A third of China's 2018 digital ad traffic was faked, study finds

According to a new study by Miaozhen Systems, 30.2% of China’s digital ad traffic for 2018 was invalid. Though the third-party measurement company’s 2018 Annual Report on China Digital Advertising found that there was a slight decrease of 0.3% invalid traffic since its 2017 findings, this is still a highly distressing statistic for a region plagued with ad fraud. Calvin Chan, operating partner and head of international business of Miaozhen Systems commented: "Invalid traffic has become a global issue. Some advertisers in US have shifted their advertising budget back to the traditional media due to this challenge. The significance of transparency for digital advertising has never been higher, that's why we issue the IVT report every year and keep introducing innovative and effective solutions to counter ad frauds and non-human traffic." The worst offenders for China’s IVT were in vertical media, accounting for 39.7% of the total. Brands with the most severe issues were in the “Mom & baby” category at 37.7%, which took the lead this year over the next category of transportation at 36.6%. There was a silver lining for video ads, which had a much lower share of the IVT at 20.4% compared to display advertising which represented a sizable 43.% chunk of fake clicks. Miaozhen Systems key findings for the report were based on 60,000 domestic digital advertising campaigns measured in 2018. Over 2,000 advertisers across all industry sectors - including FMCG, mom & baby, automobile, finance, and IT -  were studied, and more than 1,200 publishers on PC and mobile platforms. Earlier this year, Miaozhen Systems together with Tencent Beacon had issued a white paper on anti-ad-fraud practices. "Addressing IVT issue is vital to the sustainable and healthy development of China digital advertising. We look forward to working with all industry partners to fight against invalid traffic and holding the digital advertising industry more accountable so as to give advertisers more confidence to invest in digital media," Chan added.