as an in-house agency.  So, a4 not only offers capability in both the buying and selling aspects of advertising, it also manages and stewards small $250 campaigns to multi-million-dollar campaigns, as well as national and local accounts through an interface platform controlled by the advertiser.  a4 is helping to transition the media world by "inventing the way advertising works," and it has been very successful.  "We now have over $500 million in total media revenue, over 500 employees and the fastest growing business at Altice," Haddad noted.

Going from Local to National
Transitioning from local MVPD operation to a national footprint was not without some internal questions.  "What is an audience to us?" Haddad posited. "Is it market-driven or is it location-driven or is it size-driven?"  After two years of tests, he realized that "audience targeting has no location or specific size."  So, the conclusion was that "when it comes to audience, we do not see the world as local or national at all," he explained.  "We do not see the world as TV or digital.  We see the world as household targets.  We deliver a household-based audience targeted campaign across all screens anywhere in the U.S. at any time and at any size of segment."  In sum, a4 essentially removes the need to label anything other than audience at a household level -- and that appears to be the wave of the future.

Haddad said that those still operating under the legacy mindset of local versus national are "limiting" themselves and warned that his competitors who stick to the old parameters of measurement are "being held as techno-hostages."

Finding Intent in Targeting
a4 has access to a myriad of datasets at the MVPD set-top box level, at the device level, at various digital touch points and through third and first-party partnerships.  To ensure privacy and create effective reach pathways, "our datasets are focused on household targeting," he explained.  "To target a household, you need to understand and provide to our advertising clients the means to create a segment.  And the way to create the segment is to collect data that finds intent."
He noted that intent on a household level is based on:

• Viewing and content consumption (a4 currently covers 12.5 million homes at the set-top box level covering 210 DMAs)
• Spending patterns (such as luxury items or beauty products or tech-gadgets)
• Consumer profile data (totaling 300 million homes)
• Geo-location data (sports stadium visits or high-end store or auto dealership visits)
• IP targeted data with a platform deployed behind the firewall at most MVPDs in the U.S. (accessing 50 million household data on digital and mobile devices for in and out-of-home addressability.)

"When you put it all together you can use the data for audience creation on the front of a campaign," he explained.  "You can then use the 'same' segment to plan when and how to reach them.  Finally, you measure and report all the impressions for that 'same' segment across all their devices, and clearly analyze the effect and whether you reached these audiences or not and what was the ROI."
In addition, a4 gives the client an on-boarding, self-service, full stewardship platform where proprietary CRM data can be uploaded privately and safely and matched with all of a4's data free of charge and within hours, not days.  So, from audience creation to media planning to media activation across all screens (which includes linear and optimized TV, OTT, digital video and display, social media, mobile display and in-apps banner), "we provide the measurement at the household level, plus all of these screens for the campaign, from the exposure to the medium to how often, and then we post at the end of the campaign."

As far as privacy is concerned, Altice applies a strict and disciplined compliance approach to all its data operations and business use cases.   "Privacy is extremely important and serious to us," Haddad asserted.

Time for a "Datalution"
Giving the client full access and control over all aspects of a campaign by targeting the intent of households is something that few companies offer. Haddad shepherds his company in a new direction that is poised to change the business of advertising as we know it.  "The advertising world is broken into a fast lane of born-data companies and the slow lane of legacy processes," he said.  "The slow lane has no choice but to revolutionize the way they do business.  It's a question of time."

The clock is ticking.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com