HUMAN’s Satori Threat Intelligence Team began noticing that apps that don’t offer advertising were generating an abundance of IVT traffic. Concerned, they began studying the traffic source and, in the process, discovered a massive mobile malvertising scheme that used highly sophisticated tactics.

They named the scheme Konfety, which means “candy” in Russian, in a nod to CaramelAds, the Russian mobile advertising SDK that the threat actors managed to abuse. Konfety is a massive fraud perpetrated against DSPs and advertising networks, and at its peak, Konfety-related programmatic bids reached 10 billion requests per day.

To learn more about the threat, AdMonsters talked with Lindsay Kaye, VP of Threat Intelligence at HUMAN, who was instrumental in uncovering Konfety. For a complete discussion, see the HUMAN Satori Threat Alert: Konfety Spreads “Evil Twin” Apps for Multiple Fraud Schemes.

Susie Stulz: Konfety uses several new mechanisms in malvertising. This scheme uses decoy apps and evil twins. Can you provide an overview of the scheme and how it worked?

Lindsay Kaye: Sure. The threat actors created about 250 decoy Android application package files — or APK apps — which they uploaded to the Google Play Store. These apps don’t provide any sort of fraud when we download and execute them. 

And yet, in the real world, we saw a lot of IVT coming from those apps, so we started investigating. We found that APK apps in the Play Store are decoys and they provide something really important to the threat actors, which is the legitimate identifiers of Google Play Store Apps.

After a lot of research we discovered the presence of evil twins to those decoy apps. Those evil twins are not distributed in the Play Store, they spread through malvertising, and they are the apps responsible for the ad fraud. 

SS: So, the evil twin apps offered “inventory” in the programmatic markets 10 billion times per day?

LK: Yes, and at first glance, it looks like the fraudulent traffic comes from these decoy apps because both the evil twins and the decoy apps use the same Google identifiers. We believe threat actors have developed a new and very sophisticated technique to host malicious apps outside of the Play Store.

SS: Is that what tipped you off that a unique type of malvertising was at work?

LK: We saw no ad fraud stemming from the decoy apps we downloaded from the Play Store itself. In fact, those apps do not show ads, even if they technically can support advertising. However, when we looked at third-party repositories, like VirusTotal and some others, we noticed that there were two APKs with the same name. To dig deeper, we looked at the hashes and saw they were different.

SS: What do you mean by hashes?

LK: Hashes are unique identifiers which are generated when a developer applies a hash function to a file’s contents. They act as digital fingerprints, so that when there are changes to a file, a new hash will be generated. Comparing hashes allows us to determine if two files with the same name are identical or different.

SS: So, were the different hashes the first clue?

LK: Yes, that was the first tip, and we began investigating from there. We thought this was interesting: two APKs with the same name but different hashes. 

But the two APKs themselves were also really different; they weren’t even pretending to be the same app. The decoy APK in the Google Play store may be a car racing app, but its evil twin wasn’t. It was just stealing the legitimate Google identifiers of the decoy to commit ad fraud.

SS: How often were the decoy apps downloaded?

LK: Not very often; they averaged 10,000 downloads per app, which is nothing in the app world. This is one of the things that stood out to us: Apps with a small number of installs were generating a huge amount of IVT. 

SS: Is the CaramelAds SDK inherently fraudulent?

LK: SDK has some vulnerabilities that allow threat actors to abuse it. If you’re looking for an SDK to monetize your mobile app, I suggest looking elsewhere until those vulnerabilities are fixed.

SS: At present, HUMAN has observed ad fraud only stemming from Konfety, but haven’t you noticed other things getting loaded on the user devices, such as a search tool and intent signals? What are the purposes of these things?

LK: To date, we have only observed ad fraud, but in the report, we describe other things, like intent filters, that were loaded onto the devices. These are links that pretend to open other applications, such as Zoom or TikTok. Certainly, those intent links can be used for other frauds that target the user, such as credential stealing or pushing other kinds of malware onto the device. We just didn’t observe that kind of activity to date.

Obviously, this is an ongoing threat, and one that we expect will evolve and we will continue to monitor.

SS: What advice do you have for AdOps teams so they can avoid the Konfety threat?

LK: The most important thing AdOps teams can do is to use an IVT monitoring tool or platform. Obviously, HUMAN offers one, but there are others. Campaigns like Konfety show that the threat actors are getting more sophisticated, making their threats very difficult to detect.

Uncovering the evil twins required an extremely complex investigation that AdOps teams might not have the time or skillset to conduct on their own.

The second thing I’d recommend is for AdOps teams to look at their past traffic. Do you see a lot of ads served to apps that have a small number of downloads? If yes, you might want to investigate it and share your findings with your partners. Sharing insights makes the industry safer.

As I said earlier, avoid using CaramelAds until they’ve fixed its vulnerabilities. 

SS: The challenge, I think, is that fraudsters are often copycats. They see threat actors succeed with one tactic, in this case, decoys and evil twins, and they create their version of it. Does this mean evil twins in malvertising will be with us for a while?

LK: That’s likely, so AdOps teams must choose their SDKs wisely and work with only reputable companies. However, even then, threat actors may find new vulnerabilities to exploit, so monitoring IVT regularly is critical.

Cybersecurity has always been a game of cat and mouse, and Konfety is a great example of this. Threat actors were getting kicked out of the Play Store, so they found a way to commit fraud outside the official app stores.

SS: Final question: the report offers a great deal of technical descriptions, sample code, the domain names, the names of the decoy apps and so on. Where can readers access that report?

LK: It’s available online, at: https://www.humansecurity.com/learn/blog/satori-threat-intelligence-alert-konfety-spreads-evil-twin-apps-for-multiple-fraud-schemes

The post HUMAN’s Satori Team Uncovers Konfety Fraud Operation With New Malvertising Tactics appeared first on AdMonsters.

As the holiday season draws near, delving into this market becomes all the more crucial. Josh Qualy, VP of Digital Turbine’s East Coast brand business in the U.S., presents compelling research underscoring the significant disparity in holiday ad frequency between in-mobile gaming (13.6%) and more conventional channels like T.V. (29.6%) and social media (17.1%).

According to their research, mobile gaming captures consumer attention and surpasses the time spent on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. Despite these compelling statistics, U.S. advertisers significantly trail the rest of the world in investments in mobile game ads, ranking eighth out of the top 10 global markets. 

We spoke with Josh Qualy to understand these data points and explored how advertisers and publishers can win the attention game. 

Andrew Byrd: Why is attention so critical in digital media?

Josh Qualy: Attention matters because, simply put, viewability doesn’t mean viewed. Without a better metric, advertisers will continue to invest in costly channels and campaigns with little or no ROI. 

Attention has proven to be 6x better than viewability in predicting brand recall. With screens jammed with content, users are used to scrolling past or skipping things with just a passing glance. Advertisers must measure attention over viewability to get a better indication of campaign success.  

AB: Why do you believe U.S. brand marketers are not fully capitalizing on the abundant attention available in online gaming channels?

J.Q.: First, I see U.S. brand marketers catching up in 2024. Right now, brand advertisers are still navigating new privacy regulations and changes in consumer behavior. These influences have forced advertisers to rethink and re-evaluate their campaign strategies. 

Chief among those has been the understanding of the shift from viewability to attention. With them now armed to take advantage of these insights, 2024 is where they put these learnings into practice – seeking to find formats that maximize attention, which will include in-game advertising. 

AB: Could you elaborate on the ad frequency data for in-mobile gaming compared to T.V. and social media and what implications this might have for publishers and advertisers as the holiday season approaches?

J.Q.: The holiday season is make or break for advertisers. Optimizing ROAS is complex, but one factor is undoubtedly advertising share of voice. Compared to media channels such as TV and social media, the data show that U.S. consumers do not see brand ads nearly as often in mobile games. There’s less competition and more opportunity to achieve a greater share of voices and drive higher ROAS. 

In contrast, in other countries like India, Brazil, Mexico, and China, the data show that advertisers are already taking advantage of the growing in-game opportunity and are likely driving a greater share of voice and ROAS. 

This gives U.S. advertisers an advantage this holiday season since they can place their relevant ads in mobile game environments that will be less cluttered. And let’s face it: Advertisers always blitz consumers with holiday campaigns. Finding an environment where your ad can easily reach eyeballs can make all the difference.

Attention is still a new concept. And it's still something advertisers are learning to measure, understand, and harness in their campaigns

AB: The statistics indicate that mobile gaming surpasses Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram regarding the time consumers spend playing. Why do you think U.S. advertisers are not investing as much in mobile game ads despite this significant attention?

J.Q.: Attention is still a new concept. And it’s still something advertisers are learning to measure, understand, and harness in their campaigns. Taking a step back, the advertisers currently investing in mobile games are performance advertisers. They are taking advantage of the opportunity because they are more in tune with the metrics of success that games offer. Brand advertisers are just later to the party. The same trend happened with social platforms like Facebook. As the market matures, you’ll see a tipping point for brand advertisers. 

AB: Your data highlights the attention-grabbing potential of interactive video advertising in mobile games. Can you share insights into how this format outperforms non-skippable YouTube ads in terms of consumer attention and brand impact?

J.Q.: In-game advertising uses a model similar to network TV, where they weave ad breaks into natural breaks in the content. While TV used the model of crafting ads into scene changes, games put ad breaks after a natural pause in play – after players complete a move or a level. This properly sets the consumer expectation that an ad is coming. 

Compare this to YouTube or other social platforms, where they place ads at awkward times in the consumer experience. Mobile games find that sweet spot of cooperation between the publisher and advertiser. Advertisers get a format that maximizes attention to their video spots, while publishers can offer ad spots that don’t disturb or interrupt the user. 

The key to driving brand impact is harnessing attention into action where a consumer can seamlessly learn more, engage with the brand, configure a product, sign up for an offer, find the closest retailer, or even buy an advertised product. Many Advertisers today attempt to do this by placing QR codes in their TV or YouTube advertising. But engagements with these are low because TV and YouTube are passive activities – your fingers are at rest. In mobile games, consumers use their fingers to tap and engage with stimuli. 

Digital Turbine seamlessly integrates brand engagement interaction for our clients into these highly attentive moments, and the results are phenomenal. Adding post-video interactivity not only doubles the attentive seconds of an ad but also has a massive multiplier effect on brand impact.

AB: The figures indicate that many U.S. gamers remember brand advertising through mobile advertising. What strategies or elements in mobile game ads contribute to this high recall rate, and how can publishers and advertisers leverage this information?

J.Q.: Mobile games are immersive and engaging experiences, while social platforms are more passive. When viewing social feeds or reels, people are actively searching for content. While this may put their eyeballs and fingers to work, the mind is activating them to skip or scroll past things to find interesting content. 

Meanwhile, in games, the mind activates the eyes and fingers to find ways to win a game. With the mindset trained on engagement rather than skipping, putting a video ad with post-ad interactivity is the perfect way for brands to build awareness, engagement and convert users all in one spot.

AB: As we approach the holiday season, what advice would you give to brand marketers looking to make the most of the mobile gaming market?

J.Q.: Don’t neglect this opportunity. With concerns over inflation, consumers will be judicious about their brand choices. Mobile games offer a unique opportunity to build brand awareness, engagement, and conversions in one fell swoop. Using rewarded video ads in games can elevate your brand to the next level. In the U.S., 54% of people agree that an in-game rewarded ad experience creates a “halo” of more favorable brand opinion.

The post In-App Mobile Game Advertising Is the Perfect Gift for Getting Consumers’ Attention This Holiday Season appeared first on AdMonsters.

Minus all the fancy tiers, their initial subscription model, and the exclusively intriguing content attracted subscribers and made them the category leader and most popular SVOD platform that they are today.

These days, they are just doing too much, and it shows after a recent Q1 earnings call, their CEO Reed Hastings acknowledged a need for something to change.

“Think of us as quite open to offering even lower prices with advertising,” Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said Tuesday after announcing earnings.

Netflix Sees New Lows

It’s quite clear to the majority of the world that Netflix has been making a ton of changes, and in January, they raised the price of the standard tier plan by $1.50, making it now $15.49. For their premium plan, which includes “Ultra HD,” subscribers are paying a whopping $19.99 a month, phew!

With this being said, it comes as no surprise that Netflix announced on Tuesday an alarming net global subscriber loss of 200,000 in the first quarter of 2022. Simply put, it’s getting too pricy, and their competitors, other major legacy-owned premium streaming services, are way cheaper.

This news also led to Netflix’s stock market value decreasing, now at ~$212.75, and the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platform predicts it will lose two million subscribers in Q2 yikes.

This is the first time Netflix has lost subscribers in over ten years, and they’re wearing their hearts on their sleeve regarding how they feel about it.

These all-time lows have Netflix execs contradicting themselves as they are now exploring other avenues of advertising.

Hastings said: “Those who have followed Netflix know that I’ve been against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription.”

“But as much as I’m a fan of that, I’m a bigger fan of consumer choice. And allowing consumers who would like to have a lower price and are advertising-tolerant to get what they want makes a lot of sense. So that’s something we’re looking at now.”

Who Even Has Their Own Netflix Subscription These Days?

At this point, the streaming service recognizes how password sharing may have contributed to this loss, as it disrupts the platform’s ability to monetize the service entirely. Netflix claims that password sharing took place in around 100 million additional non-paying households, including 30 million in the U.S. and Canada.

Netflix will do anything to get their numbers back up, and they’re looking to crack down on password sharing. According to analysts, this pressing issue has led Netflix to consider charging users who share passwords with people outside their homes an additional $2 to $3 a month. (They’re already testing password-sharing crackdowns in Latin America.)

Now this sucks for consumers.

How Will Netflix Make This Happen?

Since Netflix has excluded itself from this aspect of the media industry for so long, the only way it will be able to bring its new ad-based subscription tier into fruition is by partnering with ad tech firms. We bet that they’ll also launch a self-service option, or build out their own ad tech, as other streamers have.

According to Netflix execs, they plan to start selling ads in the next year or two, and ad agencies and CTV tech companies are yearning for a piece of the pie. “Netflix has some of the most coveted Connected TV inventory in the world right now,” said Adam Epstein, co-president of Perpetua, an ad tech software firm.

The Trade Desk has developed a reputation for partnering with media companies and publishers on ad tech and seems to be an optimal fit for Netflix to partner with on their ad infrastructure. TTD most recently linked up with Disney+  to provide the media conglomerate with programmatic activations, as well as the ability for buyers to execute digital upfront commitments across all of  Disney’s inventory — including HULU‚ via one deal ID.

“Netflix has been really good at licensing and producing content that resonates specifically in different geographies,” said Andre Swanston, senior VP of the media and entertainment vertical at TransUnion, the consumer data technology platform. “They should use that same mindset to customize these ad models.”

What Does This Mean for Other SVOD Platforms?

The ad-supported video-on-demand market has evolved and is now “too big to ignore.” Some consumers have shown that they are open to settling for a cheaper option with ads, like on Hulu, so Netflix thinks it could work for us if it works for them. But will this ultimately take away from Netflix’s credibility and reputation? They took pride in being ad-free for so long.

Some of Netflix competitors also suffered losses after news  broke about the streaming giant’s potential plans to break their ad-free promises. After-market trading of Roku was down 6.5% to $109.18, while Paramount Global sank 5.2% to $34.38, Walt Disney dropped 5.2% to 125.07, Warner Bros. Discovery went down 3% to $23.75.

If Netflix was the first SVOD to see these kinds of extreme losses, one might predict that other SVODs can expect to see similar results in the near future.

Other Variables Affecting Netflix Subscription Decreases

Many believe other variables contribute to the massive Netflix subscription decline. For one, ad tech twitter has found that TikTok has hypnotized the consumer, so we are sure that takes away from SVODs.

The most interesting theory I’ve seen on the Netflix subscriber decline is the rise of TikTok. All of our free time to consume entertainment is now taken. And it’s zero sum going forward.

So time spent scrolling TikTok is time you aren’t watching Netflix. https://t.co/02ec6Sacws

— Dare Obasanjo (@Carnage4Life) April 21, 2022

And then, of course, there is the new content or lack thereof. The Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards days are over, and many consumers feel that this new Netflix content just ain’t it.

Netflix: we can’t figure out why we’re hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

Also Netflix: pic.twitter.com/sDGqiXL75l

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 21, 2022

The post Netflix Considers Ad-Based Subscription, Could Shake up SVOD Business appeared first on AdMonsters.

Malvertisers are injecting deceptive and offensive ads into the ecosystem and those bad ads are damaging brand reputations and preventing publishers from providing users with high-quality experiences. The lines are steadily blurring between security and ad content. And we want to know how publishers are thinking about this shift. Take our survey to share your in-app ad quality challenges with your peers and learn the best practices for tackling them.

Some publishers are starting to look beyond automated blocking tools, towards fine-tuning content in-app so that they know that both their audience and ads are appropriate. But is that enough?

As well, how has in-app ad quality changed as a result of Apple’s ATT framework? What do users expect from the ads they see in-app and do their expectations differ between gaming and non-gaming?

We’re seeking insight into your experience with in-app ad quality for an upcoming Playbook, with the support of GeoEdge. We’re diving into the current state of in-app ad quality. and we’d like to learn how your team is prioritizing ad quality challenges this year. In return, we plan to provide you with some tips on how your in-app inventory can be optimized to hold on to your users while maximizing ad revenue.

Take our survey now, to share your insights with the AdMonsters Community so that we can all help one another and solve this issue together!

The post How Do You Balance Ad Revenue vs. Ad Quality? Take Our In-App Ad Quality Survey appeared first on AdMonsters.

While Flipboard has diverse video and display offerings, its home-built native format is quite popular with advertisers. Effective CPMs have proved more lucrative than other formats, advertiser renewal rates are higher, and campaign performance has been more impressive.

As a straightforward distribution source for the content of numerous premium publishers, Flipboard’s mobile app platform is a perfect fit for creative that mimics the aesthetics of its environment. True, standard video and display are more prevalent and drive more demand, but native units simply make sense for all parties in the mobile app environment—they offer better user experience and demonstrated brand lift.

Because the format is proving such a solid performer, Flipboard is eager to increase the percentage of native units across the app. Programmatic clearly offers the scale that will unleash the giant revenue potential of native. Welch notes that even with limited presence on the open exchange, ECPMs have raised eyebrows.

The challenge was finding a suitable demand partner that didn’t lean on an SDK, which Flipboard did in TripleLift. It’s quite illuminating, though, to understand why that was so important.

No More SDKs, Please—We’re Full

The necessity for SDKs in mobile app monetization has possibly been the biggest challenge to driving revenue in the space.

Of course demand partners are willing to build software development kits and hand them out like candy—plenty of mobile app monetization partners will tell you that driving additional revenue is “As simple as installing our SDK!”

Except it’s never simple—quite the opposite, in fact.

If you want to see veins pop in your mobile developer’s head, just tell him or her you’ve got five new SDKs to integrate stat. Because everyone has their own spin on coding, SDKs are notoriously challenging to install and require through testing and auditing before going live. Updating an SDK typically means updating the entire app, a laborious process that developers avoid like the plague.

“You can’t fully unpack an SDK,” Welch comments. “It’s kind of a black box, one that can affect your app by causing latency.” In addition, a badly designed SDK might prove to be a giant data suck, another potential user-experience killer.

As AdMonsters described in our mobile app playbook, “If an API is an operations manual, then an SDK is a series of how-to guides slapped together in giant binder, likely with extra documentation, troubleshooting (i.e., debugging) tools and some helpful examples to boot.”

According to SDK monitoring services SafeDK, the average number of third-party SDKs across its network was 18.2 during first-quarter 2018. But SDKs are used for far more functions than just advertising, including analytics, social integrations, malware protection, payment resources, location services, and more.

If you want to see veins pop in your mobile developer’s head, just tell him or her you’ve got five new SDKs to integrate stat.

Because of the potential calamity too many SDKs can cause, mobile app revenue teams keep the number of demand partners requiring SDKs limited. In looking for an in-app native programmatic partner, Welch found many conversations with tech providers coming to a halt when the SDK question arose.

“As a consumer product, we’re maniacally focused on the end user experience,” Welch says. “We want to maximize our accessibility for demand partners while maintaining the speed and quality our audience is used to. Until we are sure a particular SDK implementation doesn’t jeopardize this, we won’t be running it.”

Thing is, users are spending the majority of their time in a limited number of apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest that have home-grown monetization solutions or are selling monetization products to other app-makers.

Publisher aversion to SDKs is one reason demand providers seem to be backing away from the mobile app space entirely. Another is the lack of opportunity for growth, which may seem to counterintuitive as it’s well documented that consumers are spending more and more time on mobile devices in applications.

So ad networks still seem to dominate the space—perhaps you’ve heard of a big one called the Facebook Audience Network?—although programmatic would seem to be the optimal way for app-makers to monetize and advertisers to target messaging to the most personal of devices.

Easy as Flipping a Switch

A partner with an SDK workaround that can deliver quality revenue gets preference, Welch says, which is why the publisher was intrigued by TripleLift’s solution as it looks to grow its blossoming native business. Bypassing an SDK, TripleLift was able to ride on FlipBoard’s Exchange Bidding connection through Google Ad Manager.

"We want to maximize our accessibility for demand partners while maintaining the speed and quality our audience is used to. Until we are sure a particular SDK implementation doesn’t jeopardize this, we won’t be running it.”

Perusing the provider’s suite of creative products, Flipboard selected a number of executions that best matched its content templates. One challenge in native is that it takes a bit more buyer thought on the creative front; the native platform needs to work as a virtual creative agency, offering the most with often-limited creative assets.

After flipping a few switches, TripleLift’s demand began flowing through EB. Flipboard is also able to run PMP deals through the provider that it sources on its own.

Believe it or not, Flipboard is not entirely anti-SDK—it just takes a good deal of convincing before the publisher will integrate a partner into its tech stack. With such an easy integration—which almost seems unheard of in the mobile app space—Flipboard has been able to painlessly test performance before weighing a deeper integration.

“There’s a lot of opportunity in the mobile in-app space, but it’s not necessarily being realized—yet,” Welsh says. “Native ads in a mobile app environment executed programmatically—that’s a lot of descriptors, but it’s a prime area.”

The post Skipping the SDK in Mobile In-App appeared first on AdMonsters.

That raised a lot of eyebrows across the industry, particularly since the vaunted Ads.txt was supposed to put an end to such domain-spoofing tomfoolery. Forensiq suggested that those 1,400 apps were only the tip of the iceberg; AdWeek’s headline decried a “loophole” in IAB’s ad fraud prevention schemes.

But when I shared the story on Twitter, a few people were quick to ask: how exactly did these rogue mobile apps pull off such a feat? Since it wasn’t rigorously detailed in the AdWeek article, what exactly is this loophole?

No, there’s no flaw in Ads.txt—buyers simply aren’t performing due diligence.

Check Out This Scam, Man

Yes, mobile apps have been a blind spot for Ads.txt because they don’t have a domain to store a text file for easy crawling. The IAB currently has guidance for implementing Ads.txt in the app environment up for commentary.

So while many web publishers are increasingly forced to submit an Ads.txt file to get onto exchanges and be viable to buying platforms, mobile apps are not held to the same standard.

As explained by the ever-resourceful ad fraud researcher Dr. Augustine Fou, the mobile app fraudsters will load hidden web-view browsers with altered HTTP headers and bid requests. Spoofed addresses for premium publishers are the most common as they tend to draw higher CPMs.

The mobile app fraudsters jump on the same exchanges as premium publishers because they too can read the Ads.txt files, and then they go fishing. It goes something like this:

• Scam mobile app creates a hidden browser with a spoofed domain for PremPub.com
• This browser sends a bid request for the spoofed domain to Exchange X, which is an authorized reseller of PremPub’s inventory.
• The ad is actually served within the Scam mobile app—potentially on an empty “page.”

Thus money in the scammer’s pocket… unless the buyer verifies that the seller ID in the bid matches the seller ID in the Ads.txt file. Wait, you say—shouldn’t the buyers be doing that in real time, potentially through their DSPs? Yes, that was the whole point of the Ads.txt file—buyers would validate that the impression coming through the exchange had the same publisher ID as the Ads.txt file.

But fraud persists—not just within mobile in-app advertising—because buyers may check to see if certain publishers have Ads.txt files, but they are not regularly scanning them. If they don’t perform this task, we’re in the same place as before Ads.txt.

Is Ads.txt Enough?

Ads.txt is a limited solution focused on domain spoofing and unsanctioned inventory arbitrage. It’s supposed to be very basic and easy for both publishers to implement and DSPs to crawl. It’s almost too basic—many a pub needed an Ads.txt validator to ensure their file was viable and not hampered by spelling errors.

The majority of premium publishers, many under the threat of expulsion by their ad tech and demand partners, have done their part, but too many of their buying counterparts are failing to pull their weight. There seems to be a widespread misconception that premium publishers installing Ads.txt files simply killed domain spoofing. Nope—Fou notes that fraudulent web publishers can put up fake or plagiarized Ads.txt files to meet the requirements of exchanges and DSPs, but still send spoofed domains of premium publishers into the marketplace.

Although they should be monitoring in real time, buyers and agencies should spend billing time reviewing not just domain lists, but also whether domains line up with correct seller IDs. But this extra step has not become commonplace. It doesn’t help that that the exchanges/intermediaries themselves derive revenue from all transactions—yes, Virginia, even the fraudulent ones—which lessens their incentive to expel domain spoofers for their marketplaces.

Thing is, Ads.txt was always supposed to be step one—and indeed it’s been a boon to players in the industry that have actually employed. But the persistence of fraud like domain-spoofing shows that the industry needs to move on to step two: authentication.

Authenticate Now

Ads.cert has been described as an update to Ads.txt, but it’s really an upgrade or an extension into new territory. Ads.txt validates the seller in ad transactions, but Ads.cert is a tool for transaction authentication.

Something akin to the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) signatures in email headers that were introduced to detect email spoofing, Ads.cert would enable publishers to include an encrypted signature on inventory. Buyers would then match that to a public key in real time to certify that their inventory appeared where promised.

Ads.cert is a key part of the soon-to-be publicly released OpenRTB 3.0, the biggest revitalization of the specification since its launch in 2010. There’s plenty of speculation that the intermediaries will take their own sweet time adopting OpenRTB 3.0 because… Well, there’s a strong likelihood that those with unsavory practices will lose hot revenue streams.

Publishers—particularly those that consider themselves premium—need to nip at their demand partners’ heels on this, and also make the importance of OpenRTB 3.0 clear to buyers. This type of fraud is shorting publishers on rightful revenue, and deceiving advertisers.

Before OpenRTB 3.0 hits the streets, publishers should be well versed in all the documentation out there about Ads.cert. But to help out their advertisers now, pubs should encourage agencies to make sure their buying platforms are checking Ads.txt files in real time. They could even go as far as to suggest only using the DSPs they know are acting in good faith—SPO!

Beyond that, agencies and other programmatic buyers need to insist on receiving reporting from exchanges and other partners that includes not just domain lists, but domain lists along with seller IDs. This way the people holding the purse strings can hold their partners accountable.

The post Have We Reached the Limits of Ads.txt? appeared first on AdMonsters.

Today’s consumers are spending the vast majority of their considerable mobile time in-app. Globally, comScore’s latest data indicates apps are responsible for more than 80% of the time people spend using mobile devices, with this number rising as high as 95% in some regions. Not surprisingly, advertisers are investing accordingly. Worldwide, in-app advertising is set to triple from $72 billion in 2016 to $201 billion in 2021.

Marketers are continuing to increase their investments in programmatic buying of mobile ads. But at the same time, a survey last year found that 41% of marketers are intimidated by the complexity of the mobile programmatic space.

This is a natural reaction to sectors that undergo massive waves of growth. Indeed, the mobile programmatic space is a fast-evolving one, and many of the developments being seen in 2018 are taking great strides in increasing trust and accountability within the sector. The path forward – across all media, but especially within the burgeoning in-app space—is built around transparency.

Transparency is the buzzword that best describes the necessary reality that enables programmatic to continue its rapid growth. To deliver on the potential of automated buying and selling in the in-app space, advertisers, publishers and our industry as a whole are doubling down on transparency initiatives that make it harder for issues like fraud to take root and restore the faith in the good actors.

Here’s a look at some of those initiatives.

First- vs. Second-Price Auctions

The in-app advertising industry is moving away from second-price auctions—long the underpinning of programmatic—in favor of first-price auctions. In second-price auctions, the second-highest bidder determines the sale price of an impression (i.e., that bidder’s price, plus $.01). In theory, it’s a great model.

Unfortunately, in practice, it has led to some serious transparency concerns, with some supply-side platforms mislabeling their auction types or raising the floor prices without buyers’ knowledge (effectively making second-price auctions as expensive as first-price auctions).

This shift to first-price auctions will, of course, have a notable effect on the mobile advertising ecosystem. This shift provides enhanced transparency for buyers, but it also requires them to reevaluate their bidding strategies to take a more conservative approach.

Buyer Fee Reduction

Over the past 18 months, buyer fees have come under increased scrutiny across all digital media buying. Exchanges have long charged additional fees to buyers as a part of their role within the media ecosystem, but those fees have not always been transparent or communicated effectively.

This murkiness in fee communication was at the center of a recent lawsuit that The Guardian filed against Rubicon Project. In its wake, buy-side fees are being widely reduced or eliminated throughout the industry – including within the in-app space—in an effort to improve transparency and avoid such calamities in the future.

Ads.txt

Finally, perhaps the most notable step toward a transparent in-app advertising ecosystem is still on the horizon, in the form of ads.txt. This method of preventing digital advertising fraud, put in place by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and now widely adopted across the industry, requires publishers to place a publicly accessible ads.txt file on their server that details the supply-side platforms and networks that are allowed to sell their inventory.

Ads.txt is currently only applicable for desktop and mobile web inventory. The IAB is working on support for in-app inventory, but such support has not yet been released. However, given the success of adoption and resulting fraud prevention that’s been seen across desktop and mobile web to date, you can bet the in-app ecosystem’s adoption rate will dwarf previous ads.txt releases.

In the meantime, the in-app ad ecosystem is partnering smartly and employing all other means possible to thwart in-app fraud before it can infect the ever-growing stream of in-app ad inventory. This expanding marketplace benefits greatly from the experiences of those that have come before it, and thankfully the good actors within the system are proving to be adept students of history.

The post Clearing the Way for In-App Transparency appeared first on AdMonsters.

But accessing online media through an application other than a browser was a bold move forward, offering content providers a more intimate and appropriate medium for reaching their audiences on the most personal of devices. It also proved a great channel for a variety of up-and-coming providers offering gaming (many times social) and utilities/services (with location data proving a key advantage).

Hence, Apple establishing a marketplace to manage third-party applications showed that the app was a force to be reckoned with in the burgeoning world of smartphones and other mobile devices. By the end of January 2011, more than 10 billion apps had been downloaded from the store. As of June 2015, that number had reached 100 billion—and that’s just for a single mobile operating system.

Apps have only grown more popular over time. In the fourth quarter 2014, Nielsen says U.S. smartphone users accessed 26.7 apps monthly and spent 85% of their time on mobile devices within apps—for a total of 37 hours and 28 minutes per month on average.

Not only have apps brought new opportunities for user experience, they have also awakened a slew of advertising opportunities, many that utilize device capabilities and audience data without disrupting user experience— fact, through employing relevant targeting (e.g., audience, location) and smart formats advertising may even enhance the app experience. However, publishers are still struggling to drive revenue at scale from apps as their desktop traffic flees to mobile. Maintaining a high level of user experience while monetizing audience has proven quite the challenge.

The AdMonsters Mobile App Advertising Playbook will examine the nuances of mobile app advertising, including the central role of user experience in developing app monetization strategies and how this applies to deploying various formats. In addition, we’ll examine mobile ad serving and technology partners, as well as the intricacies of tech integration. Finally, we’ll examine best practices for using a variety of data (audience, location, etc.) in ad targeting within mobile apps.

Download Playbook

The post AdMonsters Playbook: Mobile App Advertising appeared first on AdMonsters.