The latest Juniper Research report on ad fraud, covered by e4m recently, has alarmed the Indian advertising sector. The report has projected that nearly a third of mobile marketing dollars and 22 per cent of total digital ad dollars ($84 billion) will go to ad fraud this year globally.

The report also predicts that India is set to lose three per cent of its digital ad spend to frauds by 2028. The findings have come at a time when nearly 45 per cent of ad spend in the country has shifted to digital advertising, significantly increasing the scope and possibilities of ad fraud.

“Ad frauds put a setback to our carefully structured ad campaigns, so much so that it cost $84 billion to the global advertising market in 2023. However, we can find little respite in the fact that the projections for this year were $100 billion,” says Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO, Grapes.

Not just websites, social media or connected TV, and even newer platforms like podcast-audio is not safe from cybercrime attacks. As per DoubleVerify, audio fraud has cost marketers up to $1 million per month, or about $20 million over the past few years.

“Ad fraud is increasingly becoming sophisticated with the advancement in ML/AI. The quantum of fraud is also up given the intense competition today both among brands and publishers,” says Jyothirmoyee JT, Founder, CEO at HiveMinds (a unit of Madison World).

‘Grading of ad placements’

As a countermeasure, Jyothirmoyee suggests a gradation system for ad placement based on relevance. “A much more effective method is to grade placements by relevance and noise and accordingly finetune budgets. TV also had noise and a certain percentage of unrelated audience but we look for the base which is of interest. In the same way digital might have to bake in noise. It is unfortunate, as digital was meant to be precise targeting,” said the entrepreneur.

According to Jyothirmoyee, while the big ad networks invest heavily in fraud detection, it is no longer sufficient and possibly even complex. A self-correcting mode is the drop in rates on such properties but then that was the very basis for click farms and other organized fraud.

‘Be careful during big events’

The lack of transparency, the absence of government norms, the vastness of the digital landscape and the sheer volume of advertisements make it highly challenging to identify and prevent every instance of ad fraud, industry leaders say.

The frauds usually go up during high-profile media events such as the IPL and the World Cup when brands spend significant money on advertising to boost customer acquisition, industry executives and marketers say. 

‘Tech giants must act swiftly’

Google and Facebook, who command over 70 per cent of digital ad spends globally, claim to invest a lot to address the issue.

As per a Google blog, “Our dedicated Ad Traffic Quality Team uses live reviewers, automatic filters, machine learning, and deep research to detect and filter as much invalid and fraudulent activity as possible… Our automated detection systems use machine learning and complex algorithms to protect our partners and keep our ad platforms clean… We also manually review suspected cases of invalid activity that may not have been detected by our automated systems.”

Meta, in collaboration with IAS, also rolled out ad measurement tools for viewability and invalid traffic measurement on Facebook and Instagram Reels.

Yet, marketers and digital agencies feel the tech giants should do more to protect them from any potential financial losses due to invalid traffic.  

“Tech giants should act more swiftly and do a lot more to safeguard the interests of brands and their investments”, Jyothirmoyee said, adding, “Digital is mainstream today with greater than 40% investments as industry average. Poor impact or outcome in terms of funnel numbers are not only discouraging brands from investments but also influencing bigger decisions in terms of consumer cohorts, interests and more.”

‘Multi-thronged approach needed’

Agarwal suggests that incorporating Digital OOH in ad strategies can help curb ad frauds as the medium boasts of minimum possibility of fraud. She also hopes that AI might have complicated the issue, but it can also offer solutions to combat the issue.

Nimesh Shah, Head Maven – Windchimes Communications, bets on a multi-thronged approach to deal with the complex issue.

“Given the sheer scale of the fraud, such frauds can be tackled only with the help of multiple technologies merged together. Largely I see a mix of Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain being used together,” Shah said.

“While ML will help in pattern recognition and prediction and assist in irrational numbers and analyse any new advertising dataset with original non-fraudulent advertising data to highlight anomalies, Blockchain will be the repository of all the clean datasets and patterns to protect against any fudging of authentic data,” he noted.

He added, “Artificial Intelligence will help in understanding user behaviour. It can help differentiate genuine user clicks and interactions on websites and apps from fake ones. It can also check if the ad has appeared at the correct location of the specified website or app, or if the ad is appearing on the correct website to counter any duplicity or fraudulence further. The advantage of such a tool would be that it will check all the data in real-time for timely action.”

“Blockchain will be the repository of all the clean datasets and patterns to protect against any fudging of authentic data,” Shah says.

The evolving nature of fraud demands continuous adaptation. Ongoing vigilance, collaboration, and innovation remain essential to effectively mitigate ad fraud in the digital advertising landscape, says Pramod Maloo, founder of Creative Machinez. 

Experts also insist that promoting industry collaboration, ensuring transparency through blockchain, and advocating for stricter regulations are vital steps and vigilant monitoring can play crucial roles in safeguarding the digital advertising ecosystem.

Shah suggests the formation of an “Ad Council” to build and implement tools to ensure standardization and parity across multiple publishing sites. This will build confidence in marketing teams and give them an accurate picture of their spending and its impact on their revenues, he says