As per recent research, the expected cost of ad fraud in 2022 is around $81 billion US dollars and increases yearly. So, companies are looking for possible ways to minimize ad fraud. Ads.txt is an IAB tech lab initiative that publishers can publicly declare the companies they authorized to sell their digital inventory. This simple method helps to increase the transparency in the ad buying and selling system.
Fraudsters follow many illegal ways to earn money from digital advertising. Already I wrote an article about ad fraud and the most common ways of ad fraud in digital advertising. Researchers say every year the cost of ad fraud increases by $6 billion US dollars. Advertisers really worry about ad fraud because of their money wastage. So IAB Tech Lab and other companies working hard to find new ways to stop the fraudsters.
In 2017, IAB Tech Lab proposed the Ads.txt method to increase transparency in the digital ad buying process. To understand the importance of this proposal you must read about the domain spoofing fraudulent method. In this article, we are going to discuss the below topics that will help you to understand the Ads.txt mechanism.
> What is Domain Spoofing? How does it work?
> Why IAB tech lab proposed the ads.txt method?
> How ads.txt work with advertising?
What is Domain Spoofing? How does it work?
Domain spoofing is a method that the bad actors play a trick to fool the exchange to think that they are premium sites but actually not. Ad exchanges and marketers think the ad request is coming from the premium site so they bid higher and deliver the ads. But, the delivered ads won’t be displayed on the premium sites but the fraudsters received the money for showing the ad. [What Is Ad Fraud? Types Of Ad Fraud?]
Domain Spoofing is done by below two methods,
> Using malware
> Modifying markups in ad tags
> Impersonate premium websites
Domain Spoofing By Using Malware: In this method, the bad actors install the malware in the user’s system without their knowledge when they visit bad websites or install bad apps, etc. Once malware is installed successfully it can inject the ads on any website when the user browses the website. For example, the user browses the website “indianexpress.com”, in this situation website itself reaches the corresponding ad exchange to show the advertisements. At the same time, the malware injects the ad code on top of the website and sends the ad request to show the ads. This malware illegally hijacks the domain and sends the bid request in the name of this site. The ad exchange considered that the ad request is coming from the real website “indianexpress.com”. So, the ad exchange allowed this bid request to participate in the ad auction. This website is a premium website so marketers bid more for this page to show their advertisements. Marketers believe that their ad is showing on the website but actually not. Most of the time, the spoofing method advertisements won’t show to the users. So, marketers will not get any benefit for their money.
Modifying markups in ad tags: Websites contract with ad exchanges to show the advertisements on their sites. Ad exchanges provide the code with some identification markups to the websites and the websites should add this code to their website. When the website reaches the ad exchange, the ad exchange identifies the incoming request website by using an identification code. The bad persons modify the codes manually and impersonate the other premium sites.
Impersonate premium websites: This is one of the common ways to steal money from marketers. The fraudsters create the same kind of website with a slight change in the domain name. So, marketers and exchanges think that the impersonate site is also a premium website.
Disadvantages Of Domain Spoofing
Revenue Loss: Premium websites are working hard to achieve this top place. Their main revenue mostly comes from advertisements. In the domain spoofing method, fraudsters steal the marketer’s money. So, the website’s revenue dropped.
Lose Marketer’s Trust: Most marketers are interested to show their advertisements on premium websites. So, they are willing to bid a higher price for showing their advertisements on those pages. Also, most marketers group the premium websites under the Whitelist group and bid higher to win the ad spaces. If fraudsters sold the ad space illegally in the name of a premium site means marketers won’t get any results for their business. So, based on the performance they blacklist the premium site and won’t bid anymore.
Why IAB tech lab proposed the Ads.txt method?
The main drawback in the system before ads.txt is “Less Transparency”. Marketers can’t know the approved sellers of a website because it’s not an easy process to reach every website owner to know the sellers. Let’s consider that the indianexpress.com website is contracted with adsense seller to show the advertisements on their website. The fraudsters can use the domain spoofing method and send an ad request using a different reseller identity. The demand side platform or ad exchanges don’t have any tools to verify the identity. The only possible way to verify the seller’s identity is to contact the website owners directly. But it’s not possible in real-time.
That’s why IAB Tech Lab proposed a new method ads.txt to create transparency in the digital advertising network. This simple method is not a complete solution but it will help to increase transparency. If you want to know the authorized sellers for any website, just check the website url “www.example.com/ads.txt” and you can find the authorized seller’s identity here.
What is ads.txt?
The expansion for ads.txt is a text file that contains the information about “Authorized Digital Sellers”. The website or application owners need to mention the authorized digital seller’s information in a text file and upload them to the hosting server to make the file publicly available.
Anyone can see this text file and know about the allowed seller information.
Example : https://techtamilan.in/ads.txt
When you click the above link you will see the below information.
google.com, pub-5150158695507376, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
This means this website is directly connected with google AdSense for showing ads and they do not authorize any other sellers to sell the ad space.
How to read ads.txt information?
Adding ads.txt is not a mandatory process for a website. But, if a website added the ads.txt file anyone can read this file to know about the authorized seller’s information. Google Adsense mandate this process for the website that is linked with them.
google.com, pub-3309952587256974, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
google.com, pub-3746578658400510, RESELLER, f08c47fec0942fa0
google.com : SSP/Ad Exchange
Pub-3309952587256974 : Publisher Id
DIRECT : Type of relationship. This website directly maintains the Adsense account
RESELLER : Type of relationship. This website doesn’t manage this AdSense account directly. Some other agencies manage this account.
F08c47fec0942fa0 : Certification Authority ID
How ads.txt work in advertising?
Marketers use demand side platforms to run their ad campaigns. Most of the demand side platforms have the ability to target the websites that are having the adx.txt files in their websites. Like targetings like geo, contextual or segment or etc, the marketers are allowed to target the websites that are having Direct/Reseller authorization to sell the advertisements.
Demand side platforms fetch this ads.txt information from the incoming bid request and allow the marketers to participate in the auction. This prevents the websites participate in the ad auction.
On the other side, the website owners should declare the correct publisher id and authorization code to show ads from their exchange.
Conclusion
Ads.txt method doesn’t stop the entire fraudulent activities in digital advertising. But, this simple method creates transparency in the advertising platform. So, stealing money from marketers in digital advertising is more complex for the bad actors. Using this ads.txt file, the marketers can know about the authorized seller’s information.
Most of the demand side platforms and ad exchanges have the ability to filter out the websites that are not having ads.txt file from bidding. So, we suggest the marketers to use such platforms to run their ad campaigns to get value for their money.
