Are you tired of wasting your advertising budget on fraudulent ad clicks and impressions? Would you actually like to get your ad campaigns in front of your target audience? If so, using proxies for ad verification may be the solution you need.
Proxies are intermediate servers that provide the capability to surf the internet under a different IP address, not yours. This means that you can browse the web and view ads as if you were located in a different location, which is an important feature to see that your ads are being displayed correctly.
In this article, we'll take a look at what is ad verification and why proxies are very helpful for ad verification.
What Is Ad Verification and Why Does It Matter?
Your brand is your biggest asset. You shouldn't compromise the high standard of where and how your ad is shown, fronted by multiple malicious practices that can largely jeopardize your brand and reputation. Ad verification would include all activities carried out to ensure that your ads will appear on the right sites, within the right context, and more important, reach your targeted audience. Ad verification services are used mostly by advertisers for managing marketing campaigns effectively, overseeing content, website parameters or geographic locations. By integrating verification tags into their ad markup, advertisers can collect data about the website hosting their ads. The tags then send the information back to the advertiser or ad verification companies. Later, this information is used to analyze performance or placement and other important metrics.
Ad verification services employ various methods to track and prevent different types of ad manipulation. And because fraudulent tactics become more and more sophisticated, it's an ongoing challenge to stay ahead. So, advanced solutions are a must in this competitive landscape and this is where proxies come in handy. Common Types of Ad Fraud
Ad fraud is a general term that includes everything from simulated traffic to fraudulent clicks and impressions generated by bot accounts. Fraudsters deploy a variety of methods to create fake traffic for their sites. Some inflate their statistics and create bogus ad clicks, which are then monetized through the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising model.
These tactics evolve into newer and more imaginative forms, leaving an unwary advertiser off guard. Hence, ad verification comes as a necessary and effective practice to counter these threats.
Here are some of the most popular methods:
Dealing with Fake Traffic in Ad Campaigns
Fraudsters develop bots that mimic human behavior while browsing the internet and even interact with content by clicking on ads. Some are really advanced today, meaning it is not easy to tell them apart from a real human visitor. They are meant to pump up the traffic statistics, which, in turn, can artificially increase the cost of advertising space.
Pixel Stuffing
In essence, pixel stuffing means exactly what it is: stuffing many ads into a small 1x1 pixel space. Because of these almost invisible "ads", fraudsters gain money from the ad impressions. Worse, these ads do not need to be visibly seen by users to count as viewed impressions. Moreover, this can happen multiple times on a single webpage, compounding the fraud.
Click Injection
Click injection is a popular form of mobile ad fraud.The fraudsters infect the users' devices with malware, enabling them to simulate fake clicks on advertisements, so they can gain money from advertisers for non-existent interactions. The user remains unaware of the ads because they do not actually appear on their screen. This malware infiltrates into a user's device through malicious applications that the user gets to download without his knowledge. These apps execute in the background without the user being aware of creating ad requests and clicks. Also, Android devices are more vulnerable to this type of fraud.
Ad Click Fraud
One of the most common types of fraud is generating false clicks on PPC ads. Though sometimes these are done manually, however, it is more common to find them being done on a large scale, where numerous ad campaigns are being targeted. In the worst cases, fraudsters even run whole farms of fake accounts, making it look like your ads are being engaged with by real people. This not only inflates site revenue but also lowers conversion rates and drains advertising budgets.
Domain Spoofing
In this scenario, a fraudster disguises their site as another reputable domain, misleading advertisers into believing their ads will appear on premium sites. This can be very harmful because there's no guarantee that your ads would not end up on illegal or malware-infested sites and, worse, possibly killing the trust you've built up with your customers.
Advantages of Using Proxies for Ad Verification
As mentioned earlier, if you start using proxies for your ad monitoring strategy, you can boost your ability to detect fraudulent activity and safeguard your online presence. Below are a few major advantages for ad verification.
Increased Security: Proxies add security to your online activities since they help to hide your IP and thus secure your network from unauthorized entry. This is more important in the context of ad monitoring, since fraudulent activities can result in significant security issues. So, basically you are assured that your ad verification is both secure and shielded from potential threats.
Enhanced Precision: Proxies help you view the ads from various locations and devices, hence making your check more accurate on how your ad is displayed. This broader perspective will help you find discrepancies or inconsistencies that might be present within your advertising campaigns, so it can lead to a more accurate ad verification process.
Cost Efficiency: Using proxies will eliminate the need for physical travel to different locations for ad verification. This saves your time and, for those managing a big volume of ads, it saves you money too. In addition, proxies make it possible to reduce human resources for ad monitoring because the process can be automated with proxy servers.
What Is The Best Type Of Proxy to Detect Ad Fraud?
The best way to fight ad fraud is by using technology that emulates real users on the web. Ad fraudsters block IP addresses anytime they know there is an ad verification service in place. Residential proxy servers help identify and solve challenges that prevent the proper presentation of ads to the intended audience. However, there are various types of proxies, but a residential and a datacenter proxy remain the most basic types. Although datacenter proxies are useful in many scenarios, they are less effective in ad verification. Residential proxies, on the other hand, offer significant advantages because of their origin.
Simply put, residential proxies are sourced directly from the actual Internet Service Providers (or ISPs) with real IP addresses akin to those used by common internet users. Very similar to real users, therefore, you are not easily detectable by fraudsters.
On the contrary, datacenter proxies come from corporate networks, cloud services, etc. They do not relate to ISPs and thus have IP addresses which do not reflect real users' locations. For that, they become easier to detect, which is a huge disadvantage in ad verification. This difference shows very clearly why residential proxies are the best option for an effective ad fraud detection and prevention. Conclusion
Online advertising fraud is an ever-evolving threat. From ad manipulation and draining marketing budgets to generating fraudulent traffic and skewing statistics, there are always entities ready to exploit unwary advertisers. Luckily, if you use residential proxies for ad verification, you can ensure that your marketing campaigns run smoothly, reach the intended audience and keep your brand reputation secure.
