Google and Its Partners Will Issue Refunds to Advertisers Over Fake Traffic
September 21 2017 - 6:02PM
Dow Jones News
By Jack Marshall
Alphabet Inc.'s Google confirmed Thursday it will issue refunds
for ads bought through its systems that ran on websites with fake
traffic, and said a handful of its partners have agreed to do the
same.
The Wall Street Journal reported in August that Google was
issuing refunds to some advertisers after ads purchased through its
DoubleClick Bid Manager tool ended up running on websites with
fraudulent traffic.
At the time, Google was only prepared to reimburse advertisers
for the "platform fee," which ranged from 7% to 10% of the total ad
spending. That reflected the fee those advertisers paid to use
Google's ad-buying tools.
The rest of the money flows through to dozens of online ad
exchanges, which connect marketers to ad space across a vast number
of websites through real-time auctions. At issue is when ads run on
sites with fraudulent traffic, including those loaded or clicked by
software programs known as "bots" instead of humans.
In a blog post, Google said a handful of major exchanges have
now agreed to issue full refunds for fraudulent ad space that was
purchased.
"Supply partners like AppNexus, Index Exchange, OpenX, Teads,
Telaria and DoubleClick Ad Exchange have been very supportive of
these changes and have committed to provide advertisers with
refunds for invalid traffic detected up to 30-days after monthly
billing," the blog post read.
The DoubleClick Ad Exchange is Google's own ad exchange.
Google said it is also working on a system to automate those
refunds, which it intends to implement "in the coming months." The
company also said it is investing in reporting features to give
both advertisers and its ad supply partners better visibility into
what its ad fraud systems detect.
The ad industry has been working aggressively to tackle fraud.
Some $6.5 billion in ad spending will be wasted this year to fraud,
down 10% from 2016, according to a report released in May by the
Association of National Advertisers and ad-fraud detection firm
WhiteOps.
Write to Jack Marshall at Jack.Marshall@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 21, 2017 17:47 ET (21:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024