The holiday season is a period of increased consumer spending online. Consumers spent $211.7 billion over the holidays in 2022, up 10.6% YoY from 2021. And advertisers know it. They also increase their budgets—up to 2-5x greater than the typical quarter—in the hopes of securing some of this spend for their business.
Bid prices and CPMs are also more expensive during the holidays, increasing by 140% and 45% respectively. The flow of marketing dollars in Q4, combined with the more attractive payouts, draw in fraudsters during the holiday season. Fake impressions and clicks drain ad budgets faster than you can drink a mug of hot cocoa. Contaminated data and manipulated conversion rates dilute campaign performance and erode trust in the digital marketing ecosystem.
What Does Holiday Ad Fraud Look Like?
Advertisers and ad platforms face several challenges related during the holiday season, including:
How to Mitigate Holiday Ad Fraud
Ad fraud runs rampant during the holidays. But there are several strategies that brands can use to help limit their exposure to non-human traffic during the holiday season:
Stop Bots from Getting a Piece of the Holiday Pie
The Human Defense Platform offers advanced ad protection solutions to stop automated fraud and malvertising. Programmatic Ad Fraud Defense and Malvertising Defense use machine learning, data analytics, and real-time monitoring to identify and block fraudulent ad activity. Data Contamination Defense filters out bots from your data, so you can analyze performance and make strategic marketing decisions.
As Q4 approaches, businesses must brace themselves for the increased threat of ad fraud. Implementing an ad fraud protection solution will safeguard ad budgets, protect data integrity, and preserve consumer trust. By mitigating the risks associated with ad fraud, businesses can ensure that holiday ad campaigns are effective, efficient, and secure.