What is Domain Spoofing?

This post was most recently updated on July 12th, 2019

In the world of Programmatic Advertising, Domain Spoofing remains one of the biggest threats to publishers and have resulted in billions of dollars in lost revenue.

The basic concept for Domain Spoofing is that it is a type of ad fraud in which low-quality inventory masquerades as a premium or high-quality site.

As a result, it presents a complex challenge to both buyers and sellers in the market. For example, according to Chris Wexler, SVP and Executive Director of Media and Analytics for agency Cramer-Krasselt, 10 out of the top 100 publishers ranked by comScore is contributing to this practice by buying fraudulent traffic from ad networks.

They may profit from it a little more right now, but it damages the foundations of trust in the industry for legitimate publishers and advertisers.

The Programmatic industry has long seen Domain Spoofing take root; however, it is just recently gaining more popularity because of the increasing focus that advertisers and organizations are putting on fraud detection and brand safety.

For instance, an initiative called ads.txt was launched by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). Ads.txt shows demand platforms or trade desks that are looking to purchase inventory through exchanges if that exchange is an authorized reseller of the publisher.

While the ads.txt project might help boost transparency in programmatic advertising, it is still a long way from serving as a perfect defense against Domain Spoofing.

As the industry cracks down on Domain Spoofing, average CPMs will most likely go up as the supply gets cleared of fraudulent ad inventory.

Advertisers, however, agree that this is a welcome change, as that would mean the impressions they are buying will be certified as legitimate ones, and not of bad quality.

Conclusion

Are you struggling with ad fraud? Are you scared of getting banned from ad networks through invalid traffic? What type of measures are you taking protect your ad inventory from ad fraud?

Don’t sit by just hoping that you won’t pay the price for fraudulent actors in the market. Protect yourself with MonetizeMore’s proprietary ad fraud detection and prevention technology called Traffic Cop!

Traffic Cop not only detects invalid traffic but and also blocks and prevents it from hurting your ad inventory through machine learning and sophisticated algorithms. Sign up to Traffic Cop today!

Kean Graham