back to article FYI: Web ad fraud looks really bad. Like, really, really bad. Bigly bad

John Wanamaker, an American department store merchant who died almost a century ago, is noted for saying: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." For those buying online ads, it might just be both halves, due to fraud. "It's about 60 to 100 per cent fraud, with an average of …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    See also: autoplaying videos, automatically looping videos, allowing other people's videos to be shamelessly ripped off and reposted

    I wonder who it was who suddenly solved their mobile advertising income problem when they started doing that...

  2. The Nazz

    In the UK at least ....

    isn't Fraud a criminal offence?

    Let the convictions roll apace.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In the UK at least ....

      If only.......

  3. ashdav

    And we're asked not to use adblockers.....

    Upvoted OP for autoplaying videos.

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      This has nothing to do with ad blockers. It's about ad networks "serving" adverts to automated bots, in order to collect the display fee. The advertiser pays for the ad, the broker (usually Google) gets its fee, the bot operator gets an income for "showing" it... but nobody ever sees it.

      It's fraud, but you'll notice that a. the company uniquely placed to turn off the flow of ads to these bot networks doesn't do so, and b. that company gets its cut regardless.

      1. cbars Bronze badge

        Well.... El Reg's claim of "millions of people who view the ads on our site" is pretty fantastic given that a greater proportion of people viewing this site will be using ad-blockers than in the general web-populace.

        It's a bit to do with ad-blockers, because if all the normies are blocking them, then you tend towards 100% bots ;)

        I'd say most people only block the annoying ones, of course. For now. I'm quite happy for El Reg et al to serve a couple of non-intrusive ads per article

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Holmes

          Even when I see ads, I don't SEE them. They are just an annoyance to flip past.

          1. Charles 9

            That's why ads keep getting more ostentatious. It's been a known phenomenon since World War II that people become inured to ads. Why do you think static banner ads fell out of favor?

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              "Why do you think static banner ads fell out of favor?"

              Because they didn't piss of enough potential customers. This, of course, wouldn't have been how the ad industry represented it to their clients.

            2. Tikimon

              Static ads fell out of favor as soon as some dubious web technology allowed the ads to jump around and scream at the viewer. Hey, a flashing loud ad gets more attention, right? That they annoy the living shite out of everyone who see them is something the ad-slingers ignore.

            3. Bluto Nash

              ...and I never could punch that goddamn monkey.

        2. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Devil

          /me points out that an ad blocker probably won't block an ad that has these charateristics:

          a) it's just a click-on-image-link to something

          b) it's not scripted

          c) it's not animated

          d) it's not part of a frame, it just appears someplace on the page.

          old-style banner ads, in other words. no need to go nuts with the stupid-script and the in-your-face animations. we've learned to tune it out and block it with software.

          1. fobobob

            I'm radically less likely to block it if it's hosted on the site's own domain(s). Ad networks have too many issues with advertisers slipping in fishy stuff. Of course, they don't do this, because they need their precious analytics for determining how many "impressions" they've made.

  4. steelpillow Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Why am I not surprised?

    Title to this post says it all, really.

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Why am I not surprised?

      I find it hard to sympathise at all with the advertisers.

      1. depicus
        Unhappy

        Re: Why am I not surprised?

        Except you and I are ultimately paying for this fraud.

        1. steelpillow Silver badge

          Re: Why am I not surprised?

          @depicus. Not if we don't see the ads so we never buy the product :)

          1. Chemist

            Re: Why am I not surprised?

            "Not if we don't see the ads so we never buy the product"

            If I see the ads I really (really ^10 * ) am unlikely to buy the product . (YMMV)

            * I will go out of my way NOT buy

            1. Notas Badoff

              Re: Why am I not surprised?

              I noticed that today. Annoyed at one ad, I waited through multiple slide-ins, color changes, and text flashing and what all, just to finally see at the end who was foisting the travesty in my face. No, I will not fly your airline, characterized as it is by "clear ad turbulence"

            2. d3vy

              Re: Why am I not surprised?

              Part of the price of every products rice is advertising,so see the ad or not, we are all being affected.. if it costs companies 10x more to advertise do you think they take that hit on profits.. or pass it on to the consumers?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Why am I not surprised?

                Part of the price of every products rice is advertising,so see the ad or not, we are all being affected

                Yes, but you have some choice to buy products from intensive advertisers, or from minimal advertisers. Take groceries - you could shop at Aldi (who a fairly modest amount of advertising compared to their sales), or you could shop at Tesco or Asda, both of whom are big advertisers in their own right, but then around half Tesco and Asda's sales are brand items, each backed by intensive brand advertising.

              2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: Why am I not surprised?

                "if it costs companies 10x more to advertise do you think they take that hit on profits.. or pass it on to the consumers?"

                And then they find they're competing on price with vendors who don't waste the customers' money with advertising.

              3. Alan Brown Silver badge

                Re: Why am I not surprised?

                "if it costs companies 10x more to advertise do you think they take that hit on profits.. or pass it on to the consumers?"

                And if we don't buy products from that company?

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Why am I not surprised?

                  Shall we

                  a. Read the comment in the context of the article/original comment

                  b. Make up our own narrative and try to relate the comment to that, get annoyed and start commenting about something that literally no one meant.

                  Nice to see everyone opting for option b.

            3. Jonathan 27

              Yeah...

              Quality products very rarely have annoying web ads. So if the ad is annoying you can be sure the product is a pile of crap you shouldn't buy so you're not missing out on anything.

  5. K

    "Except at quality titles like El Reg.."

    As they don't display ads.. at least not in my browser!

  6. anothercynic Silver badge

    Now...

    ... If only you could sort out the ads that force me to my mobile OS app store.

  7. Adam 52 Silver badge

    "Speaking of readership, it's up 24.5 per cent for the year to date versus the year-ago period."

    Use of private browsing mode and cookie cleaners on the increase then?!

    I suspect your ads sales team would rather you push quality over quantity, otherwise it's a race to the bottom and the Daily Mail Online is way ahead of you there.

  8. Palpy

    I think most of us realize that internet ads are bollocks.

    BigCo buys online advertising to sell its product, SpecialStuff.

    Googazon sells ads to BigCo, and makes much money.

    SiteOwner leases ad space on his page, and makes a little money from Googazon.

    BotBuilder makes crawler-clickers that never read or buy anything, rendering paid-for ads useless. But also making the ads more lucrative for somebody.

    ShillBlogger writes, "Don't use an adblocker! Ads make the free internet possible!"

    AdViewer is a human who hates ads, and loathes BigCo, Googazon, and SiteOwner for putting ads in his face. He will never buy SpecialStuff. He is building something large and dangerous in his basement. He has cracked at last.

    Who is getting ripped off? And by whom? Who is lying? What is AdViewer making? Yes, what's he building in there? Tom Waits wants to know.

    (Of course the YouTube video linked above starts with an ad.)

    ((And actually, yes, El Reg ads are pretty tame compared to many. Thanks for that.))

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      And if 90% of online ads are fraud

      Then doesn't that make Google 90% fraud?

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: And if 90% of online ads are fraud

        "Then doesn't that make Google 90% fraud?"

        Once upon there was a company named Doubleclick - which managed to piss a lot of people off and wasn't doing very well.

        Then when they were in financial trouble/about to go bankrupt, Google bought them.

        The execs who were driving Doubleclick are now in the driving seat at Google.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: I think most of us realize that internet ads are bollocks.

      "BigCo buys online advertising to sell its product, SpecialStuff.

      Googazon sells ads to BigCo, and makes much money."

      I think you've missed out several steps here. Somewhere in there is an ad agency selling to BigCo. They then place the ads with a chain of several businesses before it gets to your Googazon, each taking their cut.

      It's one of those that's in cahoots with your BotBuilder to increase the number of cuts they get. Of course it's in the interests of all the others in the chain to make sure this doesn't happen - or is it?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wonder what % of adverts are fraudulent?

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Fraudulent or just full of lies?

      I still cringe at the memory of an IBM(?) advert that was heavily lying that, somehow, magically, NFC tags would allow you to know that a truck was on a certain road in the middle of the desert.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "I still cringe at the memory of an IBM(?) advert that was heavily lying that, somehow, magically, NFC tags would allow you to know that a truck was on a certain road in the middle of the desert."

        I still cringe that we had a sales guy at the time who believed it.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Advertising is often overhyped...

    Sure, if you got a new product and need to draw some kind of attention to it then advertising might work a bit. Of course in this day and age what's even better is to make sure that your product is well known within the "incrowd" and gets at least some mentioning and/or attention. This way people who are looking for "Product X" will also come across your brand.

    Yet most advertisings are for already established products and quite frankly.. Overrated, overhyped and annoying too from a spectators point of view.

    Several years ago Unilever (a huge food concern in Holland) considered to cancel one of their brands called "Zeeuws Meisje". In order to facilitate this they decided not to put any funding at all into marketing, assuming that this would eventually divert public attention after which they could can it.

    Yet 6 months later, much to their surprise, sales figures had gone up instead of down. With no advertisement at all....

    1. jMcPhee

      Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

      So much wasted energy, effort, and resources go into advertising. There's little value addition, and less social good. We are all glad El Reg can get a cut of this. But, it seems like such sad loss. Sorry. Adverts are the crack pipes of internet economics.

      1. Ole Juul

        Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

        The thing is that advertisers are held hostage. Although there is little gain, none of them dare stop. They'd all have to stop at once.

    2. veti Silver badge

      Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

      Believe it or not, the people who spend billions of dollars a year advertising things that we already all know about - have, actually, thought about this. They have access to a damn' sight better data than your gut instincts, or mine, or even their own. They even have all the tools at their disposal to conduct their own trials, if they feel so inclined.

      And it turns out that advertising does work, one unsourced anecdote notwithstanding.

      1. Bronek Kozicki

        Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

        @veti - you forget survivor bias. These people tend to forget failures, because their future money does not depend on them. Instead, their money depends on optimistic outlook into future ad campaigns. Unless the money tap is closed, they learn nothing as there is no incentive to do so.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

        "They have access to a damn' sight better data than your gut instincts, or mine, or even their own."

        And what data do they have on the reaction so commonly expressed here: that after being subjected to obnoxious advertising the potential customer will go elsewhere? They can show net effects of advertising but I doubt they'd even dare go looking for the negative effects.

    3. a_yank_lurker

      Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

      Wannamaker's Dictum is always true. Advertising is a 'damned if you and damned if don't' situation. Consumers and users need to be aware of the existence of a product or brand but there is a point of diminishing returns; the brand is so well established that advertising is a waste of time or money. A couple of US brands come to mind that are minimally advertised: Duncan Hines and Oreo cookies. But a new product needs to attract attention but how one does this is important. Too often the wrong placement is used.

      1. samzeman

        Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

        Oreos have the most annoying ads in the UK. They're so sweet and twee, and it's super obvious they just want you to pay attention and buy Oreos. I suppose it makes me bitter to dislike it just because of its sweetness.

      2. Jtom

        Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

        "A new product needs to attract attention." That reminds of the dawn of the Internet. AT&T had come out with their version of a specific telecommunications platform (Service Control Point). They called it the "Advantage". It was impossible to do a search on their site to find the product (this was before Excite or other general web search engines). Any possible term you could come up with (AT&T, Advantage, service, control, point, platform, telecommunications, etc) were in the descriptions of all their telecom products, advertising, news release, etc. Always use a unique name for a product!

    4. rmason

      Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

      Agree with this wholeheartedly.

      This was in fact our pub topic of conversation just a couple of weeks back. They are all stealing a living. We kept using McDonalds and Coca Cola. What do you honestly think would happen to the sales of someone like coca cola or Maccies if they just stopped advertising? They must spend mega-millions or billions a year.

      to randomly pick a number, that is probably way too low, lets say they spend 100m a year on advertising, do you think they would sell 100m less product if they didn't advertise? Or that sales would stop growing? It would be a brave exec who suggests it, but I think it would work.

      This doesn't work if you're trying to launch something new of course, but lets just imagine a world without coca cola ads, or mcdonalds ads. Do you think their sales would suffer?

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

        "lets just imagine a world without coca cola ads, or mcdonalds ads."

        No problem.

      2. Just Enough

        Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

        "What do you honestly think would happen to the sales of someone like coca cola or Maccies if they just stopped advertising? "

        Advertising is as much about crowding out the competition as it is about sales. If Coke just stopped advertising they'd effectively be giving Pepsi a free pass to nibble away at their markets. They wouldn't immediately stop selling, but with 10 years people would be saying "Whatever happened to Coke, they used to be everywhere? Can I have a Pepsi please?"

        1. Bronek Kozicki

          Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

          @Just Enough you make a good point, but I think this does not apply to internet ads.

      3. Michael Thibault

        Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

        "lets say they spend 100m a year on advertising, do you think they would sell 100m less product if they didn't advertise?"

        Conversely, let's say you don't spent anything on advertising, but decide, at one point, to spend $1m on advertising in the next FY. The only thing* that would make doing so worthwhile is an increase in sales large enough to return profits at least as large as the expenditures on advertising. Not sales -- profit. Otherwise, you're throwing money away.

        An alternative to advertising: instead of the 'spend' aggravating societal noise with inane ads of all kinds in various contexts, pay your staff/employees more, tell them that you're doing so with what would otherwise be the advertising budget, and tell them why -- namely that you are hoping to encourage them to invest, in some sense, in some way, in the success of your business.

        * Well, not exactly the only thing; this is shooting from the hip after all.

    5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Advertising is often overhyped...

      This isn't surprising. It's an industry that specialises in hype and only sells one product: advertising.

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