Is the Online Ad Industry Cleaning Up Its Act?

The online advertising industry is in clean-up mode. Marketers are annoyed that many of their ads never have a chance to be seen and that fraudsters are siphoning off dollars from their ad budgets. In response, the industry has developed technologies and processes to help address viewability and fraud issues, and claims the situation is improving. But is it? There’s evidence to suggest not yet.

According to a recent report from online measurement firm comScore, for example, an estimated 54 percent of all online ad impressions served during the third quarter of 2014 were not viewable -- meaning they were placed on parts of webpages that didn’t actually appear on users’ screens. That’s exactly same portion of ads comScore measured as non-viewable during the third quarter of 2013. That’s strange considering many publishers say they’re now actively reworking their websites and properties to ensure their ads can be seen. So why the stagnation? According to comScore, progress in viewability is being negated by the continued growth of ad fraud. Industry analysts estimate marketers waste millions of dollars a year buying Internet ads that aren’t delivered to real humans, but rather to hijacked computers known as “bots.” Ad execs say they’ve observed a similar trend over the past two years. The industry has made a lot of noise about fixing its fraud problem but not much has actually happened, they say. Some industry executives suggest that even marketers have come to terms with the fact that large portions of their online ad budgets might be wasted because the medium is still cost-effective compared to more expensive ones such as TV. If marketers aren’t calling for the problem to be fixed and holding back their ad dollars, then players in the supply chain may have little incentive to address it.