Are You a Real Reader or is This Click Fraud?

HP Enterprise39s report on quotThe Business of Hackingquot says ad fraud is the kind of online criminal activity that has the lowest risk is the easiest to do and has the highest payout 1 No wonder it is attracting attention from criminals around the worldWhite Ops an organization focused on fighting online fraud describes the situation this way quotPublishers paying handsomely for legitimate search traffic are competing against publishers paying much less for bot traffic and the tools used by most marketers cannot tell the difference Botty traffic vendors may defeat detection but they never have a credible explanation for why they are able to deliver high volumes of visitors When a publisher finds a source of traffic for 001 per visit that gets scored as viewable and 39high quality39 some might call that a gold mine We would call it a gap in bot detectionquotamp1602Click fraud is a parasite that is feeding on every single company that advertises online It has implications for ad tracking that should not be underestimatedThe necessity of effective ad trackingThere has always been a need for effective ad tracking Ad fraud just underscores how big the disconnection is between paying to get ads presented to the right people and knowing whether the ad communicated effectivelyBut classic ad effectiveness tracking was designed for the old days when people huddled around television sets and watched a handful of channels or read one of a few newspapers and magazines When advertising was about big ad buys focused on television or print ads aimed at the mass market it made sense to track recall And since the tracking was done largely by telephone interviews it was logical to track details about recall and how the ad was received and what impact it might have had because most of the cost in a telephone interview was not in the length of the survey but in finding a person willing to talk to youTimes have changed The world of mass media has long since passed away Advertising has changed forever But ad tracking has been slow in following suit That39s why we radically reinvented itRadically simple ad tracking for the digital ageWe believe in streamlined research Long questionnaires giant banks of attributes reasking question that don39t change are relics of the past No one has the time or patience to answer those surveys anymoreamp8212unless you39re aamp160botamp1603amp160 Besides our extensive research on research has shown that simple easy to answer questions produce equivalent results to complicated scales and banks of attributes and are more sensitive tooamp1604Our approach is to have a laser focus on what is essential and to abandon all unnecessary questions Forget unaided and aided message recall brand image rating and price perceptions You established all that when you pretested your creative It39s not going to change Why reask itSkip unaided awareness At best it will be a subset of aided awareness At worst it will give you misleading information on mistaken identity Regardless it is a proxy for popularity and share of mind and has very little to do with the advertisingYou can also forget repeat purchase frequency of use purchase intent and price perceptions People are terrible at selfreports of purchasing and you already have much more sensitive sales data anywaysWe recommend showing the ad and asking aided awareness and then a single thumbs up or thumbs down likedislike question You know immediately if they know and like the ad You identify ad wearout when you see thumbs up decline and thumbs down increaseThis radical simplicity enables you to test more executions of a campaign as befits a more fragmented digital world It also allows you to test an ad very inexpensively as part of an omnibus survey It likewise becomes very affordable to track more often so that you can stay on top of ad wear out Can you afford not to track your advertising in a world of ad fraudChanging times demand changing approaches Ad tracking is no exception In fact the issue of ad fraud makes it even more essential to be sure your advertising is effective Be certain your money is well spentTo learn more check out our infographicamp160Measuring Real Ad ImpactThe Business of Hacking Hewlett Packard Enterprise 2017Bot Baseline 2016 amp8211 2017 White Ops 2017The problem of fake respondents is a significant one It39s another reason we invest heavily in recruiting known respondents into a community of engaged responders To learn more about our extensive research into the problem of sample quality check out our articleamp160Is This Water Safe A Deep Dive into the Reliability and Representativeness of Survey Samples It gives a great overview and directs you to a large collection of whitepapers we have written on different essential aspects of sample quality To learn more our market communities who are made up of deeply engaged wellcurated respondents who provide intelligence on an asneeded basis click hereFor evidence see for example our whitepaperamp160Changing Times Demands Rethinking Old Approachesamp160and the articlesamp160Idea Filter Evidence of a Sensitive and Easy to Answer Approach to Ideaamp160and Concept Testing andamp160Message Filter Evidence of a Sensitive and Easy to Answer Approach to Message and Claims TestingClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Are You a Real Reader or is This Click Fraud?

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Sara Cappe

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