Anti Ad-Fraud

The Leadership Position

Digital advertising should be viewable by humans, served in an appropriate editorial environment, and respectful of user experience and privacy. We recommend taking the strongest possible measures to ensure this is the case, including detecting and tackling new areas of fraud.

“[Brands and their agencies are strongly recommended to] Obligate transparency. Require ad tech companies to adopt transparency standards that enable end-to-end validation of the advertising tech supply chain, and share full advertising campaign data with clients and researchers including placement and blocking data at the log level”

United Nations Global Principles For Information Integrity, 2024

The Commercial Impact

Ad fraud costs our industry billions, threatening both performance and reputation. Forbes reports $84 billion lost to fraud in 2023, projected to rise to $172 billion by 2028. This opaque ecosystem, further complicated by AI, represents organised crime’s second-largest revenue source after drugs. As advertising professionals, we strongly recommend you take responsibility for minimising fraud and demanding transparency across our trading relationships.

• According to The Association of National Advertising only 36 cents of every programmatic dollar effectively reaches consumers. 
• Fraud undermines quality journalism by forcing competition with fraudulent actors and Made For Advertising (MFA) sites. 

Taking Action: Four Essential Steps 

This Guide is designed to be used alongside the CAN Guiding Principles. Please complete the Principles before implementing Guides.

1. Embed Anti-Fraud Initiatives

• Educate teams on traffic, measurement, and vanity fraud types.
  • • See the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe “Guide to Ad Fraud.”

• Set campaign objectives focused on real Return On Investment (ROI) metrics that fraudsters struggle to falsify.

2. Use Anti-Fraud Vendors That Show Their Work

• Require transparent data access and ask them to explain how their technologies function.
  • • Ensure they comply with industry best practice verification such as the IAB Gold Standard.

• Conduct independent campaign audits with real-time fraud tracking, for example using Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG)’s invalid traffic taxonomy.

• Monitor complete supply rather than sampling.

• Work with platforms to filter fraud at pre-bid level.

3. Vet Media Partners

• Keep supply chains short with certified partners.

• Implement strong inclusion/exclusion lists in line with the CAN Guiding Principles.
• Ensure that your media and brand teams know where and on how many websites your ads are appearing on, and audit this every 6 months.

• Verify publisher credentials through “Know Your Customer” processes.

• Establish comprehensive vetting examining historical fraud patterns.

• Where possible, seek Open Measurement (OM) Software Development Kit (SDK) certification for viewability measurement.
• Implement technical prevention using ads.txt, App-Ads.txt, Ads.cert, Sellers.json, and SupplyChain Object.

• Maintain an internal high-risk domain list based on industry resources such as the infringing website list (IWL) and TAG’s Data Centre IP List (DCIP), IP infringing domains (Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit [PIPCU] & World Intellectual Property Organization [WIPO]), known fraudulent domains.

4. Communicate Progress and Push for Improvement

• Share identified fraud with trade bodies and platforms.

• Include contractual penalties for fraud-impacted campaigns.

• Require rebates for fraudulent traffic.

• Train staff in best practices and consider joining local anti-fraud initiatives such as the UK Stop Ad Funded Crime (UKSAFC)