Simple things that ad ops pros can do right away to optimize the business outcomes of their programmatic campaigns -- and ensure less ad dollars are wasted due to ad fraud (bots)

1. Five Pro Tips for Optimizing
Programmatic Campaigns
July 2016
Augustine Fou, PhD.
acfou @ mktsci.com
212.. 203 ..7239

2. July 2016 / Page 1marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Minimize ad spend between 1am - 5am
Humans visit websites mostly during waking hours
1a – 5a
Stacked percent
Blue (human)
Red (bots)

3. July 2016 / Page 2marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Focus ad spend on weekdays, lower on weekends
Humans visit websites mostly on weekdays, lower on weekends
5 weekdays
2 weekend 2 weekend
5 weekdays 5 weekdays

4. July 2016 / Page 3marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Blacklist (exclude) referral sources w/ 100% bounce
Visitors arriving from these sources won’t do any good for you anyway

5. July 2016 / Page 4marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Exclude sites and apps with >20% click-through rate
CTRs for display are around 0.1%; around 1% for search; >20% is absurd
.xyz domains that
very humans would
ever find
bad-acting mobile
apps that have
absurd CTRs and are
not on-brand anyway

6. July 2016 / Page 5marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Block IP address ranges from data centers
Humans don’t access the internet through data centers – like AWS
“Visitors from data centers are? You guessed it – bots!”

7. If we don’t do these….

8. July 2016 / Page 7marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Fraud continues upward as digital ad spend goes up
Digital ad fraud
Digital ad spend
Source: IAB 2015 FY Report
$ billions
E
High / Low Estimates

9. July 2016 / Page 8marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Any device with internet can be used as a bot
Traffic cameras
turned into
botnet (Engadget,
Oct 2015)
mobile devices
webcams
connected
traffic lights
connected cars
thermostat
connected fridge
Security cams
used as 400
Gbps DDoS
botnet (Engadget,
Jun 2016)

10. July 2016 / Page 9marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
Ad fraud is a “double-whammy” for advertisers
Messed Up AnalyticsWasted Ad Dollars
Ad shown to bots
are wasted
Fake traffic, impressions,
clicks are all recorded by
analytics

11. July 2016 / Page 10marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Ad fraud is a “QUAD-whammy” for good publishers
2. “Bottom line”
profitability squeezed
1. “Top line” ad
revenue stolen
4. Reputations ruined by
bad guys covering tracks
3. Ad blockers further
reduce ad revenue

12. July 2016 / Page 11marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Huge difference in quality (bots vs humans)
Ad Networks
Publishers

13. July 2016 / Page 12marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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End of month traffic and impressions fulfillment
Traffic surge
Impressions surge
volume bars (green)
Stacked percent
Blue (human)
Red (bots)
red vs blue trendlines

14. July 2016 / Page 13marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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What real traffic surges look like (humans)
Traffic surgesvolume bars (green)
Stacked percent
Blue (human)
Red (bots)
red v blue trendlines

15. July 2016 / Page 14marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
About the Author

16. July 2016 / Page 15marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Dr. Augustine Fou – Recognized Expert on Ad Fraud
2013
2014
2015
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS / PANELS
4A’s Webinar on Ad Fraud
AdCouncil Webinar on Ad Fraud
TelX Marketplace Live
ARF Audience Measurement / ReThink
IAB Webinar on Ad Fraud / Botnets
AdMonsters Publishers Forum / OPS

17. July 2016 / Page 16marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
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.