Publishers today understand that clicking on a redirect is digital quicksand and today, the most popular DIY trick for publishers to secure ad slots is Safeframe containers. Forced redirect ads seem annoying, but the bigger picture is even more severe. Altogether, redirects account for 48% of all malvertising– causing publishers to lose around 210 million dollars per year from users abandoning their sessions, never reaching the site, or churning.
Publishers have tried to remedy forced redirects and malvertising by implementing DIY solutions, including adjusting price floors, and asking their adops ops teams to manually track down malicious sources. These solutions are often slow, resource-heavy, or ultimately ineffective.
This guide will dig into SafeFrame containers and explore the pros and cons of implementing SafeFrame to control ad behavior and fight against forced redirects and malvertising.
Q. For starters, What are Iframes?
A. Iframes have been chiefly known to prevent a site’s elements from interacting with other elements present on the same page. Technically, iFrames are mini HTML tags that act as a container and are used to embed an ad on a web page. An Iframe is like a window placed on websites with a clear view of the content produced by an advertiser or network, providing very inflexible advertising. When an ad is placed inside an iFrame, the ad stays inside the boundaries and doesn’t interact with the other elements of the particular page.
Q. What are the limitations of Iframes?
A. Though Iframes protects publishers ad content, they bring security risks galore, limit ads’ capabilities, and inhibit the implementation of rich media ads. And not to mention, while it offers a dedicated space for ads, the advertiser cannot make changes to the shape and size of the Iframe.
Q. Is a Safeframe the same thing as an iframe?
A. No. A Safeframe lives inside the iframe and provides more secure display advertising on a publisher’s sites. A SafeFrame is an API-enabled iframe that opens a unified communication path between ads’ content and page content. While the iFrame creates the container around the ads’ content, API enables the rich interaction between the ad and the served content on the web page.
Q. Who’s responsible for implementing Safeframe containers?
A. The publisher implements the SafeFrame container in most interactive advertising models, but a third party such as an ad server or verification vendor may also host the SafeFrame for a publisher page upon agreement from the publisher.
Q. How do Safeframe containers benefit the publisher?
A. Safeframe benefits the buy-side in three main ways: User Protection, Publisher Control and Efficiency.
Q. Does Safeframe increase user privacy?
A. While Safeframe shares information with ad content served to its API-enabled iframe, the publisher chooses what to share and can protect sensitive consumer information like personal email addresses, passwords, or even banking information.
Q. How does SafeFrame increase publisher control and efficiency?
A.Safeframe isolates publishers’ webpage code and ad code that helps maintain control over the page’s layout and restricts the interference from the ads. Meanwhile, the API-enabled SafeFrame also provides the ability to decide which information should be accessible for the buyers or third-party vendors. With the implementation of SafeFrame, publisher’s can allow rich interaction from ads served to an iframe while maintaining control that prevents ad code from breaking page function. Also, enabling rich media inventory within SafeFrame containers keeps operational costs under control.
Q. Does SafeFrame work in mobile devices?
A. Non-browser (native) applications for mobile are not supported in SafeFrame 1.0 but may be supported in a future version. However, SafeFrame works in any major browser, including browser-based applications, whether on a desktop computer or any mobile device.
Q.Do buy-side developers need to modify ad code to work in a SafeFrame?
A. Yes. To work in a SafeFrame, ad code needs modification. SafeFrames are not compatible with all demand and using them can impact performance.
Q. Are SafeFrame containers secure?
A. SafeFrame establishes a foundation for more secure and transparent transactions between ad content and page content, however, ad verification tools should be implemented to ensure malicious, non-compliant, or spammy ads are never served on your site.
Q. Will SafeFrame containers rid my site of mobile redirects?
A. No. As with all DIY security tools, SafeFrame containers have their drawbacks. In this case, those drawbacks limit it’s effectiveness, particularly as a total threat prevention solution.
Q. Are SafeFrame containers a substitute for ad security and verification solutions?
A. No. SafeFrame is a great, base-level security tool, but it shouldn’t be used in place of an ad verification solution. SafeFrame is essentially an iframe with an API that enables communication between the host and external content and offers similar base-level security that an iframe does.
Q. How do publishers empower their ad ops teams to effectively block malvertising and auto-redirects?
A. Ad ops teams can prevent users from experiencing malicious or low-quality ads on the pre-impression level with a combination of real-time blocking and verification technology, such as GeoEdge. Together, these offensive and defensive tools ensure that ad inventory is always secure and high quality.
Q. Why ad verification makes for the best long-term solution?
A. Real-time detection and blocking of any malicious ads, and airtight QA automation, is the only surefire ad security strategy for publishers. These methods pinpoint known threats in the ecosystem, identify new threats, and prevent the clean-up that follows an attack. Real-time monitoring and blocking directly helps publishers improve KPIs, increase the lifetime value of their audiences, add any demand partners they want, set the floors they need, and grow their overall revenue.
Q. What does an ad quality partner mean for me?
A. A strong ad quality partnership allows you to:
1. Ensure a positive user experience
2. Optimize ad revenue without comprising ad quality
3. Maximize ad ops efficiency
Real-time protection keeps you focused on publishing — and optimizing your revenue.
Without an ad security and quality solution, the first sign of a problem is often a user complaint. Frustrated user complaints rarely contain enough information to track down fraudsters– this alone can be an impossible task, often leaving a publisher fumbling in the dark, and even trying to trigger the ad for themselves.
Real-time monitoring and blocking, directly helps publishers improve KPIs, increase the lifetime value of their audiences, add any demand partners they want, set the floors they need, and grow their overall revenue.
Keeping malvertisers away from publishers’ inventory calls for vigilance– meaning proactive solutions for unpredictable and real-time attacks.
Is your site getting hit with mobile redirects and other fraudulent demand? Drop us a line