Expert Opinion

Heavily-Losing-Money

Good Publishers Are Heavily Losing Money. Know Why?

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Ad fraud has been a parasite in the digital ecosystem which has been feeding on the money of advertisers over the years. However, in this digital advertising ad space, even the publishers are not safe from the radar of fraudsters. In the case of the publishers, they not just lose the scope of revenue but also the trust of their advertisers. A vast majority of digital publishers rely on the revenue that comes from providing a relevant audience to advertisers. And the more relevant audience a publisher can provide, the more the advertisers are willing to pay for their ad inventory. However, cybercriminals use different ad fraud techniques to fool advertisers and steal money from genuine publishers. Here we have covered the fraud techniques used and how they gravely impact the publishers. Ad Fraud Techniques Impacting Publishers Bot Traffic: According to recent research, it is noted that bot traffic contributes to nearly 50% of the overall web traffic among which the percentage of bad bot traffic stands at 65%. The bots are automated software that is programmed and plotted by fraudsters to steal ad money from advertisers. These bots are programmed to click on ads and view an ad or video which results in the deduction of money from advertising budgets. Bot traffic can impact the publishers in more than one way. Firstly, it will inflate the number of clicks and impressions but in the end, the advertiser will not get any genuine users. This will further impact the relationship and trust between the advertiser and the publisher. Secondly, sophisticated bots can steal content and data from genuine publishers and use it in their favor. Domain Spoofing: In this type of fraud technique, the fraudster masquerades a URL or domain and showcases it as a legitimate domain to misrepresent a low-quality inventory as high-quality. This method deceives the buyers into purchasing a low-quality inventory at a high cost. Domain spoofing is often used by fraudsters to mask unsafe websites and make money from their traffic. As the fraudsters mimic the domains of a premium publisher to fool the advertisers, they tarnish the reputation of the good publishers and decrease the value of their inventory quality. Ad Injection: In this technique, the ad injectors place fraudulent ads on a publisher’s content without the knowledge and permission of the publisher. This is often done by placing malware or other malicious applications on the publisher’s website. The injected ads replace the existing ads on a publisher’s website and cost a hefty revenue to the good publisher. Ad Placement Fraud: Ad placement fraud is a catch-all term that is used to define various ad fraud techniques that fraudsters use to manipulate the publisher’s ad inventory to generate revenue. The fraudsters plant invisible/hidden ads that take the form of ad stacking (displaying multiple ads one above another), pixel stuffing (where the ads are served on a 1×1 frame), or placement of ads outside the viewport area. The above ad fraud techniques are not just stealing the revenue of the publishers but also damaging their reputations. Let’s see how genuine publishers are getting impacted by the fraudsters. How Ad Fraud Is Harming Good Publishers? Stealing Their Revenue In programmatic advertising, fraudsters create many fake websites in the form of long-tail sites. They often use plagiarized content to make it appear legitimate in the programmatic ecosystem. These websites offer ad inventory at a low cost and attract advertisers to run ads on their sites. Whereas the premium publishers have to eventually lower their cost of ad inventory to compete with the sites whose existence is unknown to the human population. In another case, the fraudsters use ad fraud techniques like domain spoofing to manipulate the user to their fake site and steal the genuine publisher’s revenue. Diverts Genuine Traffic The fraudsters look for different ways to dupe the publishers. It does not just cost them a loss in revenue, but it also leads to the diversion of genuine traffic from legitimate publishers to fake websites. The fraudsters place malware that causes auto redirects or pop-up ads which divert the user to a different website. In most cases, these websites are fake and can jeopardize the safety of the user’s data. Impact on Brand Safety The trial of mishaps doesn’t end with just loss of revenue and genuine traffic. Due to the fraudulent practices, the biggest hit comes to the brand reputation of the publisher. The fraudsters not just place malware ads, but also dupe the publishers by copying their website URL or domain. After this, when a genuine user visits the spoofed website thinking it to be the legitimate website and upon clicking the ads, they are often redirected to a page containing unsafe content. How mFilterIt Helps Publishers Against Ad Fraud To protect genuine publishers from being exploited by fraudulent practices, the mPlaceIt tool provides a robust solution to identify websites dealing with abusive content. It also classifies genuine websites into different categories by focusing on the targeted content of the site, thereby defining its suitability for the advertisers. Our solution is a combination of the capabilities of AI, ML & a dynamic repository of ad traffic validation data points that determines the evolving trends of fraud. Conclusion Not just advertisers are losing money due to ad fraud, but genuine publishers have also been victims of this for the longest time. Some publishers not only lose their revenue but also face serious repercussions due to brand infringement attacks. To fight these ad fraud attacks, publishers need a holistic solution to ensure that their content and ad inventory are protected from bad actors. Alongside this, this can also help good publishers vet their inventory before sending it to the advertisers. To bring a level of safety to the digital advertising ecosystem, both the publishers and advertisers need a holistic solution like the Ad Traffic Validation suite by mFilterIt to detect and prevent ad fraud in real time and also protect their brand reputation. Get in touch to learn more about Ad fraud.

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Brand Safety

How to Ensure Brand Safety on Social Media Platforms?

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Protecting the brand assets on social media platforms is as important as taking care of the offline assets. Brand safety is avoiding media placements that would negatively impact the brand’s reputation. Brands can suffer serious consequences like negative publicity and trolls if brand safety isn’t ensured. Usually, the parent’s phone is accessed by children resulting in their exposure to all kinds of content on social media apps. In 2018, a CNN news article stated that 50% of parents of children between the 10-12 age group and 32% of parents with 7-9-year-old children stated that their kids began using social media in the first six months. Moreover, 17% of parents stated that they didn’t have parental control over social media apps. Imagine if a kid is using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., coming across an adult ad (e.g., Durex condom ad) next to a cartoon/game/trend/news while surfing through a parent’s phone. Such ads can cause distress, and emotional disturbances. Due to the highest human engagement, social media profiles enact as a two-way communication medium between the viewer and the brand. Brands use these to optimize SEO, reach potential customers/partners/investors, and share content/news/trends updates. So, a compromised brand safety hampers the organization’s social media goals. Placement of the ads next to relevant content and context is equally vital. For example, a hamburger ad next to a fitness hashtag/news/trend would certainly turn away eyes instead of engaging with it because of “irrelevancy.” Moreover, a brand doesn’t build a reputation on social media overnight. Instead, it rigorously publishes online ads, content, and stock trends to create the buzz. A bad reputation also offers a chance to competitors to scale up their business. A large section (nearly 80%) of industry leaders also believe that brands placing ads next to unsuitable contexts compromises the ROAS. Ways to Ensure Brand Safety on Social Media: Watch Out for Influencers and UGC UGC or user-generated content is important for enhancing organic visibility, especially on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. However, brands providing control to the audience also lose control over brand reputation. Monitoring real-time responses are crucial for engagements and filtering out bad actors. For example, if someone is deliberately dragging the brand down, you need to act before it gets blown out of proportion. Perform a Sentiment Analysis Sentiment analysis obtains consumer perception about brand/product/service through data/information. Social media platforms are the best place for acquiring such data, besides reviews and ratings, blog interactions, and forums. Users on social media often engage with brand advertisements. Captivating users’ emotions on the ads help to understand the market perspective and build strategies. Social media video and text ads often create engagements through comments, likes, and shares. Unresponsiveness to negative sentiments will only further damage the brand’s reputation. mFilterIt uses a solution that can scan the open web including some of the walled gardens and assimilate the sentiments around a brand. The capability includes scanning for brands with their logos, and their names even when they are not hashtagged by the audience in general. These sentiments can further be sub-categorized and classified into positive, negative & neutral. Having a finger on the pulse has become imperative for the brand in the digital ecosystem. Timely knowledge is powerful and can be used appropriately to maintain an edge in the digital space. Contextual Targeting is Key: Contextual targeting enhances the ad relevancy of programmatic campaigns. Moreover, social media is constantly engaging users through comments, likes, and shares. So, it is impertinent for brands to use contextual targeting for reaching out to targeted audiences using phrases, trends, or hashtags associated with the ads. Open-source intelligence used by mFilterIt can help to make human-like comprehension and understand small linguistic variations. Instead of categorizing into positive and negative sentiments, brands can use these features for precise contextual and emotional matchmaking while boosting brand safety. In 2017, a BBC report revealed that mature content with falsified characters from Peppa Pig, Disney’s Frozen, and the Minions franchise were used by YouTube creators. In response, the platform owner created ‘problematic content’ guidelines. Thus, creating content problems related to child safety. Contextual targeting can help brands avoid misplacements against such videos if a similar scenario arises. Brand safety concerns are increasing with TikTok, as a report published in March 2021 suggested that 25% of US users of the app were between the age of 10 and 19. TikTok is the second, most popular app after Facebook. In 2019, it became a part of the negative press after rising concerns about brand safety and privacy policies. Since then, TikTok has constantly been working around brand safety solution providers to avoid bad publicity and offer safer environments to advertisers. Marketers and advertisers can enhance brand safety on TikTok ads through relevancy. They can select audience inclusions, demographics, interest & behavior, and device details. Using contextual targeting with these details will surely boost engagements through relevant placements and result in better ROAS. Consider a Brand Safety Solution Programmatic campaigns make it harder for marketers and advertisers to track brand safety, as the placements are automated. Ideally, you should monitor such campaigns in real-time. Unfortunately, the possibility of this happening and taking action against bad actors is challenging, especially while trying to achieve other marketing goals. So, utilizing a brand safety solution that complies with the GARM guidelines is necessary. mFilterIt offers machine and human efforts-based brand safety solutions to counter the recurring online issues. Moreover, it also comprises brand suitability and infringement solutions. So, your brand can maintain market reputation and credibility among the engagers on social platforms. We are not bragging (well, maybe a little, and it’s justified), but the solution is beneficial for avoiding incent & APK activity, unconsented cashback & referrals, wrongful YouTube placements, keyword bidding, and infringements. Conclusion Ad placements on social media are the need of the hour but ensuring brand safety is the topmost concern. No viewer would associate with an advertisement placed next to an unrelated topic, trends, news, etc. Moreover, social media is constantly subjected to the highest amount of hate speech, bad

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MAP-Violations

Why Do MAP Violations Threaten eCom Brands?

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Product listings on eCommerce marketplaces don’t often have prices varying from the original cost. According to a Statista report, 32% of eCom brands from North America and Europe said they wouldn’t introduce dynamic pricing on eCom stores. MAP or Minimum Advertised Price is the lowest cost at which sellers and re-sellers can sell products on eCom marketplaces like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc. Manufacturers, distributors, and retailers create a MAP agreement policy before selling products online. Setting up such a policy upholds the brand’s reputation and ensures retailer margins. Unfortunately, brands constantly face MAP violations through eCom sellers and re-sellers, disrupting this ecosystem and introducing unwanted sellers into the sales funnel. The problem with the brand’s product available at lower than the MAP also drastically spoils the brand’s reputation in the eyes of the consumers. Moreover, such customers often receive counterfeit or duplicate products, further damaging the brand’s credibility and disrupting the existing customer base. Sellers/re-sellers violating the MAP policy often receive negative product reviews and ratings on eCom marketplaces. The problematic areas are mostly addressed towards brands and offer competitors an opportunity to scale their business by offering good quality products. The Bond and Difference Between MSRP and MAP While MAP is the Minimum Advertised Price for selling products that target the retailers, MSRP stands for the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price and caters to the maximum chargeable limit of a product towards a customer. Retailers can diminish the MSRP for clearing stocks or during festive seasons to increase sales and revenue; however, the same is not true for MAP. Moreover, retailers can face legal actions for violating the MAP agreement policy for breach of contract. Maintaining a product price between the MSRP and MAP enables retailers and brands to continuously incur profit margins while maintaining the brand’s messaging set through the price. After reviewing the product price, it informs the buyer that the brand is not willing to go below a point for selling its products and targets individuals who have a keen interest in its offerings. This ideology is even applied when consumers use discounts, promotions, offers, etc. Key Highlights Between MSRP and MAP MSRP can diminish up to the limit of MAP MAP majorly targets retailers, whereas MSRP aims at customers. Setting price between MAP and MSRP gives clear pricing messaging to the buyers. Discounts, offers, promotions, etc., undertake the MSRP and MAP ideologies. The Fastest Method for Monitoring MAP Violations in Real-Time Reducing such instances from sellers and re-sellers is necessary for eCom brands, given the repercussions of MAP violations. Having first-hand knowledge of the online issues arising from this concern requires continuously monitoring eCom websites and apps. eCom Competitive Analytics, commonly known as mScanIt, uses the latest technology to cite screenshots of MAP violations on eCom marketplaces like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc. The solution sends real-time notifications to brands for instances of MAP violations and allows revoking pricing disruption while maintaining brand credibility. Moreover, mScanIt, powered by mFilterIt, also highlights counterfeit product listings found in online shopping stores. How to Reduce Unending MAP Violations? Revoking MAP violations through continuous monitoring is a necessity of the hour; however, brands can also use the following tips for reducing them on eCom marketplaces: Cultivate an Environment of Trust Rewarding retailers diligently following MAP agreement policy is crucial to flagging off MAP violators. The problems of nearing the stock expiration date, low demand, D2C competitors, etc., is common for all e-commerce sellers; however, some manage to follow through with the agreement and achieve their profit margins. Brands can reward such retailers with higher margins, relaxing rules during occasions like Ramadan, Navaratri, Easter, etc., sales, or making them stars in internal communities. Motivating rewards through such rewards can significantly encourage other eCom sellers and re-sellers to take a similar approach. Build Better Communication Channels The recent changes in laws, rules, or guidelines may not reach a common retailer or garner interest unless the brand notifies them about them. The MAP agreement policy might remain intact; however, new opportunities for optimally increasing revenues for brands and retailers may continuously arise. Therefore, brands should take initiatives to communicate useful information that may offer dual advantages continuously. Such an activity would harness better communication channels and resolve common problems faced by retailers due to the ongoing MAP agreement policy. As a result, brands could witness lower MAP violations and higher sales on eCom marketplaces. Harness Goodwill Through Retailers Another method of diminishing MAP violations across eCom marketplaces is by harnessing the goodwill of the retailers. It means that brands should make efforts diligently to reward retailers for achieving high-profit margins while following the MAP agreement policy. By highlighting retailers within internal channels and patting their backs, brands get a chance to achieve the retailer’s goodwill. Moreover, it enhances the chance of good word-of-mouth communication among the peers of the retailers. As a result, brands can expand their goodwill community of retailers in the long run. Enforce Specialists for Revoking MAP Violations Building retailer goodwill, creating better communication channels, and cultivating an environment of trust can prove useful but may not grab the attention of all retailers. Therefore, monitoring MAP violations and enforcing a team of specialists for revoking ongoing & upcoming instances becomes necessary. eCom Competitive Analytics, a.k.a., mScanIt, proves a useful solution backed by a team of data scientists for achieving this goal. It incorporates the parameters designated by the brands and uses them to track deviations across eCom marketplaces. Besides the set KPI deviation alerts, brands also get a fighting chance to deal with retailers through the real-time insights curated through technology. Another advantage of using an automated system for tracking MAP violations is that the brand learns about the competitor prices of similar products across platforms. Navigating into deep-diving helps in enhancing pricing intelligence. Final Words Stopping MAP violations across eCom stores safeguards brand reputation and maintains retailers’ profit margins. However, tacking this problem manually is not humanly possible due to the growing number of counterfeit or duplicate product sellers. As a

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Bot-Traffic

5 Clear Signs to Detect Bot Traffic in Your Digital Ad Campaigns

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Advertisers spend millions of dollars every year on digital ads to ensure that they reach the right audience and expand their reach. They get the traffic, and they are happy that their ads are reaching the desired audience. But is this traffic coming from a genuine audience? This question was never thought of until the word “Bot Traffic” came into existence. In the past few years, bot activity has taken a surge and advertisers are unknowingly spending money on views that are coming from Bots instead of real users. Not just the money, irrelevant traffic coming from bots is impacting the effectiveness of the digital campaigns and the advertisers are in a shock. In this blog, we are covering the impacts of bot traffic and how one can detect bots in their ad campaigns. Read along, What is bot traffic? According to recent statistics, 50% of the web traffic constitutes bot traffic. These bots are used for good and bad purposes. While the good bots help the internet to run smoothly, the bad bots are malicious bots that mimic human traffic. In recent times, there has been a rapid rise in bot traffic. These bots do not just compromise the ad campaign data, they can also commit grievous cyber-attacks to steal data and commit DDoS attacks. The bot traffic heavily impacts the advertisers running “pay per click” or “pay per impression” campaigns by disrupting the analytics data and draining their advertising budget. Bot Traffic Drains Not Just Advertising Budget The foremost thing that advertisers have to deal with is the draining of ad budget on bot traffic. Instead, this wasted ad budget can be used to target real humans. But that’s not the only aspect of concern. Apart from money, the advertisers also end up with skewed data due to bot traffic. Some of the consequences of a manipulated data are: 1. Automation Leads to Targeting Wrong Audience Major advertisers use automation to target a large amount of user behavior data and allocate advertising spend on ads without any manual intervention. However, if the targeted audience data is generated by bots instead of genuine customers, then due to automation the ads end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. 2. Heated traffic Due to bot activity, some pages can witness a sudden peak in website traffic boosted by bots. Some posts may seem to work better on social media due to high impressions and engagements. Seeing the high traffic, advertisers fall into the trap and invests more money in the ad campaigns instead of investing time and money on campaigns that can attract a real audience. 3. Wrong Chargebacks In case of a credit card fraud where bot activity is involved, the businesses have to incur the cost of chargebacks. However, this money goes to the fraudster instead of the legitimate owner of the credit card. Moreover, this cost is not considered in the revenue figures when analyzing the campaign’s effectiveness. Ways to Identify Bot Traffic 1. Unusual Spike in Traffic If you see an unusual spike in your ad traffic, this is a clear sign of bot activity in your ad campaign. Below is an example of an unusual flow of traffic due to bots. 2. High Impressions An impression is a metric that measures the number of times an advertisement is displayed on a user’s screen. When running a CPM campaign, if you see a spike in impressions at a consistent rate then it can be assumed as a bot activity. Below is an example of a case of an IP bot pattern where repetitive impressions are served to a specific IP at a specific hour during the day. 3. Click To Conversion rate is low If you witness a spike in the number of clicks in your ad campaign, and the number of conversions is not relative then it is a case of bot fraud. As the bots cannot convert, they just visit the website and leave. This results in high traffic whereas the conversion rate remains low. 4. Traffic from Unusual Location If you are receiving traffic from a location outside your targeted area, it could be a sign of bot traffic. For example, if you’re targeting an audience from Chicago and you’re receiving traffic from California, Iowa, and even France then it might be the bot interacting with your ads. Below is an example of the geo fraud committed by bots. 5. Analyse Suspicious IP Addresses If your campaign is getting heavy traffic in a short period from a single IP, it is a clear sign of bot activity. The best way to protect your ad campaigns from IP bot attacks is to block them. Why your brand needs an ad-fraud expert to combat bot traffic? The above-mentioned ways can help you track basic bot activities. However, over time some sophisticated bots have also emerged which are hard to trace without an expert eye. To protect your ad campaigns from sophisticated bots, it is important to partner with an ad fraud detection and prevention solution provider like mFilterIt to ensure full-funnel coverage from fraud. Along with detecting the usual bot patterns, our Ad traffic validation suite ensures that your ad campaigns are not impacted by a new bot. Every day there is a new bot emerging, thus whenever we detect a new ‘bot’ in an ad campaign of an X customer, our first step is to identify that bot in the campaigns of other customers and flag them on every customer’s ad campaign. So, if you’re still thinking about acting against bot traffic, do it now. Save your ad spends to go in the drain on irrelevant traffic and focus on investing it to attract real customers. If not now, then when?

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Competitive-Analytics

How Can eCom Brands Drive Sales Through Competitive Analytics?

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Knowing a consumer’s journey on ecommerce platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc., is essential for brands, as it deciphers buyer personas of various product listings under enlisted categories. Simultaneously, it also helps brands connect with their consumers or potential target audiences’ needs and problems while enabling brands to avoid instances that can harm the brand’s reputation. According to Statista, the factors influencing customers’ shopping behavior in the U.S. include competitive pricing, free shipping, product options, reviews, etc. Brands only know their product listings on ecom platforms, but marketplaces hardly give intel about the consumer requirements. Also, brands can only view their progress on the ecom marketplace and require a team of experts to carefully monitor the competition to find areas of improvement, growth opportunities, etc. In addition to this, brands have a chance to discover new trends, competitor practices, and more. Therefore, having such information can undoubtedly impact the sales volume of ecom brands. So, such data is the need of the hour, and eCom Competitive Analytics can offer actionable insights with an in-depth report of each factor influencing sales/revenue/conversion. Let’s find out how this happens? But before we go ahead with this, let’s discuss what is eCom Competitive Analytics? Definition of eCom Competitive Analytics eCom Competitive Analytics evaluates a brand/products ranking versus the competition across the online marketplace using filters. It is also known as mScanIt and is one of the most widely used solutions for measuring share-of-shelf, stock availability, reviews & ratings, keyword-wise performance, etc. For example, knowing that consumers favor Brand A over Brand B, and using phrases like love, enjoyed it, quality, etc., as part of sentiment analysis would likely make the former intake certain practices of the latter. Simultaneously, the negative reviews would highlight features like sellers, broken products, etc., and give a chance to Brand A to resolve the issue. Methods to Boost Sales Using eCom Competitive Analytics Managing Stock Availability: Stockouts are a nightmare for brands. It diverts the potential buyer’s attention toward competition and increases disinterest in the brand, especially during lightning deals or flash sales. Knowing the stock availability across pin codes, cities, or locations and viewing stock availability on a single dashboard can resolve this problem drastically. Moreover, brands can review the data to learn about out-of-stock issues arising with specific retailers and take measures like increasing production or substitution to resolve the problem. Product Page Optimization: Creating SEO-friendly content while managing the character or word limit of the title, product description, page content, etc., is a challenging task. Simultaneously, it requires continuously evaluating the score of such aspects and comparing them with the competition to find areas for improvement, the scope of scale, and reasons for a high score. Optimizing the content on ecom marketplaces helps brands boost their discoverability, visibility, search ranking, etc., resulting in conversions. Pricing Intelligence: Competitive pricing drive 70% of the ecom consumers’ product purchasing decision. Reviewing competitor prices of similar products provides insights on pricing strategies, competing with the top brand, monitoring the scope of increasing price, etc. Moreover, mScanIt’s pricing intelligence also defines the average price per SKU, along with platform & variant-based cost, which gives a more explicit knowledge of creating futuristic prices. Pricing analytics help create promotions, offers, discounts, and offers, which significantly help attract a new customer base. Customer Sentiments: Reviews & ratings encourage 25% of online shoppers to buy from a particular retailer. Knowing the customer’s sentiments through R&R and social media handles can help sight seller/product issues, features/qualities appreciated by the buyers/influencers, understand the brand’s overall reputation, determine consumer needs, etc. Knowing the customer sentiments could help to boost sales by 18-20%. Similarly, other essential metrics can manage issues across ecom stores, enhance the consumer journey, and boost the revenue/sale/conversion. mScanIt is a one-stop shop for ecom brands. It intakes the capacity to monitor ecom metrics, evaluate media & search metrics, and deliver actionable insights for achieving these goals. Final Words In today’s world of quick, social, communication and e-commerce, having a resourceful solution that can measure a brand’s product performance and competitors has become the need of the hour. eCom Competitive Analytics or mScanIt helps brands across continents to measure different scales for boosting discoverability, availability, performance, etc., which impact the sales-driven ecom marketplaces. For more information about the advantages of mScanIt for your organization, connect with us by leaving a comment or contacting us.

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Brand-Safety

How Does Brand Safety Adversely Impact Brands and Publishers?

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Brand safety is a challenge for online marketers in today’s programmatic landscape. COVID-19 has affected brands in a big way, including the advertising and marketing industry. The rapid growth of digitization has made brands’ digital safety a major concern for both brand custodians and publishers. Digital advertising faced its first brand safety issue several years ago when it was found that ads on YouTube for major national brands were next to ISIS recruitment videos. Since then, things have gotten out of hand. According to a 2017 survey of U.S. marketers, 68% said their brand was exposed to “brand safety” issues. Furthermore, the study found that publisher sites, Twitter, and Facebook all ranked as having a higher risk of brand safety violations, despite YouTube’s notable brand safety policies. It’s challenging for publishers to manage the contextual suitability of ads on their sites, especially if they’re being served programmatically. No matter what type of advertisement you run, whether it is a political ad with a divisive message, a KFC ad that appears on a vegan website, or a lingerie ad that appears on a kid’s site, the contextuality of advertisements can directly affect how your audience experiences your brand. Your brand can be tarnished if offensive or inappropriate content occurs next to your ad. Why Should Publishers Invest in Brand Safety? Brand safety is not a matter of prime concern to most small and medium publishers. Fraudulent publishers mix the incent traffic within non incent traffic making fraud detection difficult. This impacts the campaign’s performance with low-quality leads and engagement. This negatively impacts the credibility of the publisher. How the Industry Bodies Are Helping Publishers in Addressing Brand Safety Issues? Publishers have faced numerous problems related to brand safety over the years. There is a need for them to work directly with brand safety vendors in order to keep their digital assets safe and gain the confidence of advertisers and audiences. Many industry bodies have been working to define practical brand safety measures in order to help facilitate a productive connection with advertisers and publishers, including the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Media Rating Council (MRC). The measures were designed to help in making informed choices before the campaigns began. What Should Publishers Do? Identify your current position: In addition to blacklisted keywords, advertisers also consider the domain authority, viewability score, fill rate, and historical bid price of your site. You may be removed from the advertiser’s campaign if your numbers don’t meet the advertiser’s standards. Therefore, it is recommended to keep an eye on these numbers to avoid penalties from brand custodians. Avoid invalid traffic: Non-human traffic can kill the brand safety score. When a demand-side system notices unusual traffic on your domain, it flags you as unsafe. It’s hard for publishers to avoid all invalid traffic. In such an instance, make your policy transparent and include the percentage of invalid traffic on your site. Review your demand source: Choosing your demand partners wisely is recommended. Make sure they have appropriate safety measures in place, including preventing ad injection and domain spoofing. Consult a brand safety company: There is a good chance that advertisers have blacklisted your inventory if you’ve recently noticed a decline in fill rate. However, there are many other possible reasons. But do not rule out blacklisting. It is recommended that you work directly with brand safety vendors. Aside from providing protection services, they can also assist in creating a balance between genuine content and ad revenue, Learn more about brand safety: Brand safety is not just a concern for advertisers, but also for publishers of all sizes. Learning more about the problem should help you come up with an educated solution. Use the guidelines from the IAB and MRC to build buyer confidence. Vet your partners and advertisers: Programmatic advertising has become more concerned about perceived brand risk as a result of increased technology usage. In part, this is due to a lack of transparency between advertisers and publishers. Thus, advertisers are choosing direct buys with reputable publishers or direct integration with the publisher’s ad server. This is because, in such a buy, the possibility of ad fraud is greatly reduced. You benefit from direct deals because they offer better transparency than indirect deals, which will build much stronger bonds with your advertisers. Conclusion Knowing everything about your business is important because it’s part of the advertising chain. Neglecting brand safety will only harm your business. Now that advertising is reinventing itself, the opportunities that come from improving your brand’s safety will bring the desired ROI. mFilterIt’s deep web scanners continuously keep a detailed eye across digital space to report any deviations from the brand policy and objectives. To learn more about our brand safety solution, Click here to schedule a demo with us!

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Product-Title

Is Your Product Title Compelling Enough?

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A product title is the second-most visible aspect after viewing the item’s image on any search engine. 57% of online shoppers use search engines like Google, etc., to find more about a product. Another report states that relevant keywords in the title tag help in good SERP 4.39 out of 5.0 times. Creating a compelling title is a priority for eCom brands as it can directly impact their traffic reach, discoverability, and sales. An SEO-friendly title must have the relevant product information created using targeted keywords and confine within the perfect page character limitations while connecting with the target audience’s needs. Simultaneously, brands need to avoid words like sale, offer, promotion, best seller, etc., while creating the product titles. Achieving these aspects also helps brands enhance user experience, generate interest among new buyers, and manage buyer expectations. So, while most people would say, ‘what’s in a name/title?’ we would like to answer this question for you while offering a checklist. So, let’s get onto it. Why Do eCom Marketers Make a Fuss About Product Titles? The average customer visit duration on Amazon is 13 minutes and 11 seconds, stating the average time brands have to convince viewers to become potential buyers. Comparing the visit duration with the 2020 conversion rate by the end of the third quarter, i.e., 2.17%, would mean brands have an average of 2.17% conversion in 13.11 minutes, which likely involves searches and navigation. Given these facts, optimizing product titles and offering a suitable image for ease in product recognition becomes vital besides pricing intelligence and delivery duration. Moreover, suppose you carefully view Amazon’s mobile and webstore. In that case, you will find that the app has a limitation of 79 characters, whereas the website displays no more than 200 characters in the title. However, the limitations can vary based upon the eCom store, categories, and seller/vendor. Marketers want their product features/capabilities to get covered as USPs in the title; however, they often fail in the title score if analyzed carefully. Here is a classic example of characters exceeding the title limit on a laptop: Most SEO experts would ideally identify that the length could decrease and optimize the title by removing either one of the targeted keywords (Smart Watch Smartwatch or Smart Watches for Men). It would also offer an advantage of showing more about the product features. What Makes a Great Product Title? Making a compelling title jots down to length, word placements, and keywords. However, a few facts need to be kept in mind while focusing on these three aspects. Let’s get onto them. Keywords: One of the most influential factors that prompt consumers towards further product exploration on search engines of websites like Google and eCom stores like Amazon, Big Basket, and Flipkart is ‘Keywords.’ Given the average duration, incorporating the right keywords, in the beginning, is always a priority; however, so is avoiding keyword stuffing. Brands don’t want their customers to think that the product looks unworthy of their basket and requires spending more time on the title. The weight of keywords is equal on an entire product page but begins with the title. Word Placement: After deciding on the relevant content of the product, the next step is deciding on word placements or structure. eCom marketplaces have guidelines for helping sellers with product titles, descriptions, and A+ content, yet most sellers score low results in all three aspects. For example, your title could include “Brand name, sub-brand, product, feature, etc. Let’s take the example from the above image,” Noise ColorFit Pulse Spo2 Smart Watch with 10 days battery life….” The keyword is placed after the fourth word when it could easily get placed before “Spo2” and grab higher views even on the mobile app. Length: Although we have already covered this aspect, let’s get more specific. According to a source, the average character length for product titles across most eCom stores is 50-200. The length is decided based on many factors, but one of them is that the customers have a low retention span while searching for online products (which we have already covered). Therefore, short titles often generate the interest of the buyers. Here is a classic example of the keyword ‘laptop backpack’: In this example, the brand fails in the word placement but would score high in length and keyword, as it has a good product description in the title, which is also clearly visible on the mobile app. The Best Method to Ensure Great Product Titles Knowing the title, content, review, and overall score helps brands to make changes in their ongoing content and marketing practices across eCom stores. The best method to continuously review these four scores is eCom Competitive Analytics or mScanIt. The technology-driven solution offers insights for improving the perfect page summary scores across eCom platforms while offering a comparative score review of the competitors. Final Words Brands can only decide whether their product title on eCom stores is more compelling than the competitors by continuously reviewing them through eCom Competitive Analytics. The solution also offers scores for other aspects necessary for creating a perfect page. mScanIt, powered by mFilterIt, is currently being used by major eCom industry leaders across borders and allows brands to learn more about their product listings through in-depth insights. For more information on the advantages of mScanIt for your business, connect with us by dropping a comment or scheduling a demo.

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Online Sales

Most Successful Strategies to Drive Online Sales on eCom Platforms

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Why would a consumer buy your product over the competitors, especially with an ‘n’-number of options on ecom marketplaces? It all boils down to the “trust” a customer has in your brand and its products, created using multiple marketing and advertising strategies over the years. Trust on ecommerce platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc., is built by creating a good first impression, offering reassurances, showing off products, etc. However, while your brand is implementing online strategies to achieve this goal, it is also crucial to enhance customer journeys, manage stock availability, understand pricing intelligence, etc. Creating successful ecommerce sales strategies also requires an in-depth understanding of your brand’s product versus the competition to learn about customer issues, most/least appreciated qualities, hero products across different ecom platforms, etc. Therefore, building successful sales strategies is possible through eCom Competitive Analytics, a.k.a., mScanIt. We bring the best methods to increase sales through mScanIt, powered by mFilterIt. 3 Important Strategies That Can Boost Sales Find Out Customer Requirements Viewers on ecommerce platforms often leave their queries under the Q&A or review & rating sections. Answering the commonly asked questions by potential buyers can enhance sales of the product listings. Similarly, knowing the common queries for the product listings across ecommerce platforms can enable brands to improve their customer communication inside and outside the ecommerce store. mScanIt’s question themes encompass the times customers have used a particular phrase as part of the Q&A for a product listing. For example, suppose the theme reveals packaging mentioned sixty-four times under the questions. In that case, the brand will know that they should address it by mentioning details on the product page or running online marketing campaigns. Answering customer queries improves the product information, and 10% of the online shoppers prefer ecommerce purchases versus physical retail stores for this very reason. Besides this, brands can utilize the word cloud representation of the themes in the Q&A section to learn about their consumers. Enhance Your Product Page Captivating a consumer’s attention, especially after clicking on the product listing, requires describing the product and using the apt keywords in the correct arrangement throughout the product page. Clear and crisp information that meets the potential target audiences’ needs will encourage add-to-cart actions and conversions/sales. New users would often build trust through the content and feedback, whereas returning users are already interested in the product but are likely searching whether it encompasses the latest features/qualities. Simultaneously, all potential consumers search for trust signals such as high-quality images, good content copy, detailed product descriptions, easy on the eye title, etc. Wouldn’t that be your perspective, too, if you will buy from a new seller/brand? Overcoming the challenge in developing and achieving perfect page benchmarking can increase consumer base and revenue and enhance the brand reputation without any paid activity, as content copies require only words. eCom Competitive Analytics scores for title, content, and reviews, besides overall score, while measuring it against the competition. The information helps brands to know the highest possible score under each aspect and explore areas of improvement under these avenues through deep diving. Improve Your Ads Given that 10% (more or less if compared with the current year) of the ecommerce advertising budget goes into banner ads, developing a great banner copy is important. Include high-quality images and details that highlight the USP(s) of the product, keep it short, simple, & catchy, etc., are continuously practised by marketers. But why does the ad copy still have such a low score compared to the competition? Knowing the aspects that increase engagement with the rival’s sponsored ads can enable brands to develop better ad copies, find a new target base, build brand trust, and ultimately increase sales. Analyzing the ad copies will help understand the targeted buyer personas and gather more intelligence. Also, if possible, introduce usability factors in your ad copies to reach the correct audience, even if you have a wide net. Enhancing the sponsored ads improves the buyer journey through navigation, which is the only other method besides search engines on ecommerce platforms. The factors that drive sales don’t get limited to or by these three factors only. Measuring and keeping track of share-of-shelf, keyword analytics, the share of sponsored listings, etc., also encourages or drives conversions. All these are part of eCom Competitive Analytics, which is currently used by industry leaders in electronics, FMCG, or other domains. Final Words Knowing the drivers of ecommerce sales also helps to acquire a competitive edge, acquire a higher share of the market revenue, fight back against vulnerabilities, and more. eCom Competitive Analytics derives accurate information about the brand and its competitor’s product listing. Doing so allows brands to explore new growth areas, take action in real-time, reduce MAP violations, and remain attuned with the KPIs. As a result, brands achieve higher revenues and drastically improve their discoverability, availability, visibility, and other essential aspects. For more information on the advantages of eCommerce Intelligence Solution, connect with us by leaving a comment, or drop us an email in the contact section.

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Financial-Fraud

Indian Consumers Are Losing Money Due to Financial Fraud. Is There a Solution?

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The pandemic has brought a revolution in the adoption of digital payments among consumers. In the past two years, approximately 68% of Indian consumers have started using mobile payment apps, while 94 percent of Gen Z consumers have started owning mobile wallets. However, with the changing habits of the consumers, the fraudsters are also actively looking for different ways to defraud consumers. In the past year, 34% of consumers have reported financial fraud. This number rises to 41 percent for the people between the age group between 25-29 years. To protect the consumers, over the years different financial institutions have come forward with RBI to provide a consumer redressal mechanism against financial fraud. Know in detail about the types of online financial frauds happening in India costing consumers monetary losses and how you can act against it. Types of Online Financial Frauds Phishing Scam In this case, a fraudster creates a phishing website that mimics the legitimate website of a bank, e-commerce, search engine, etc. After this, the fraudsters share the link to these websites using various mediums like social media, email, SMS, and Instant Messenger. Many of the users click on these URLs and enter their security credentials like their CVV pin, One Time Password (OTP), password, etc. This information is later used by the fraudsters to commit financial fraud and steal money from the consumer’s account. Vishing Scam The fraudsters often claim to be bankers, insurance agents, government officials, and firm executives and approach consumers over the phone or social media for information. They approach the customers and win their trust by disclosing basic information like name, date of birth, etc. Once they win the trust, the imposters trick the customers to share confidential information like OTPs, PINs, passwords, and CVVs. They also impose urgency by sharing different emergency cases like the need of blocking an unauthorized transaction, winning discounts, or avoid penalties. Online Shopping Fraud This is quite a common way nowadays that cyber fraudsters use to dupe people online. There are different ways the imposters commit this type of fraud. In one of the cases, the cybercriminals make a duplicate website of some legitimate brand and offer cheap products. They convince the customer to pay online and after the payment is done, the customer doesn’t receive the ordered product. In another variant, the fraudsters create a new website and sell products at a cheap price. Similar to the above case, here also the customer pays but doesn’t receive the product. Some fraudsters also add a policy in which if the customer buys a product that costs more than a dedicated amount, the customer can get a chance to win an expensive gift at no extra cost. Once the customer purchases the gift, they get a call from a “customer service” of the fake website asking the customer to pay a refundable amount. In this way, the fraudster induces the buyer to deposit money. App Fraud The fraudsters circulate various app links via SMS, email, social media, and instant messenger, which appear similar to the existing apps of authorized companies. Once a customer clicks on these links to download an unknown and unverified app, the fraudster gets access to their device without their knowledge. This means that they also get access to confidential details stored in the device. In addition to this, some screen-sharing apps give fraudsters control to watch the customer’s device and gain access to financial credentials. Using this confidential information, the fraudsters can make unauthorized transfers of funds or make payments by using the customer’s payment apps. Search Engine Scam Consumers use a search engine to find contact details of banks, insurance companies, or any other company. Meanwhile, the fraudsters set a trap for the unaware consumers. The fraudsters modify the contact details on search engines and make them look like legitimate entities. When the customers contact these unknown and unverified numbers, the fraudsters ask them to share their confidential details like card credentials or details for verification. And the consumers assume that they are genuine representatives of the RE and share their details. Identity Fraud As the use of social media is growing, fraudsters have made it a breeding ground to dupe people and get their confidential details. To fool the customers, the fraudsters create fake accounts using the acquired data of the users. After this, they contact different consumers for money in exchange for fancy deals and discounts. In some cases, the fraudsters also use the private information of the users to blackmail and extort money. Consumer Redressal Mechanism for Financial Frauds To protect the consumers from the implication of financial fraud, the Ministry of Home affairs has operationalized the national Helpline 155260 and a reporting platform. The helpline and the reporting platform have been started under the umbrella of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs. This initiative was further given support by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), other major banks, Payment Banks, Wallets, and Online Merchants. The citizen financial cyber fraud reporting and management system has been set up in-house by the I4C to integrate Banks, Law Enforcement Agencies, and Financial Intermediaries. Currently, this helpline is utilized in seven states and Union Territories (Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh). These locations cover more than 35 percent of the country’s population. By leveraging the new-age technologies, this redressal mechanism empowers both the bank and the police. It helps to share online fraud-related information and take appropriate action in real-time. The loss of the defrauded money in online cheating cases can be avoided by stopping the money trail before it goes further and moves out of the digital ecosystem. How does this operate The Helpline and its associated platform work according to the following process: The financial fraud victims can contact Helpline no. 155260, which is managed and operated by the concerned State Police. The designated operators take down the fraud transaction details and the basic personal information of the

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Share-of-Shelf

Why are eCommerce Brands Competitive About Share-of-Shelf?

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Retail eCom sales have been booming since 2014. According to Statista, global eCom sales accounted for $4.2 trillion in 2020. The report also predicts that eCom sales would reach $7.3 trillion by 2025, with spending of $5.5 trillion crossing in 2022. Nowadays, eCom brands retain their existing and new customers through promotions, offers, subscriptions, and deals, which also gives them a competitive edge. Share-of-Shelf (SOS) has become the next big model for boosting these deliverables. SOS measures the visibility of a product based on a specific keyword under a particular category of an eCom marketplace. A high SOS means that the brand has eased consumer discoverability and product visibility on eCom searches. However, harnessing such results on the eCom store is tiresome as brands constantly need to review the keywords of their brand’s products and competitor listings. Besides visibility, a higher share of digital shelf correlates to more money for the brand. How? Brands with higher visibility, especially on the first-page results, have witnessed higher number of consumers undertaking add-to-cart actions and conversions, hence higher sales. Forecasting such consumer behavior significantly impacts the product marketing strategies, sponsored listings, cross-selling across opportunities across eCom stores, etc. Moreover, the knowledge about the eCom platform offering the highest SOS helps identify which marketplace has consumers more receptive to the brand? – another valuable insight for the sales and marketing team. Similarly, the brand also recognizes the keywords that offer the maximum search visibility to their products and the hero product under the categories. Traditionally, brands measured the share-of-shelf in offline stores by calculating and analyzing the facings and linear listings. Brands reviewed the total products facing a category and compared it with competitors and variants. The linear listing accounted for the total products of a brand listed in a linear length and reviewed against the competitors. However, the story of the share of the digital shelf is entirely different, as they are measured across eCom stores using keywords. Measuring the presence of a brand’s products helps identify trends across eCom stores, cities, and pin codes. 3 Reasons eCom SOS Has Become Highly Competitive Reviewing the share of digital shelf help brands to gain insight into the presence of the product on eCom platforms. Brands can also learn about consumers’ journeys through SOS. Moreover, the need to track the share of sponsored and organic listings has become unavoidable. Tracking the brand’s discoverability under a category using keywords helps detect the most commonly used consumer searches. Moreover, a brand can even decipher its product’s visibility based on competitor, organic/inorganic, and brand keywords. Unfortunately, brands sometimes get zero views on sponsored listings, which is worrisome. Simultaneously, competitors might also be making money by enhancing their visibility using your brand’s keywords. But these are secondary advantages of reviewing the share of digital shelf and can get dealt with by contacting the eCom marketplace. However, the primary advantages offered by keeping track of the SOS are as follows: Optimize Searches Brands often enhance searches using the preferred keywords on pages, results, or lists. Moreover, they are further segmented into long and short-tail keywords. Brands understand that basket conversions and shopper awareness are substantially higher for the top five products (of the first page) on an eCommerce platform than others. So, the need to safeguard ‘brand-specific’ keywords from competitive bidding becomes important for enhancing product visibility. Unfortunately, brand bidding is still a prevalent fraud even in the eCommerce industry and gravely hampers the search results. Share of brand search can summarize keyword search result share across each eCom marketplace. Analyzing the share of voice can prove helpful for benchmarking the top brands/products under definitive categories. Data-driven results help brands curate looped feedback about consumer behavior, optimizing revenue spending. mScanIt even determines insights post SOS analysis based on city, pin code, or other classifications. Such segmentations help brands to optimize their marketing campaigns. Measures Essential KPIs Dashboard of mScanIt tailors the eCom results of Share-of-Shelf (SOS) through Key Performance Indicators (KPI). The KPIs help to enhance search results, display tailored results, improve the user experience, etc., using a single platform. The brands can discover the ongoing product, category, page, trends, besides performance and competitive data. The SOS covers KPIs like SKU range share, overall SOS, top product by search, average page positioning, etc. According to Amazon, the top three search results account for 64% of clicks, and 70% of eCommerce shoppers make decisions based on the first page results. Utilizing SOS KPIs can help brands devise strategies to increase add-to-cart conversions and brand awareness. So, optimizing the KPIs of SOS can significantly boost sales. Moreover, every eCommerce platform uses a different algorithm for ranking. Brands can’t use the same strategy for gaining higher visibility. Customizing content using keywords can significantly improve product listings when shoppers use filters. Influences Consumer and Brand Behavior Another significant advantage of reviewing SOS using an eCommerce competitive analytics solution is determining the consumer behavior or journey. Understanding the habits of the online shoppers on eCommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart can help devise multiple strategies. For example, for any given keyword, e.g., brands like Aashirwad, Fortune, Pillsbury, and other brands’ products constantly appear on the first page. Moreover, consumers searching for FMCG or CPG products are almost instantly looking to fill their shelves. Therefore, products of brands with the highest visibility under the search term “atta” will likely incur higher conversion due to urgency. So, SOS retains the capacity to influence consumer behavior. Industry researchers have also suggested that first-page product results in higher add-to-cart actions and conversions under a specific keyword and category. Simultaneously, such brands would significantly diminish their cart abandon rates. Conclusion Measuring the share of the digital shelf has become essential for brands because of the multiple advantages and competitor insights, other than product visibility under different keywords and categories. But, it is only a single discoverability aspect. But, brands require a more in-depth analysis of availability, performance, visibility, search, exec compliance, and brand safety before making the final marketing strategy calls. An eCom Competitive Analytics solution like mScanIt

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