Articles and Research

This interview between MarTech's Sudipto Ghosh and Fraudlogix CEO, Hagai Shechter was originally published on September 11, 2017 as part of Marketing Technology Insights' Interview Series.

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us about your role and how you got here? What inspired you to be part of an online advertising fraud detection company?

Maybe you’ve heard of hijacked devices – the term is often used by security firms - and envision computers gone wildly awry with helpless users locked out and no longer in control. While this scenario plays well for cinema, the truth is that any computing device – whether it’s a cell phone, laptop, desktop, or tablet – can be hijacked without the user knowing. And once highjacked, a smartphone for instance, can contribute to the $6.5 billion yearly ad fraud problem from a back pocket.

Domain ( or URL) spoofing has been a thorn in the side of the programmatic advertising industry for years now and the common narrative usually describes it as fraudsters trying to capitalize on the domains of big-name premium publishers. However, it should be noted that domain masking reaches beyond the top echelon of high-traffic sites and the damage it causes doesn’t stop at a few lost impressions.

When it comes to ad fraud in the programmatic RTB space most narratives concentrate on the demand side and advertisers losing money to fraudsters. Not much is ever said about the efforts going on at the other end of the spectrum: the supply side. Ad fraud can be detrimental to the sell-side of the community [i.e., ad networks, exchanges, and supply-side platforms (SSPs)] -- a handful of fraudulent publishers can wreak havoc on inventory quality. But when going about cleaning it up there’s a different set of challenges. Here are the top three and how Fraudlogix addresses them:

The ad tech industry news has been inundated with reports of ad fraud and lost campaign dollars to bots and invalid traffic, to the tune of billions of dollars yearly. Surprisingly, not much discussion or focus is spent on HOW fraud is entering the ecosystem, and it should because to solve a problem you must understand the root of it.

DSP uses machine learning and strategic partnerships to help marketers avoid fraudulent impressions and clicks

As the quality of programmatic advertising has been called into question recently by some of the industry’s top buyers, we approached AcuityAds, a leading self-serve programmatic marketing platform, on how it fights ad fraud and ensures marketers' budgets are going to quality ad placements and not fraudsters' pockets.

It's common and even expected within the online advertising marketplace to employ an IP blocklist to traffic—a list of IPs that are considered high risk for generating fake impressions and clicks. Companies are given the lists and told to steer clear to prevent ad fraud. But what is the reasoning behind the list? And shouldn't a user have a bit of insight about why an IP made the list, especially if it means blocking potentially valuable impressions?

Fraudlogix is adding a popular feature to its suite of products: viewability measurement.

Transparency seems to be the mantra for ad fraud verification vendors and the value they’re bringing to the industry. However, marketers rarely ask for – and vendors rarely offer – information about why certain traffic is flagged as suspicious.