Bloomberg Investigates Site Traffic Fraud; NDN Rebrands To Inform

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Sourced Traffic Is For Suckers

Bloomberg Businessweek’s cover story next week is a dive into the world of fraudulent traffic. A while ago advertisers hoped digital display would be as effective but more efficient vs. TV advertising: similar reach, but way less cost. But last year, Heineken’s senior media director, Ron Amram, was stunned to discover that digital ROI was 2-1, compared to TV’s 6-1. Much of the problem was due to nonhuman traffic. Bloomberg cybersecurity reporter Michael Riley, who co-authored the article, told AdExchanger in an email that the investigation “quickly ran into a wall of front companies, fake publishing empires, and layer upon layer of middlemen designed to disguise the source of fraudulent clicks.” For brands and ad tech players: Be wary, whether they’re based out of Russia, Israel or Brooklyn, these are the most sophisticated Potemkin Villages you can possibly imagine. Read on.

NDN No More

News Distribution Network, the video monetization platform for all AP member companies (see AdExchanger’s coverage), has dropped its NDN moniker in favor of the name Inform. Along with the rebrand comes a unified publisher offering for content delivery and personalization, born from three acquisitions NDN made over the years. Now at 27 million uniques and 230 million video views a month, CEO Greg Peters says a big development imperative will be more mobile personalization. Press release.

Power To The Pubs

LiveRail announced the launch of the Partner Program, designed to connect proven media buyers with publishers searching for specific advertisers. While the blog post touting Partner Program never uses the word “premium,” the initiative is meant to facilitate deals between partners and select clients. Whether you see it as programmatic absorbing direct deals or as the natural next step for a platform like Facebook, it’s clear publishers are exerting more influence over the kind and quality of advertiser that appears on their sites. More.

This Is (Not) The End

The programmatic ecosystem has taken big hits lately (stories about ad blocking or brands pulling back on spending, etc). These articles are partially substantive and partially PR-motivated. But Google’s VP of display and video advertising, Neal Mohan, has some bracing stats about programmatic’s prospects. Mohan writes at the DoubleClick blog that the number of advertisers on the platform have doubled in the past 18 months and that mobile programmatic spending is expected to go from $4.7 billion this year to $22.8 billion in 2019. More.

The Value Of Video

App publishers can now promote their goods using mobile video ads on Twitter’s feed. In a blog post, company product manager Ivan Santana said the ability to “(show) people a preview of your app” nearly tripled conversion rates, according to Twitter’s internal data from beta testing. Now app publishers looking to drive installs can show how awesome their product is, rather than using 140 characters to tell it. Read on.