This was followed by the more comprehensive Ads.cert, which provides validation for its exact credentials so allows advertisers to provide their signature.

This is another step in improving transparency, as advertisers can track potential fraud and encourage best practice.

While the jury’s still out on whether it will be a huge success in terms of adoption, it’s another layer to combat ad fraud.

Marketers need to be proactive

The technology is improving, so now it is up to marketers to catch up. “35% of brands have cited the lack of consultative knowledge and expertise from third party suppliers” as a reason for not having total faith in programmatic advertising.

Having programmatic expertise on hand may be a big undertaking for some, yet it is important to be proactive as a lack of knowledge and skills is affecting the trust in the market.

What you can do

It is important for clients and suppliers to have an open dialogue, detailed reports (e.g. breaking down the campaign set up) and feedback to provide opportunities for questions and learning,

If you’re a client, your supplier should be able to tell you:

  • What sites are my ads being placed on and why?
  • What data segments are we using and by what provider?
  • How is the budget being distributed between tactics? – third party data segments, whitelists, target account lists, re-marketing.

These are key questions for that will help address some transparency issues, build trust and gain valuable knowledge to inform future campaigns.

What agencies should be doing

Here at Kingpin we use a myriad of methods to limit ad fraud.

As an example of these is we review the sites that inventory is being bought day to day and identify non-relevant and potentially destructive sites, which are not effective places for client’s spend and don’t align with client’s goals.

We add these to a master blacklist, which is implemented across all our campaigns. This should be standard practice as you cannot rely solely on the DSP to filter all sites. We work closely with our DSP to address and identify anomalies and discrepancies between reports, as a method in identifying fraudulent IPs and sites.

Through analysing reports from different sources, it provides us with 360-degree perspective on the results we are achieving.

Be optimistic for 2019

With greater adoption of Blockchain, forward thinking moves by Google and a proactive approach from marketers programmatic is becoming more transparent, more effective at combating fraud and B2B marketers should feel comfortable about investing in it.

It’s one of the fastest moving areas of the industry and offers tech marketers a big opportunity to win a competitive advantage in 2019.