Defining Bad Ads: Deceptive, Misleading and Malicious Advertising

Your site’s quality content and reputation keep your audience coming back. Will bad ads drive them away? Today, your ad inventory is the vector of attack– 76% of publishers reported their sites’ user experience has been impacted by poor ad quality. Meanwhile, 66% of publishers say ad quality challenges had an impact on their bottom line. 

As an industry, we can’t solve for bad ads if we aren’t speaking the same language. We’re here to better define ad quality and to standardize what is meant by the term “bad ad”.  It’s time for an industry-wide update on the terminology so publishers can better understand how to protect your audience, your ad revenue and understand what’s at stake. 

Breaking Down Bad Ads

Ad quality refers to bad ads, which are broken down into three categories: malicious (malware, redirects, ransomware) low-quality (offensive, explicit, brand-unsuitable), and poor user experience (pop-ups, autoplay sound).

Today’s threat landscape is shaped by scams that occur in three modes; pre-click, within ad creative, or post-click. Within the last two years, fraudsters have used deceptive and misleading ad content to entice users to click on scammy ads themselves. Since the beginning of 2020, this fairly low-tech method has proved to be the most effective tactic to defraud users.

GeoEdge has identified the most prevalent scams used to defraud users:

1. Financial scams

2. Brand Infringement 

3. Misleading Product Offers

After clicking on the ad, the user enters the next attack phase, often landing on a deceptive landing page containing disinformation, low-quality, or deceitful content. The site may host a financial or misleading product scam where the user is prompted to share their financial details in exchange for a fraudulent service or phantom product. Or, in some cases, the landing page may contain cases of brand infringement, such as counterfeit versions of high-end products and branding that mimics a legitimate publisher or advertiser.

Example 1: Financial Scam

Malicious Tactics

Cybercriminals also implement disruptive tactics to convince users to take immediate action to solve a problem with their browser or device. Such attacks include scareware which takes the form of fake alerts and prompts to download malware or unwanted programs under the guise of a “solution” for a non-existent security risk. There are various types of scareware, including malicious extensions and add-ons which can harm the user’s device by sniffing the user’s network traffic, browsing behaviors, keystrokes, stealing users’ credentials stored in the browser, and exposing the user to additional phishing attacks. Scammers also utilize fake anti-virus programs, fake Flash updates, and suspicious/fake VPNs to defraud users. Cybercriminals also commonly use programmatic advertising to socially engineer users into gift card and tech support scams.  

The Fight Against Deceptive, Misleading and Malicious Advertising

The fight for ad quality and the best user experience is happening on multiple fronts today, with bad actors plying an armload of weapons. In this risky environment, publishers need comprehensive, 360-degree real-time protection for all of their ad inventory. 

This year, ad quality is a strategic differentiator for publishers. Without the right tools, publishers will see fraudsters disrupt their users’ sessions, compromise their devices, and ruin their own reputation. Users, after all, don’t differentiate ad content from page content, and they commonly believe that anything on the publisher’s site is there because the publisher wants it to be. 

A high-quality site clear of security risks and low-quality ads has the power to attract, engage and retain a loyal audience – and to attract higher-quality advertisers. The risks are too great for a publisher to step into the ad quality fray alone. Publishers’ efforts to control ad content go to waste in the absence of effective tools that would translate their values into bullet-proof content filtering policies. This directly impacts the way users perceive a publisher’s brand and a site’s credibility.  For solutions customized for your business and audience, real-time monitoring and blocking of potential threats, insights from around the ecosystem about emerging threats, and hands-on customer service – it’s time to talk to our team.