Premium publishers have human visitors and viewable ads -- because they work hard and create real, valuable content that humans actually want to read. Other long-tail publishers may not -- and if they partake in other practices like sourcing traffic the "humanness" of their visitors will definitely need to be independently verified.

1. marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
You’re Only Premium
(Publisher) if You Can Prove It
July 2015
Augustine Fou, PhD.
http://linkd.in/augustinefou
acfou @ mktsci .com
212. 203. 7239

2. July 2015 / Page 1marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
100 million impressions
- 76% 24% confirmed human
Source: see slide 2
24 million impressions
- 60%
9.6 million impressions
Paid $0.45 CPM on 100M impressions ($45k) and got 10 million productive impressions = $4.69 eCPM
Avg. $0.45 CPM
10.4X higher effective cost
“Low cost” inventory from unknown publishers / ad exchanges
40% in-view (RTB)
Source: 3 sources, see slide 3

3. July 2015 / Page 2marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Humanness of ad exchanges/networks varies dramatically
confirmed humans
24% overall average
confirmed bots
16% overall average
declared / search bots
0% overall average
NOTE: There is huge difference between high quality ad networks which actually
have humans versus low quality ad networks which have large amounts of
confirmed bot traffic and literally zero confirmed humans.

4. July 2015 / Page 3marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Viewability rate of Programmatic, Exchanges, RTB: ~40%
Source: Sizmek, Apr 2015
Source: DoubleVerify April, 2015
Source: Vindico April, 2015

5. July 2015 / Page 4marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
100 million impressions
- 23% 77% confirmed human
Source: see slide 5
77 million impressions
- 40%
46 million impressions
Avg. $0.45 CPM
Premium publishers have humans visitors and viewable ads
60% in-view (Publisher Direct)
Source: 4 sources, see slide 6
Paid $0.45 CPM on 100M impressions ($45k) and got 46 million productive impressions = $0.98 eCPM
“premium publishers typically earn around $1.35 CPM from open exchanges” Source: DCN, May 2015

6. July 2015 / Page 5marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Premium Publishers’ Overall Humans vs Bots
confirmed humans
77% overall average
confirmed bots
2% overall average
declared / search bots
1% overall average
Note that 1% confirmed bots does not mean 99% humans; and vice versa 87%
humans does not mean 13% bots. Using a deterministic approach, there are visits
that cannot be sufficiently, accurately labeled and hence are marked uncategorized.

7. July 2015 / Page 6marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Viewability rate of premium publishers: 49 – 56 – 60 – 67%
56% viewable
Source: Sizmek, Apr 2015
Source: DoubleVerify April, 2015
Source: Vindico April, 2015
Source: Marketing Science, July 2015
Directly measured, only
premium publishers (60)
60% viewable

8. July 2015 / Page 7marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
So What?
“If you’re an advertiser looking for returns on your ad
spend, buying ‘premium’ from publishers who can prove
it – i.e. demonstrate higher ‘humanness’ – is worth it’s
weight in gold.
Paying $0.98 eCPM to premium publishers is
almost 5X better than $4.69 eCPM to suspect
ones (after you discard the waste).
When you buy anything else, you literally get what you
pay for – and that means not humans.”
-- Dr. Augustine Fou

9. July 2015 / Page 8marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Dr. Augustine Fou – Independent Ad Fraud Researcher
“I research ad fraud, and specifically bots, so I
can advise clients on how to detect and mitigate
the various forms of fraud. This has the most
direct impact on the ROI of their digital
marketing programs.”
FORMER CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, HCG (OMNICOM)
MCKINSEY CONSULTANT
CLIENT SIDE / AGENCY SIDE EXPERIENCE
PROFESSOR AND COLUMNIST
ENTREPRENEUR / SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
PHD MATERIALS SCIENCE (MIT '95) AT AGE 23
ClickZ Articles: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-clickz
Slideshares: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-slideshares
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/84444-augustinefou