Next week Keren will be present on a panel at this year’s Mobile Monetization Summit in Tel Aviv. During the discussion on “Combating ad blockers and fraudsters” she will join many interesting people from all over the mobile industry. Shortly before the event, we sat down with her for a quick interview with her on ad fraud and its challenges for the mobile marketing industry.
What can adtech players, advertisers and app developers do about mobile ad fraud?
Since new media sources are constantly arising, we need to use the best tools available, like the one we’re using at Spyke Media. It’s called performinc and has been developed by our partners from codinc, and it’s really good to spot fraud patterns automatically. It’s important to map out and block fraudulent sources. Unfortunately, there will always be fraud, it’s unavoidable. Especially for advertisers, it’s critically important to be able to find it, analyze it and block it for good.
Is ad blocking a real threat or mostly used by a niche audience?
This is quite hard to say. On the one hand, there are a lot of advanced ad blocking tools available to download. On the other hand, there are also studies showing that some people wouldn’t even pay 1$ per year to use one. Certainly, there are ways to get around ad blockers, like native ads for example. As long as the industry finds ways to overcome ad blocking, we will prevail.
What are the ways to overcome it and win back users?
Native ads are one way advertisers are focusing on now to get their campaigns out there and defy ad blocking. Concerning winning back users, there are different approaches. If a user had a dissatisfying experience with an app or website, that app or website needs to rebrand or find other ways to improve the user experience. A company needs to build up brand trust in order to get their users back. They also need to focus on ads that user needs- AKA targeting users with tailored ads. However, I am convinced that users who truly dislike ads will use ad blockers, and there is nothing we can do about it. It’s virtually impossible to gain users that don’t have interest in ads.
