How marketers can protect their online ad dollars from fraud

This article was first published by MarketingProfs

COVID-19 has turned B2B marketing strategies outside-in. It has paused the conferences, events, and tradeshows that expand reach, putting increased focus and importance on digital advertising.

As more businesses increase their digital advertising efforts, fraudsters, scammers, and bots lie in wait. Some marketers are aware of the looming threat: If you run online advertising without proactive fraud prevention, you’re almost guaranteed to fall victim to bad actors who are intent on taking your marketing dollars for themselves.

Whether you’ve been advertising online for years or you are just now wading into the world of digital marketing, telltale signs of ad fraud can be spotted despite COVID-19’s chaos, at a time when every business process is under the microscope.

Identifying those signs can point out large chunks of ad spend that is being eaten up by fraudulent activity.

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Recognizing the Signs of Ad Fraud

It’s estimated that advertisers lost $44 million to fraudulent traffic in 2018—per day.

Unfortunately, fraud is ever-present and pervasive: The biggest indicator that you might be losing money to ad fraud is simply that you are advertising online.

There is rarely a red flag or a warning sign pointing to the presence of ad fraud because of how widespread it truly is. In all likelihood, fraudulent activity has skewed your campaigns’ metrics and baselines for KPIs for so long that it’s impossible to determine what “normal” really is.

Now, when many of your other marketing levers, such as events and tradeshows, are unavailable, it is more important than ever to make sure your digital spend is performing. By stopping ad fraud and invalid traffic, marketers have the opportunity to activate up to 30% of their budgets that were previously being wasted on ad fraud.

That gives your budget a bonus allowing your campaigns to reach more people, all while avoiding asking your execs for a budget increase.

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Indicators to Keep an Eye On

Within your marketing metrics, the following are the indicators to look for when trying to tamp down fraud and maximize your ad spend. Continue reading.

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