Published on the 03/12/2014 | Written by Beverley Head
An initiative designed to block online advertisement fraud will be rolled out across Australia and New Zealand in the second quarter of 2015…
Online advertising specialist AppNexus is on track to launch its certified supply programme early next year, which will allow ANZ media buyers to opt to buy only verified advertising stock. According to David Osborn, vice president of sales for the company in Asia Pacific, the certified supply programme is intended to identify “clicks not from humans and impressions that aren’t what they seem” and ensure that ads are not placed (or paid for) on those sites.
Those buyers that choose to use the certified supply programme won’t be charged for ads on fraudulent sites. While Osborn could not gauge the dollar cost of the problem in ANZ, he said that AppNexus already blocked “billions of impressions” a day destined for dodgy sites – the certified programme takes this a step further by ensuring buyers never pay for ads placed on such sites.
Established in 2007 AppNexus offers a platform that allows advertisers to build specialist campaigns, and also links advertising sites with buyers in real time so that ads can be served up to the right demographic at the right time. In Australia AppNexus claims to see more than 35 billion real-time ad impressions per month and a further five billion New Zealand impressions.
The certified supply programme is a recognition that AppNexus needed to “take a more active role verifying and policing” the process according to Osborn.
He said that local venues such as Fairfax, News, Yahoo and Mi9 had been broadly welcoming of the move which is intended to root out cowboys and avoid ad fraud. AppNexus has also opened the programme to rival advertising platforms such as Rubicon in order to drive adoption across the industry.
To ensure they access only certified stock buyers will click on the certified supply button when using the AppNexus platform.
“We think buyers will reward sellers that operate in certified supply and punish those that don’t,” Osborn said.
The service is currently in alpha release, with a beta platform to be tested throughout the first quarter of 2015, with formal release to follow.
