Ad fraud seems to consistently produce news headlines in the advertising world. Half the time it’s people claiming that the sky is falling, while the other half claim, in essence, “no big deal.” There are obvious biases to take into account, but the net result is a ton of noise.
This is unfortunate, because it’s a topic that begs for education, especially for marketers new to display advertising. So we need to keep talking about it, even if it’s uncomfortable to acknowledge.
Ad fraud is particularly important for marketers to understand. If you don’t detect and avoid fraud, it will poison all other areas of optimization: context (brand safety), viewability and performance.
