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Brand-Safety

The Myths Around Brand Safety and How to Combat Them

Leave a Comment / Blog, Brand Safety & Protection /

In explaining brand safety, people often use the example of how a display campaign can go wrong. An example is an ad for a family-oriented brand appearing on a site with adult content. As another example, an airline advertisement will run alongside a news article about a plane crash. An ad inserted in such a way could start a public relations firestorm and ultimately damage the brand’s reputation. The purpose of a brand safety solution is to prevent such things from happening. Although these examples are vivid and easy to understand, they may make brand safety sound simpler than it is. An online survey found that 51% of millennials and Gen Xers are four times less likely to purchase and three times less likely to recommend a brand when they see ads in unsafe environments, even if the placement was not the brand’s fault. Unsafe ad placement can have lasting negative effects on your customer. It is more difficult than ever to protect brand safety. Brand safety systems need to evolve along with new media formats and address the concerns unique to each. In fact, it might be time to put an end to some myths and misconceptions about brand safety, including what exactly brand safety entails, who is responsible for it, and how to protect it. How to Combat Brand Safety Myths? Myth 1: Global, English Based Brand Safety Analysis Provide Regional Context There are 22 official languages in India, but only 5 are supported by Google. 95% of the videos consumed are in regional languages, according to a recent study. If this issue is not resolved, the regular blacklisting tools will become redundant. Brand safety issues may be universal, but each country and region has its own culture and expectations, making it unique and subjective. One region’s inappropriate and unsafe behavior may be acceptable in another’s culture. Due to these concerns, brands usually implement contextual targeting measures like keyword blocking and URL blocklists to protect their brands. These strategies, however, lack the flexibility and control necessary to safely use programmatic advertising today. Therefore, they’re ineffective. So why? Keywords and URL blocking rely on definitions of words to categorize content and the associated inventory as “safe” or “unsafe.” Additionally, these approaches often lead to over-blocking of safe content or incorrectly categorizing harmful content as safe, leading to both loss of money and increased risks. In addition, publishers struggle to monetize inventories while covering topical and newsworthy events. Regionalization is the new buzzword for solving brand safety concerns, and that’s what we need to understand. When it comes to analyzing brand safety, regionalization influences contextuality. Brand ads are also placed differently based on the target audience in a particular region, which is an important part of contextuality. Myth 2: Blacklisting Keywords is Blocklisting Keeping brands safe means more than blacklists The pandemic era has made brand safety a major concern for brands and marketers alike. Ads should not be displayed next to content that deals with morbidity, violence, hate speech, or other derogatory content. Blacklisting certain keywords to ensure that the ads are not displayed next to objectionable content is one of the most common ways to deal with such issues. It is not possible to successfully advertise and protect brands through keyword blacklisting. Keyword blacklisting assumes that the platform already knows the context of the content. It may be true for typical English-focused content, but regional content is a whole different story. The platforms do not support regional languages (especially in a diverse country like India) and because of that, keyword-based blacklisting does not work. For example, what if the terrorists use ‘bread’ instead of ‘bomb’ in their meta tags and descriptions and your ads show up next to videos of violent terrorist activities? In this way, blacklisted keywords are bypassed. Content creators avoid using unsafe tags when they submit their content to YouTube to get better marketing campaigns. Again, this defeats the purpose of keyword-based blacklisting. We need context-based blacklisting, which should be constantly updated based on the most recent news story and relevant to AI-powered algorithms. By doing so, the campaign’s effectiveness will be maximized while ensuring brand safety. Myth 3: Brand Safety Is Not My Issue This is wrong! Regardless of the industry, vertical, or scale of the enterprise, brand safety is imperative. In short, no matter what scale the enterprise functions at, no matter the industry it serves, one instance of unsafe advertising can destroy the company’s reputation forever. The modern consumer is more educated and aware than most marketers. Due to the powerful voice consumers have through social media, one negative comment or tweet can tarnish a brand’s reputation forever, thus compromising the brand’s safety. Even though the scale of the operation is small, digital advertising helps increase brand awareness. Within the same ecosystem are consumers who consume a wide variety of content every day. Imagine you are a brand that offers baby products, and one of your ads appears within an inventory that contains material that is surrounded by adult content. What’s next for you? For quite some time, there has been the misconception that brand safety is only for B2C companies. Isn’t it possible, though, that a b2b company can be negatively affected by the complex challenges the advertising ecosystem presents? According to a recent study conducted in Singapore, 7 out of 10 consumers believe that advertising with misleading content is the brand’s responsibility. Taking this into consideration, the detrimental impact of not addressing the issue rests with the brand. Myth 4: Brand Safety Has Nothing to Do with ROI and is an Unnecessary Cost Please reconsider! The majority of the time, unsafe content will also perform poorly for your campaign. Someone who is going to adult content is unlikely to click on your ad and go to your landing page! In general, ads on unsafe inventory will underperform and degrade the ROI of your campaign. Thus, by addressing brand safety (and protecting your brand), you also get the benefit of improved campaign performance and

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Digital-Ad-Campaign

Real Humans or Bot Humans – Is Your Digital Ad Campaign Seen by the Right Audience?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Advertising /

The ad impressions are spiking high. The advertisers are feeling ecstatic. The publishers are making money. And then there is a shocking revelation. Are these impressions coming from a real human? No matter how effective your digital ad campaign is, it cannot add real value if it is not viewed by any real human. To resolve this, viewability as a metric was introduced to quantifiably measure how many ads are getting real exposure from users. Before moving forward, let’s first understand the meaning of ad viewability. What is Ad Viewability? A viewable impression is a standard metric of ad viewability defined by the International Advertising Bureau (IAB). According to them, an ad will be considered viewable when it appears at least 50% on screen for more than one second. This metric helps the advertisers to get a quantifiable percentage of ads that are viewed by real people. Why viewable impressions are important in digital advertising? In digital advertising, there has been very slow growth in adapting technology which ensures that the impression received is real. This means that a real human has seen the creative. Finally, this change is beginning to be a reality. Without a viewability metric, the advertisers cannot understand if their inventory is seen by people or not. Viewable impressions give a clear picture of how many ads are seen which further allows advertisers to precisely measure ad performance. Viewability Standards By MRC Many years ago, trade associations like the ANA left the advertisers in a dilemma of whether their ad was viewable or not. It was a genuine concern because if the ads are not viewable, then the scope of it impacting the digital marketing campaign is very less. This concern led to the setting up a standard of viewability by the Media Rating Council (MRC). According to the defined standards set by the MRC, an ad will be considered viewable if: 50% of a desktop display ad is in view for at least 1 second 50% of pixels of a desktop video ad are in view for at least 2 seconds. 30% of pixels of a large desktop ad unit (with 242,500 pixels) and larger is in view for at least 1 second. Expectations Vs Reality (Viewable and viewed) As per Statista, the viewability percentage of display ads in 2021 worldwide is almost 70 percent among which India has 55 percent. On the other hand, the video ad’s viewability is almost 74 percent according to Statista. There is a thin line between the ad being viewable (had an opportunity to be seen) and being viewed (had been seen in reality). Data released by Amplified Intelligence throws light on the gap between “viewable” and “viewed”. Expectation The advertisers are happy to see that the running campaigns are MRC compliant and receive an average of 70% impressions. They are expecting that this 70% is all human eyes. But here comes the horror. Reality According to the observation made by the Amplified Intelligence, out of the impressions served: 44% are MRC compliant but receive irrelevant active attention (avg. half second) 9% are MRC compliant but get zero attention. 17% are both MRC compliant and getting attraction for at least 2 seconds. This means that even the advertisers are thinking that they are paying for that 70% audience, but they are just paying for the 17%. And as a result, they don’t get the value as expected from the campaign. What Impacts the Viewability of an Ad? There are many factors affecting the viewability of an ad. Some of these are related to the website design and the ad placement. Whereas some are outside factors that are implanted by the fraudsters to churn money out of advertisers. Some of the common causes of poor viewability are: 1. Ad Blocker There is a set of browser plugins and filters that prevents an ad from loading. By the time ad is loading, the ad blockers identify these ad slots and block the creatives. As a result, the ad space remains blank, and the user doesn’t know about the ad. However, these ads are considered as served impressions for the ad networks and the advertisers eventually pay for it. 2. Bot Impressions A bot is an automated software program that performs pre-defined and repetitive tasks. These programs are technologically enabled by the fraudsters to download or refresh pages, scroll, click, and engage with the site content just like a real human. It is not easy to detect bots and most of the ad networks consider the bot traffic as real users. This further means that, the impressions served for the non-human visitors are counted as successful. It also reduces the viewability of the ads. 3. Ad Stacking Ad stacking is a common trick practiced by fraudsters where they place the ads in layers. This means that there are layers of ads placed on top of one another. As a result, though only the top ad is visible, the hidden ads are also considered as served and hence being charged to the advertiser’s ad spend. 4. Pixel Stuffing In this type of ad fraud, the fraudsters place 1×1 pixels around the website as placements for ad creatives. These pixels remain invisible to the visitor when the page loads, but it is considered “impressions served” for the ad networks. 5. Inactive Tabs One of the most common reasons for low ad viewability is when the impression is counted in a situation where the user has left before the loading of the ad. Approximately, 40% of visitors leave a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Another situation is when the user has opened multiple tabs or continues to browse other programs during the ad is served. In this case, even though the user has not viewed the ad, the impressions are still counted. 6. Wrong Positioning Sometimes the position of an ad is not accurate to the window dimension. This eventually creates in loading of the ad on certain types of devices. Another case is when the ads are placed

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Out-of-Stock

Out-of-Stock: The Most Dangerous Phrase in eCom

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Online shopping has experienced a significant boom with the increased number of web users in the last two years due to COVID-19. Finding the desired product and discovering new ones have also contributed to the increased conversions on eCom platforms. The new peaked velocity of transactions has made managing out-of-stocks challenging for brands. Stockouts mean the product is no longer available on the eCom platform and has multifold brand implications, not just limited to purchases/transactions. Out-of-stock leads to switching to another brand, checkouts on another platform, finding an alternative solution, diminished customer base, and more. Loyal customers may no longer stay associated with the brand if they can’t buy its products and might share their grief in reviews. Experiencing it during lightning deals can increase the chances of such negative feedback. Some eCom platforms may offer better product rankings to listings with higher sales/conversion. The ongoing and occasional sales, competitor offers, and availability of similar products on the eCom platform makes managing out-of-stock an essential factor for businesses. Reasons and Implications of Out-of-Stock The factors for product unavailability on the eCom platform can get segregated into mismanaged inventories, wrong product demand forecasts, supplier-side issues, etc. Whatever the reason, the customer becomes dissatisfied with the brand/seller and even more challenging to re-acquire, assuming all the problems get resolved, which is an impossible scenario. Our eCommerce Intelligence Solution reviewed the change in the brand for grocery products and found that the switch is almost immediate. Customers don’t wait to buy “atta” until it arrives at the specific store and is available through the particular seller. Instead, they find alternatives for purchasing the product. Our research states that customers who want to stay loyal to a brand or buy a specific product would go to lengths to switch apps or websites that are readily available and make transactions. Stockouts can also diminish the product demand, which directly decreases SKUs and even causes delayed purchases, as the brand continuously faces issues increasing the customer base. Furthermore, the brand would have to boost the advertising budget to achieve the previous customer base and cultivate marketing spending to increase the loyalty base. Fortunately, managing stockouts is possible for brands through eCom Competitive Analytics powered by mFilterIt. mScanIt Helps Brands to Manage Stockouts Our solution analyzes the stockout of your brand and your competitors. It offers a clear picture of the brand ranking. Reviewing these results offers numerous other benefits. For example, brands can identify and alert the responsible teams when the stock status changes. The solution also scans average availability demand across city, pin code, brand, sub-brand, variant, etc. Figuring availability and unavailability can offer many more advantages. For example, the brand can review the best platform for a particular product. Similarly, the brand can check the demand percentage of a single product across eCom stores. Moreover, a competitive analysis can give the scope of demand for such products on different eCom platforms and change SKUs. Additionally, the brand can discover the hero product that meets the availability criteria across eCom marketplaces. mScanIt offers daily, weekly, and monthly to manage availability across prominent eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, BlinkIt, etc. Managing out-of-stock can help brands understand the regions or warehouses with the highest/lowest availability problems and work on solutions to resolve them. By managing and diminishing stockouts, brands can increase customer satisfaction, sales, seller engagements, and market visibility. Takeaway No customer likes to read “The product is currently unavailable,” and keeping the customer satisfied is a brand priority. Out-of-stock causes severe damages to a brand and leads to a higher cost of recovering from them. Therefore, using an availability tracker like mScanIt can benefit a brand. The solution also analyzes competitor performance and offers a complete picture of the brand’s product rankings across stores. Such a solution offers multifold advantages to a brand on a single dashboard, making it easier to review and make decisions. Moreover, brands can make retail execution easier with a comprehensive solution scanning the web marketplaces and delivering customized reports.

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eCom-Brands

Negative Reviews: How Should eCom Brands Respond?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Any brand’s reputation relies on the feedback of its consumers, and most eCom brands have at least a few measurable sarcastic and derogatory reviews across Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, or other ecom stores. As per Statista, 48% of fashion consumers in India purchased a product after seeing reviews and ratings. On the other hand, another survey revealed that 36% of ecommerce shoppers have stated that their low online product ratings were rejected, whereas 30% of the buyers couldn’t say if they were rejected/accepted. A major portion of negative ratings gets eliminated from the ecom store product listings, while a significant proportion of the buyers rely heavily on reviews and ratings, and impact of negative reviews’ seems grave. Although negative reviews paint a horrible picture in the consumer’s minds, they also offer a positive edge, i.e., bring trustworthiness or genuineness to the product listings. Too many ratings and reviews with positive responses often make the consumers believe that the feedbacks are fake/influenced. According to a survey, 65% of consumers don’t trust the product’s ratings. Simultaneously, 68% of online shoppers consider reviews as valuable as recommendations and lay their trust in them. Implications of Negative Reviews A buyer reads at least ten reviews before trusting an online business. Moreover, 62% of eCommerce brands feel that their reputation is threatened by negative online reviews regarding products or services. Other major areas of concern for these brands include loss of revenue, diminished product visibility, decreased add-to-cart actions, low engagement, lower SERP, decreased consumer base, etc. Also, some industries like fashion (mentioned above) depend upon reviews and ratings for conversions and can suffer heavy losses and overstocking issues. Here is a summary of the implication of negative reviews and ratings: Reputation Damage: High number of negative reviews creates distrust of the brand and/or product. Also, recovering from a damaged reputation becomes a costly affair. Decreased Revenue: According to a source, U.S businesses with 1 to 1.5- star Google ratings incurred 33% lower profit than others. Bad feedback leads to low trust and lower conversions. Gives an Edge to the Competition: Customers often avoid products with negative reviews and ratings. They become tempted to opt for alternative or similar options. Diminishes SERP: Google searches often show the best results with positive reviews and ratings. According to a source, product listings with negative feedback decrease their rankings on search engines. Is There a Need to Respond to Reviews? According to a source, consumers that read reviews also paid attention to the responses. While shopping for a product, buyers want to check if the brand values its customers and the actions the brand is willing to take in case of an issue related to the product or retailer. By knowing these facts, ecommerce shoppers can make appropriate buying decisions. Moreover, responding to negative, neutral, and positive reviews enhances the brand’s impression in the eyes of the consumers, as they can see the efforts they are making. Another perspective from a source is that 70% of consumers would become more willing to re-engage with a brand or retailer if there is a response to negative reviews. Besides this, the Harris survey shows that 33% of buyers post a positive review if they receive a response to their negative feedback, and 34% of the shoppers delete their negative reviews. So, brands uphold the responsibility of responding to reviews as a priority, and most focus more on the reasons for negative and neutral reviews. What Guidelines Should Brands Follow While Responding to Negative Reviews? Negative reviews impact brand reputation and decrease the potential customer base and sales/revenue. Also, we have cleared that responding to reviews is necessary for brands. But, brands should follow a few guidelines religiously while responding: Monitor Reviews & Ratings on eCom Stores and Social Media The best method for knowing about the rising customer issues across Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, or other online shopping stores is through eCom Competitive Analytics or mScanIt. The solution helps to learn more about the customer experiences by highlighting the positive, neutral, and negative words commonly used under the reviews and ratings. Simultaneously, an extended solution of mScanIt is a deep dive into sentiment intensity, which tracks instances of brand mentions on the open web using AI, even when the brands are not hash-tagged. By using these solutions, brands can ensure that they can instantly view a spike in negative review intensity and reduce the response time using the insights provided on the mScanIt dashboard. Customize Your Crafted Responses Giving a bad response to pressing issues mentioned in reviews states that the brand is not diving deep into the buyer’s concerns. Moreover, many customers would look for brands that give personalized responses, addressing their problems. The easiest method to achieve this goal is to continue using the scheduled responses but customizing the responses. It would give the brand a good impression and increase loyalty/re-engagements. So, you should acknowledge the problem, provide assistance for addressing the concerns, and give assurance of response time & resolution. According to Statista, 47% of customers from the U.S. and 59% of global shoppers have a favorable view of the brands if they respond to customers’ complaints or service questions on social media. Decrease the Response Time Upset customers tend to share their experiences on social media platforms, aside from e-commerce’s review and rating section. According to a source, consumers also wait for a response for their review for up to a week. However, health and safety issues can cause dramatic issues and require quicker responses even while investigating the problem. Assuring an upset buyer that the brand is looking into the problem and will get back to the customer could diminish lawsuits and bad publicity. Conclusion Negative reviews will remain never-ending, as would positive or neutral ratings and feedback. Therefore, tracking customer experiences through social media and the e-commerce review & rating section has become crucial. The best method for monitoring the brand or product reputation is through eCom Competitive Analytics, highlighting the commonly used words. Simultaneously, brands should address the customer’s pressing matter through personalized and quick responses. By doing so, brands have a greater chance of improving their

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eCom-Brands

What Consumers Expect from eCom Brands During the April Fools Month?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Customer engagement is at the top of the list for all brands. April is the perfect month to share some laughter with your customers and get to know them even better. Brands also use social media, outdoor advertisements, and other means to capture the eyes of new consumers as marketplaces become highly competitive. eCom brands have often witnessed massive sales during April. According to a source, the sale of non-food items in eCom stores grew by 21.1% in April 2016, whereas the Jan-March incurred an overall growth of 8.2%. In addition, another source stated that the eCom store’s traffic surpassed Black Friday sale traffic every day in April 2019. As per Adobe’s digital economy index, eCom sales were boosted by 49% in the U.S., compared with Jan-Mar 2020, before the restrictions of shelter-in-place. This report also stated that grocery sales on Instacart reached nearly $700 million in sales by the end of the first two weeks of April. Holy Moly! The surge in traffic and boost in sales was certainly a game-changer for brands. However, their attribution could go to the change in consumer behavior during the month. For example, consumers often search for gift or prank options on eCom stores during April fools month. Therefore, brands often try to provide the most suitable choices to their consumers during festivities or occasions. So, consumers often expect the following from eCom brands during April: 3 Things Consumers Would Expect from Brands in April More Mischievous Recommendations Consumers would undoubtedly expect product recommendations from brands just like any other day. However, they would want pranking, jokes, or humoring products, especially during April. Brands that offer the best mischievous recommendations would undoubtedly attract a goofy customer base, and the majority of them would engage with brands wholeheartedly. Even if consumers buy FMCG products, a laughable message card or coupons like “Haha” offering a discount would undoubtedly increase their loyalty to the brand. Bulk Availability of Foolish Products Gifts can be for an individual or a group of friends. On April fools day, people are more likely to spread laughter or pranks with more than one person. Therefore, consumers in eCom stores are likely to seek products with higher availability in their pin codes. Unavailable will cause a severe blowback to the brands, as consumers would find alternate options or eCom stores for making online purchases. Sponsored listings that meet the criteria of such consumers will also become favorable towards higher SKUs. Honest Response to Sarcastic Reviews and Ratings Brands should not become weary in the presence of higher sarcastic reviews or ratings that don’t match the review, as consumers are likely to plat it as a prank. At the same time, consumers would expect a swift response from retailers or brands on the reviews if it is not a prank and an honest review with a mistaken rating. Consumers checking product reviews and ratings are likely to read such reviews and make the final buying call. Therefore, brands are expected to provide a much more engaging response than “we are sorry to hear, or your concerns are duly noted,” Scaling the Business with mScanIt As mentioned before, April is a month for scaling business every day. Therefore, it requires a solution that can present a real story of the consumer sentiments, deep-dive into real-time insights, and provide accurate results across different eCom stores. mScanIt covers all such areas and more by offering analytics daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Moreover, it is the best eCommerce Competitive Analytics solution because it provides deep-dive into pricing insights, share-of-shelf, SKU availability, etc., which would come in handy even after the April fools month. Businesses across continents use the solution for mapping their and competitor products across eCom stores, pin codes, and cities. Conclusion April fools month is not just a business opportunity but also a chance for brands to increase engagement with their consumers. Moreover, customers expect eCom brands and retailers to bring exciting products, recommendations, sponsored listings, etc., on marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, etc. On the other hand, meeting the increasing consumer demand is one of the objectives of an eCom organization. Therefore, scaling the business would require a solution that can deliver meaningful insights and trends with peaking accuracy. mScanIt is the aptest eCom Competitive Analytics solution that can meet these requirements. So make your brand appointment with us to learn more about mScanIt.

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Share-of-Shelf

Share-of-Shelf: What Should Matter?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Easing consumers’ shopping experience begins by making efforts to get discovered even when there is no awareness about the product/brand. Discoverability is building a successful search and exploration journey for the consumer to achieve this result. Brands use keywords to enhance findability and visibility on eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc. The brand’s success in achieving these goals is measured by comparing the search results with competitors, and it is commonly called Share of Shelf (SOS). A study suggests that search engines build 62% of eCom journeys. Consumers come across new or potential products on eCom stores because brands customize discoverability based on their search behavior deciphered through analytics and keyword analysis. For example, brands have insight that consumers could be unaware of the latest bestsellers of the year and use keywords like “best books to read best sellers, best books to read, best books 2022,’ etc., based on eCom results on Google, and eCom marketplace search results. SOS measures the percentage of product visibility compared to competitors based on specific keywords. Measuring SOS offers numerous advantages to brands, such as generating awareness if competitors target the same keywords, identifying keywords with low competition, brand/product rankings, etc. Share-of-digital-shelf on eCom stores is measured for the competitor, sponsored, and organic keywords to get a complete picture of the brand presence. Moreover, platforms with higher positioning enhance visibility and tend to garner higher add-to-cart actions and greater chances of transaction. Therefore, brands acquire more revenue and an extensive customer base with a higher SOS percentage. Understanding the competition’s SOS helps the brand plan the future course of business. In addition, SOS helps brands determine their market positioning. Evaluating a brand’s overall, ranking-based, and category-specific SOS can deliver a full picture of the product presence across eCom stores. 3 Things to Consider While Evaluating eCom Share of Shelf Total SOS Measuring the overall presence of a brand’s product across eCom stores gives a simplified view of the market positioning based on select keywords. Brands with high SOS percentages have successfully eased the consumer’s discoverability journey. Such listings would acquire higher reachability, and enhanced visibility, witness more add-to-cart actions, and ultimately acquire more revenue. Comparing the percentages every month would provide insights into the change in SOS performance of your and competitor brands while displaying the change in performance. Such insights play a crucial role in creating brand strategies and marketing spending decisions across eCom platforms and require continuous monitoring. Reviewing product SOS across stores would also help understand the highest performing eCom platforms, distinguish between the share of sponsored, competitor, and organic keywords, etc. mFilterIt’s eCom Competitive Analytics conducts a deep scan of e-commerce platforms to analyze drivers of sales. Moreover, mScanIt helps brands compare their platform coverage with the competitors and find the top performers for product/brand searches, SKU ranges, and variants. The overall share of the digital shelf is calculated and displayed on a single dashboard portraying a score based on these categories. SOS by Category Brands use categories for product listings on eCom stores which significantly impacts discoverability. For example, Amazon enlists “press” under “dry iron, steam iron, iron, and other categories. Brands add keywords on their product and company page of the eCom platform that match the categorical search results. Evaluating category-wise share of digital shelf can offer promising deliverables. For example, brands can learn the category with the highest SOS and decide to change the categories of their products. The eCom competitive analysis of categorical SOS displays the share acquired by the brand and its competitors. Therefore, brands can decide to enlist products under categories with higher chances of discoverability, visibility, and consumer reachability to boost add-to-cart actions and conversions. Moreover, the brand understands its categorical presence across eCom platforms. Another advantage of using keywords based on categorical segregation is ranking on the bestseller page. Brands often evaluate their and competitor’s SOS percentages on bestseller pages under different departments/categories. However, the full scale of SOS results by category can be derived by evaluating visibility based on brand, sub-brand, pin codes, variants, and SKU range. mFilterIt’s eCommerce  Analytics uses these categories to provide an in-depth view of the SOS. Moreover, mScanIt informs brands of any KPI deviations. Therefore, you stay updated about product health and data. As a result, you always keep an eye out for KPIs and don’t lose hold of market trends unless you change your marketing or advertising strategies. Top Results of Products by Searching Specific Keywords Measuring the share of a product under a category on an eCom platform is valuable, but so is knowing the page rank of the products using various keywords. As per our research, consumers are more likely to see products, add them to a cart, and even successfully place an order if the product is listed in the top ten results or on the first page. For example, if a consumer searches for the keyword “Shampoo”, the brand with the highest ranking and visibility on the first three pages will most likely achieve consumer interactions. mScanIt beholds the capability of finding the keyword-level share of brands based on rankings. Another research stated that many consumers might even decide the product’s traits, such as features, options, etc., based on the listings visible to them ahead of the line. Therefore, brands that will enlist their products on the eCom store or already have listings present on the e-commerce platforms would use this to their advantage by adding keywords of such listings on their product/company pages of the eCom platform. The consumer sentiment of product ranking based on the most researched keywords changes the playing field of eCom store brands. Acquiring a higher ranking on search pages has become a competitive game and requires careful analysis using a solution that recognizes consumer behavior based on search results. Most brands also spend on promoted/ sponsored listings which keep their product listings at a desirable position on the search page. However, winning the search rank organically is what brands strive for since that gives them relatively permanent

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Click-Injection

Click Injection: Why Should Brands/Advertisers Worry About It?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

During the first install session, fraudsters hijack ‘install broadcasts’ using bots/malware, and inject clicks for misattribution with the MMP. This fraud is commonly called click injection and is the most hated fraud by brands/advertisers. It diminishes click integrity and derails the efforts of providing a safe experience to the user, the backbone of an organization. In addition, it forces brands/advertisers to pay for their ‘own’ traffic from the advertising budget to the fraudster The reliability of campaign analytics for building marketing strategies is further hampered, and the scary part is that fraudsters build ‘relationships’ with the brands by sharing false performance reports. If we want to add fuel to the fire, cybercriminals also take over user accounts and steal identities and financial details through malware/bots. 6 Ways Click Injection Endangers Brands/Advertisers Organic Stealing Organic traffic is an intent-based audience targeted using many marketing practices. They are vital to advertisers as they help diminish advertising budgets, increase app installs, generate higher revenue, etc. Brands often advertise their apps on their websites, and social media handles to increase organic installs. The users click on such ads and install the app after redirection to the Google Play Store, Apple Store, or a third-party store. Such users have organically installed the app, but unfortunately, the credit for it often goes to the fraudster because he/she injected the last click, and it got registered with the MMP. As a result, cybercriminals are stealing organic users of the app owner. Attribution Theft Attributions are important for advertisers because they help understand the highest/lowest-performing sources/channels, drive campaign goals, and structure investment decisions. Unfortunately, advertisers become victims of attribution theft through click injection. It is the basic principle of this ad fraud. The cybercriminal can report a high install conversion rate (CVR) by manipulating the advertiser’s attribution and acquiring financial gain. However, the user could have organically installed the apps from any store or the brand’s website. Bad Analytics Brands often measure the click-to-install (CTI) ratio to determine the CVR of an ad install campaign. Unfortunately, attribution theft caused by click injection leads to reporting falsified high CVR of the fraudster. As a result, advertisers instill confidence in the campaign’s performance. In reality, the conversion rate of install campaigns lies between 1-1.5%. Therefore, a high percentage of CVR, which in most cases is a result of click injection, is 100% and drives the marketers in the wrong direction. Furthermore, the estimated Click-to-Install Time (CTIT) becomes extremely short through click injection. As a result, brands misinterpret the performance of campaigns/affiliates and make wrongful investments. Builds Trust on ‘Fraudsters’ – Scary! Fraud affiliates share high-performance reports with the advertiser and gain the advertiser’s trust. However, they are in the game for making money and don’t care about them. So, they continue with their click-injection fraud. Moreover, brands/advertisers would seek alternative options if they don’t receive the ongoing performance. Additionally, brands/advertisers don’t recognize the attribution misrepresentation by cybercriminals because the real CVR is hidden through spiked traffic. Their irresponsibility of not using an ad traffic validation solution makes them vulnerable to fraudsters. Meanwhile, brands/advertisers disassociate with an underperforming affiliate displaying the real campaign performance. Furthermore, affiliates rely on ‘word-of-mouth’ for brand associations, and their distrust drives away other affiliates from the brand/advertiser. However, this doesn’t last long as the latter has the option of switching affiliates. Loss of Advertising Budget Brands/advertisers lose millions of dollars every year from their advertising budget to fraudsters by not eliminating click injection. The misattribution caused by it diminishes the profits/commissions of legitimate publishers and advertisers. Moreover, most businesses run CPI campaigns on different ad networks. Additionally, global CPI rates for many countries are much higher than in India. Therefore, brands/advertisers constantly expand budgets for increasing networks for running CPI campaigns on such networks. Our research suggests that networks with higher CPI costs often witness higher click injection because the fraudsters can make more money and find this an ad campaign vulnerability. Therefore, brands/advertisers begin paying even more than before to cyber criminals due to network expansion or placements in costlier networks. Creates Brand Distrust Due to Malicious Device Activities Users installing brand apps and becoming victims of click-injection fraud also experience malicious device activities. Besides stealing unconsented “install broadcast” notifications from the user’s device, fraudsters also use bots/malicious codes to read messages and take over accounts. User messages often consist of OTPs and financial details. Fraudsters steal this information and conduct identity/financial theft. As a result, the malicious activities through the app make the user disinterested in the brand and uninstall the app. Brands experience high drop-offs as the users have lost trust in it. Furthermore, the CTIT ratio of the install campaign substantially diminishes. Therefore, click injection directly hampers the brand’s reputation. A Single Solution for App and Web Ad Frauds mFilterIt’s Ad fraud solution uses AI, ML, and data science to reveal the actual traffic sources and eliminate ad fraud on the web and app. In addition, the solution reports activities of click injection to the brand/advertisers and helps prevent association with fraudsters. Moreover, mFilterIt’s solution tracks sudden spikes in traffic, attribution hijacking, organic stealing, and other fraudulent activities on brand and performance campaigns. Therefore, a single solution is enacted as a safeguard against ad fraud. Diminishing ad fraud through click injection restores the user’s faith in a brand, optimizes analytics, and avoids wrongful investments. Conclusion Mitigating ad fraud has become a primary objective for advertisers across the globe because it reaps multiple advantages. In addition, however, it has become crucial to fight against click frauds, especially click injection, because marketers rely on user engagement and assess it through click-to-visit conversion as a measuring metric. mFilterIt’s Ad Traffic Solution solidifies consumer trust in the brand/advertiser by avoiding the dangers associated with ad fraud. Brands seeking accurate analytical results, higher human ad engagement, and reliable CVR must use this solution. Get in touch to know more about Click Injection.

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Click-Injection-Affect

How Does Click Injection Affect a Brand’s Users?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

“You have been locked out of your account/You have zero balance” is a message no user ever wants to see. Can you believe this could happen to a brand’s user through the same source of click injection? – a copycat app or pirated APK. Users behold brands as the responsible party for their asset duplication. The repercussions for the brand become dire in this process. On the other hand, fraudsters committing identity and financial theft, besides click injection, make the user’s life a living hell. Here is what happens to them: 4 Direct Implications of Click Injection Attacks on a Brand’s Users ● Device Access/OTP Fraud/Financial Fraud Click injection is often found in pirated apps downloaded from app stores or APKs. Users are tempted to download such apps because they offer free access to the content/features and remain immune to the click-firing activity in the background. Moreover, fraudsters use malicious codes or bots within the app or APK to acquire access to a user’s device, messages and hacking financial details. Unfortunately, the user also blames the brand for the financial and OTP fraud. Therefore, the apps/APKs responsible for click injection fraud also drive users away from a brand and switch to next-in-line alternatives. ● Decreases Trust and Loyalty Click injection generates unconsented ‘clicks’ on behalf of the real user. Unfortunately, the MMP doesn’t see such ill-actions, so the advertiser/brand remains unaware & unworried. Unfortunately, the sources of this ad fraud are also responsible for plaguing other attacks through them on the user’s device. Such activities make the user concerned and hardwire distrust in the brand, which becomes nearly impossible to repair. Furthermore, the brand’s inaction to fight back against the sources of fraud makes the user backlash through negative reviews, app store reports, and participation in social media trolling. The bad publicity causes a dent in loyal users and increases the real app’s drop-off rate. Moreover, the users become tempted to find other shortcomings and cripple the brand’s reputation through the ongoing repercussions. ● Creates Widespread Panic and Anxiety Pirated apps or APKs causing click injection and identity/financial theft create widespread panic and anxiety in the minds of the brand’s users. The users become more concerned about the thefts and want payback. At this point, they can’t sue anyone other than the brand. On the other hand, the brand doesn’t take responsibility for the thefts because the user was never on its app. But unfortunately, when a large number of users use a brand, new users are less likely to create accounts, and the old users won’t want to stay associated with the brand. Anxious app users also believe any fake news and share it across social media, causing widespread anger, panic, and irritation against the brand. Moreover, the user’s actions diminish the potential reach of organic traffic, and competitor visibility significantly increases. ● Cannibalizes Revenue from Existing Users Bad reputation caused by click injection and other frauds certainly cannibalize business aspirations; however, a positive notion makes a brand rise: “Time heals all wounds.” – the Greek poet Menander. But until the right time arises and the brand has somehow restored faith in the existing users, the company witnesses diminished revenue through in-app and web ads. Moreover, the brand also has users who haven’t been victimized. Moreover, the existing users still have faith in the brand and believe it will repair its reputation. Furthermore, the existing users are scared of making profiles and purchases. So, they are less likely to make large transactions. A Solution to Avoid Ad Traffic Violations mFilterIt’s Ad Traffic Solution safeguards brands against web and app ad fraud. Moreover, it is driven by AI, ML, and data science and generates real-time alerts. Therefore, brands can detect analytical anomalies caused by ad fraud instantly. Moreover, mFilterIt’s solution uses technology to eliminate ad fraud and safeguards digital advertising and customer data systems. Additionally, it systematically showcases the types of ad fraud and their sources. Some of the biggest advantages of using the solution include avoiding attribution & organic stealing, better ad engagement rates, no wastage of advertising spending, etc. Conclusion Click injection seems like an advertiser-centric problem, but it is also a brand and user issue. Moreover, fraudsters commonly use the source of this ad fraud for identity and financial theft and cause widespread panic, disinterest, and disengagement with the brand. As a result, fighting back against click injection has become essential for safeguarding a brand’s reputation, revenue, and users. mFilterIt’s Ad Traffic Validation monitors and eliminates ad fraud on the internet and contributes to the brand’s faith restoration in the users’ minds. Get in touch to learn more about the Click Injection.

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Digital-Ad-Frauds

The Deep Dark World of Digital Ad Frauds

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Advertising /

Digital ad fraud is a thing that didn’t drop just today. It has been surviving in the ever-evolving digital world and making its space in bits and bytes. While some cases have been there in the limelight, some are just well hidden in the systems. The last decade has made digital fraud, the perfect crime to do in silence. With everything tracked in spreadsheets and dashboards, there has been no crime easier to commit than this. The cybercriminals don’t even have to make bots and malware themselves. They can hire a person easily and all they need to do is rent their time on the botnets and pay for what they use like cloud computing. They can easily paint the picture of ads running and traffic generating when nothing is happening in reality. Fraudsters Who Became Celebrities Between 2003 till 2016 there was a splurge of celebrities in the cybercrime world who became famous for the wrong reasons. All the world could see was their fancy cars, homes, and yachts which attracted heavy traffic. But behind all this glam, there were some of the biggest digital frauds for which they had no fear of getting caught. Here are some of the examples of such cases that made a layman into a celebrity due to the digital fraud they have committed. Bot Traffic or Human Traffic: In 2013, a guy from the USA admitted his indulgence in buying many of the visitors to his websites. One fraud detection firm detected 94 percent of the visitors as a bot and the other detected approximately 74 percent traffic as bot traffic. It was surprising to see that despite all these findings, he was not concerned. Instead, he stated that if he can buy some traffic and it gets accepted then why not do it? He also highlighted the fact that advertisers pay only a little to get more traffic and results. And he got away with this scam by saying that the advertisers can go directly to the publisher if they want human traffic. But how does it affect the company? The bot traffic receives impressions which directly affects the click-through rates. Though, the campaign results appear massive in terms of engagement. However, that doesn’t imply actual human traffic. The false impressions heavily manipulate the metrics of the campaign and lower the value of ads which further results in loss of revenues. Traffic Manipulation Havoc: In 2003, some news articles allegedly brought a digital fraud of massive traffic manipulation in the limelight. The person behind the fraud became the traffic manipulation kingpin. He created browser extensions that generated a massive amount of irrelevant traffic by injection of ads. In the ad industry’s terminology, this is the term used for manipulation or fake views, clicks, and users. The key mastermind has also been sued for allegedly helping to force malicious software onto a PC. Despite such gruesome acts, his name has never been connected to a takedown of a high-profile name related to ad fraud. The line doesn’t end here because the traffic merchant’s shadow stretches beyond the operations of web extension. Sophisticated Scam: Another fraud celebrity made money – not just enough but lots of it by executing the most persistent and sophisticated digital fraud the internet has ever seen. The subscription trap is a scam where people are lured to buy a single free trial of a celebrity-endorsed product. But once the free trial is purchased, the customer unknowingly gets indulged into a pricey monthly subscription which is hard to cancel. But this was just one part of the big black hole created by Ads Inc. They later created a boiler room-style operation that convinced thousands of people to rent their personal Facebook accounts to the company. Ads Inc. later used this data to place ads for its flawed free trial offers. This strategy helped the company to run misleading ads at a huge volume, targeting people from all around the world in a sophisticated fashion. He also got away with it. Special Code: A ‘special code’ hit the digital market and created an avalanche of fraudulent views of video ads from companies like Unilever, Hershey’s, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, MGM, and Ford. The mastermind behind this is the owner of the 12 websites that were involved in the fraud and has earned revenue from fraudulent views. The ad platform was also provided by his company which is used by the sites in the scheme. Another master player in this fraud was a former employee of a massive ad network who ran a group of eight sites that were part of the fraud. And another group of eight sites that were consulted by the person. The last site identified by the researchers is owned by the co-founder of one of the 20 largest ad networks in the United States. The former mastermind was part of the industry and helped other insiders make tons of money with this scheme. He got away unaffected. Why do these fraudsters get away easily? The biggest reason that the fraudsters remain unaffected after committing a digital ad fraud is that there is globally no law to convict these fraudsters for this crime. Due to this, it is estimated that ad fraud will reach up to $68 billion globally in 2022 and will keep increasing aggressively. The Landmark Cases In 2021, Uber won over Phunware in a multi-million-dollar advertising fraud suit. There were suspicious practices that Uber noticed in Phunware ad activity in 2016. The Uber app installations that Phunware delivered came due to a fraudulent process known as “click flooding”. This means that a higher number of clicks are shown than the actual number. Some of the ad traffic also came from auto-redirects where the customers were taken to the app store automatically, whether the user had clicked or not. During an internal investigation, two of the former Phunware employees discovered that the company had also falsely billed Uber for non-delivered ad clicks. In addition to this, some of the ads run

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brand-safety

Why Has “Brand Safety” Become a Major Concern?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Brand Safety & Protection /

Facts that worry brands, marketers, and advertisers. Brand safety safeguards a brand’s reputation and image by ensuring correct context or placements. Nowadays, it is a serious concern for advertisers. Misleading ads or ads without custom contextual targeting often get trolled on the web. The Most Concerning Brand Safety Issues Brands that use digital advertising face brand safety issues like incent/coupon fraud, non-contextual media placements, keyword bidding fraud, etc. The strain of this problem is dominant in the BFSI sector. A banking advertisement on a terrorism video can have serious implications like online trolling, negative press coverage, wrong cause funding, etc. Managing it has become crucial for ed-tech. Unmonitored ad placements on the ed-tech app/web can expose kids to unsuitable content. In 2018, a press release by Digiday’s AI company GumGum and Custom revealed serious implications of brand safety issues. 47% of companies suffered social media blowback, 25% received negative press, and 13% lost revenue due to brand safety issues. Additionally, 44% of companies and brands faced brand-unsafe imagery, and 32% reported that it resulted from videos. Our experts analyzed one billion frames within 25 million videos on YouTube. The research revealed that 14% (3.5 million) of the context was unsafe, and 7% (1.75 million) content was unsafe. While monitoring videos according to the GARM categories through our brand hygiene protection, we identified 10.5% Illegal Drugs Tobacco E-cigarettes Vaping Alcohol, 9% Terrorism, 6% Online Piracy, and other violations. On the other hand, correct placement of ads can lead to higher conversions, signing up for newsletters/loyalty programs, increasing social media followers, and building trustworthiness. Moreover, it will help brands to reap higher and recurring profits. Since 2018, marketers have started incorporating strategies like earned/influencer media, user-generated content, working with premium publishers, etc., to curb brand safety issues. However, the massive scale of such problems required a much more effective AI, ML, and manual monitoring solution for recognizing brand/ad placements. mFilterIt’s brand safety solution encompasses GARM checks and content classification under brand-safe or unsafe categories. These include contextual, content, and sentiment analysis. Blacklisting URLs can help to protect online reputation. On the other hand, whitelisting URLs helps to recognize relevant ad placements. So, the audience targeting of brands increases and enhances the overall ROI. Our brand hygiene protection recognizes brand infringement, brand safety (media), and Keyword Search Abuse. Implementing this solution will further improve ROAS. Should You trade between Brand Safety and Ad Performance? The rising concern about brand safety is important for marketers and advertisers. However, the dilemma lies in trading it off for a better performance campaign output. In August 2018, a survey across EMEA and the US revealed that 64% of marketers believed that problems related to it negatively impact the campaign performance, and 71% struggled to target “reachability” with the right context. Almost 2/3rd of marketers believe that it is okay to use unsafe brand environments to achieve campaign targets. However, the perception that brand safety protocols undermine campaign performance is completely misguided. Marketers need to look beyond the initial vanity metrics to realize that brand safety doesn’t come at the expense of meaningful results. Firstly, marketers should realize that incorporating a solution can enhance reachability by targeting the correct audience, even when a programmatic campaign fails. For example, a sports brand ad next to a cricket match would enhance conversions and clicks. Likewise, ad placements on pornographic, torrent, free music, or similar domains can tarnish the brand’s reputation, diminish profits, etc. So, optimizing campaigns without incorporating brand safety can have deadly implications. In November 2018, GumGum and Digiday Media surveyed hate speech (34%) as the most brand-unsafe element. Marketers who participated in it also revealed that disaster/tragedy, divisive politics, and fake (accounted for 39%) were elements encountered next to client’s digital advertising. It also showed that Facebook (-23%) was the least safe platform whereas, Linked In (+45%) was the safest platform brand. Brands that didn’t take measures to ensure brand safety have suffered social media blowback, lost revenue and received negative press. On the other hand, incorporating brand safety offers benefits like effective ad spending, increased ROI, enhanced brand image, etc. Takeaway It even protects against misinformation, data protection & privacy and recognizes correct ad placements on digital platforms. mFilterIt’s brand safety solution also provides great online transparency and reduces ad fraud. The solution also supports more than 50 languages, offers a global reach with regional capabilities, encompasses 96+ content avoidance categories, and has flagged 400+ million content globally. Get in touch to learn more about the Brand Safety.

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