This week's review of ad fraud and quality in the digital advertising space.
"More than 80 million Chrome users have installed one of 295 Chrome extensions that hijack and insert ads inside Google and Bing search results," reported ZDNet. "[T]he vast majority of the malicious extensions (245 out of the 295 extensions) were simplistic utilities that had no other function than to apply a custom background for Chrome's 'new tab' page," ZDNet added.
A new "digital scam [is] draining thousands from [small] businesses," reported Gizmodo. The scam is set to cost the businesses $15,000 per year, per Gizmodo. The article added: "[F]or the most part, these dollar-draining clicks were coming straight from rivals of the businesses in question, looking to put their competitors out of a job. And in some cases, it’s working."
"Sixty-nine percent of brands have either partially or completely moved programmatic buying of display, video and/or CTV in house, according to a 2020 survey conducted by the IAB and Accenture Interactive across the US, European and Latin American markets," reported AdExchanger.
"[Mobile] is faring slightly better than most other media and will eke out growth in 2020," reported eMarketer in its revised forecast, calling for mobile ad spend to rise 4.8% this year. "Barring additional waves of the coronavirus, mobile ad spending should return to a pre-pandemic trajectory next year, reaching $112.09 billion," eMarketer added.
