The realization, by advertisers, that many of the views they buy in video are faked by nefarious bots is serious – but not necessarily as serious as The Wall Street Journal recently suggested, according to one ad agency exec.
“It was a little sensational,” VivaKi Audience On Demand video director Cheryl Stump says of the Journal’s recent report, which lifted the lid on how “about 36% of all web traffic is considered fake”. “If only 40% of traffic is actually measurable, what’s going on with the other 60%?,” Stump asks.
Stump wasn’t downplaying the seriousness of the issue. “You’re getting high percentage (of fraud) within the exchanges and the ad networks – that’s what we’re buying. Bot traffic in exchanges is around 20% on the video side,” she adds. “We have to take a more concerted approach to how we’re vetting that inventory. The understanding now is you have to employ some kind of third-party audit.”
We spoke with her at the Beet.TV Video Ad Fraud Leadership Summit where she was panelist.
