The 3-Headed Cerberus of Digital Ads: Bots, Viewability Standards, and Ad Blockers

The first in a multi-part series about digital advertising and the scourge of ad bots

In Greek mythology, Cerberus was a three-headed dog that guarded the gates of the underworld and prevented the dead from escaping. In current internet parlance, the three heads of Cerberus are known as bots, viewability standards, and ad blockers.

There’s really no way to avoid being impacted by the three-headed ad monster. The question is to what extent these three forces will thwart your ads. Combined, there’s a good chance that a third or less of your ad impressions will actually be seen by a real human, and in some scenarios, this number is even more bleak.

The root of the problem: programmatic ad networks

These days, most big brands use programmatic ad networks to place their ads across the web. They buy up ad space simply by inputting some basic parameters around demographics and budget. The ad network automatically assigns where and how often ads show up. This technique is easiest for companies with big ad budgets. They have money to spare, so taking a semi-informed stab at target audience and placement is “good enough.”

The problem is, if you simply plug your basic ad needs into an ad network, you’ll most likely end up plastering ads across thousands of domains, many of which you’ve never heard of. You have little control over where most ad networks place your ads. You simply give them money, and they give you reports on things like CPCs (cost-per-click) or CPMs (cost-per-1,000 impressions). You have no idea where these numbers are coming from, or if they actually translate to conversions. Often, these clicks and impressions are from off-the-radar sites that certainly are not attracting your target audience. Ads on these sites may get you clicks, but those clicks are worth virtually nothing. The people who are clicking on them are probably not your people — and they may not even be people, but bots.

Never assume that an automated ad platform can optimize your ad spend better than a human with a brain. Auction systems with real-time bidding are engineered to optimize to content and bot-farms, which human eyeballs rarely visit. It’s a nonsensical numbers game, and there is little monetary incentive for these ad platforms to actually hold content publishers accountable. We say, let big brands waste their money in the land of automated programmatic advertising. You are an entrepreneur, and your secret weapon is that you still have an innovative mind that hasn’t been beaten down by bureaucratic nonsense.

Better control over your ad buy

You know your product best, and by extension, your audience. You are therefore in the best position to shape the vision and targeting of your ad buy. No algorithm can do this as well as you can do it yourself… although automated ad platforms do have their place in moderation.

Ad networks like Google and Facebook that have automation and machine-learning capability are great tools to help you manage your ads. They enable you to manually take charge of targeting your ads with segmenting, demographics, location, devices, custom audiences, etc.

Whether or not you are using an ad network, you should take a somewhat manual approach to controlling where your ads are displayed. Many ad networks allow you to specify domains you definitely don’t want your ads served on. This is called a blacklist approach. By adding domains to the “banned” list, you build up some discretion with where your ads show up.

We prefer and always advocate for a whitelist approach, which focuses on quality over quantity. With a whitelist approach, you manually add URLs where you want your ads to show up — instead of saying where you don’t want them to appear. It’s better to advertise on a few worthy sites with premium audiences than hundreds of shoddy sites. If the ad network you’re using doesn’t allow you to create a whitelist strategy, you shouldn’t use it.

Avoid paying the ad tax

It’s a lot, but don’t discount digital advertising altogether. Advertising is always going to be a big part of marketing campaigns, no matter how much we wish we could just go viral with our witty social media postings and videos and avoid the necessary evil of ads altogether. Digital advertising can be really confusing and totally overwhelming, so for most entrepreneurs, the idea of dealing with ads inspires a lot of shallow breathing. And for good reason.

You just have to be smart and try to pay as little of the common “ad tax” as possible. It’s impossible to completely avoid being affected by bots, viewability restrictions, and ad blockers. But with the smart use of metrics, relationships with worthy publishers, and ad purchases through quality networks, you can set yourself on a path to avoid overpaying for fake ad views and phony or worthless traffic.

We firmly believe that the most important things to focus on are where your ad is placed and who your product is associated with.