Case Study

PubPlus Eliminates 3% Gross Monthly Revenue Loss Due to Malvertising

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Company

PubPlus is a technology-first publisher specializing in entertainment. The company helps maximize publishers’ ROI and scales their content on the most profitable channels. Revenue attribution analysts examine trends and draw insights that help PubPlus clients streamline efficiency and improve profits.

- Omry Aviry

Chief Product Officer, PubPlus
"The Malvertising Defense team effectively and authentically described the challenge that publishers face. But most importantly they articulated how the HUMAN approach was different – in a way that we had never seen before in the industry. We had tried other solutions in the past, but this time it felt different and we needed to give it a try.”
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Challenge

PubPlus had been dealing with malicious redirects that caused a loss of over 50% of page views per user session during attack peaks. The company’s end users were unhappy with the impaired user experience related to malicious ads, and they let PubPlus know on social media. Things became so difficult for PubPlus that social networks started shutting off their advertising accounts due to the persistent presence of malware.

PubPlus used a combination of vendors and homegrown solutions, but those never truly solved the problem. Instead, the company simply monitored key metrics and conducted an after-the-fact investigation when they noticed an anomaly. The team would manually shut off demand sources, specifically ones that spiked in win rate to see if this stopped the problem, but that cost them revenue.


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Solution

PubPlus needed an automated solution that could catch the big malvertising attacks, but also protect from smaller ones that were more difficult to catch, troubleshoot, and block.

After seeing the shortcomings of other anti-malvertising solutions, Pub Plus was almost convinced that a real solution to the problem didn’t exist…until they found Malvertising Defense.

Unlike other solutions on the market, Malvertising Defense offers:

  • Protection without impacting Revenue - Malvertising Defense is the only protection that blocks malicious attacks without sacrificing revenue. Malvertisers still pay for their impressions, raising the cost of malvertising and driving them away from your site.
  • Future Proof Behavioral Analysis - Malvertising Defense detects and eliminates malicious code in real-time, even as new threats enter the ecosystem, removing the need for blocklists and manual intervention.

RESULTS

 PubPlus conducted A/B testing of Malvertising Defense across multiple sites with the key goals of measuring effectiveness, and quantifying potential revenue loss if the websites would not be protected in the best way. The results were impressive.

The company noticed that when their clients’ sites were under attack, those without Malvertising Defense protection in place would see a drop of 50% of session duration and total page views per session. Once Malvertising Defense protection was added, they could easily see our sessions and other critical operating metrics return to normal.

PubPlus also did extensive analysis to understand the implied revenue loss that malvertising would have on their business if it remained unsolved. While malvertising tends to come and go, they conservatively estimated that their monthly revenue loss was estimated at close to 3%. This doesn’t even factor in the other benefits of ensuring their clients’ readers the best reading and user experience a publisher site has to offer.

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