HUMAN Expands Its IVT Detection Toolkit With A New Product For Advertisers, Not Platforms | AdExchanger

"Given the vulnerability of programmatic supply, ad verification provider HUMAN has recently started complementing its bid request analysis by analyzing the time between when a bot clicks an ad and when the landing page loads, said Geoff Stupay, SVP of product at HUMAN. Examining these page-level signals alongside bid request data, he said, means HUMAN can identify bots at different points of the digital journey than it could before, he said. On Tuesday, HUMAN rolled out a new offering, called Page Intelligence, that extends its IVT protection to also include advertisers' landing pages, Stupay said."

"This approach effectively catches IVT at "the closest point to a conversion or to a brand engagement event," he said. The rollout also signals a notable change in HUMAN's strategy: Whereas the verification vendor has long partnered directly with programmatic platforms like The Trade Desk and large platform publishers like LinkedIn, its new offering is for individual advertisers, Stupay said."

"Keeping bad data out Page Intelligence, like many other IVT detection methods, is a post-bid measurement. After all, a bot must have been served an ad in order to have clicked on it and ended up on a landing page. So, the product isn't necessarily aimed at preventing a bot from seeing an ad at all. Rather, it aids in post-campaign reconciliation, when brands and their partners account for IVT impressions that should not be paid for by the advertiser. This method of IVT detection is also a safeguard against conversion data from bots tainting a brand's first-party audience data, Stupay said."

Programmatic ad supply remains vulnerable to bots and invalid traffic despite bid-request protections like user-agent and IP analysis. HUMAN augments bid-request analysis by measuring the time between an ad click and landing-page load to surface page-level signals of bot activity. The new Page Intelligence offering extends IVT protection to advertiser landing pages and identifies fraudulent activity closer to conversion events. Page Intelligence functions as a post-bid measurement to support post-campaign reconciliation and avoid paying for bot-driven impressions. The solution also protects first-party audience data from being contaminated by conversion signals generated by bots. The product targets individual advertisers in addition to platform partners.

Read at AdExchanger