As technology continues to evolve, becoming simultaneously more sophisticated, yet more complex, fraud in the direct response/lead generation space has been growing as well.

1. Lead Scoring and Verification
Written By: Caitlin Svahn, Interactive Media
Buyer/Planner
Edited By: Tim Lavelle, Director SEO/Social Media

2. Lead Scoring and Verification
Introduction
As technology continues to evolve, becoming simultaneously more sophisticated, yet more complex,
fraud in the direct response/lead generation space has been growing as well. In fact, the Wall Street
Journal recently reported that up to 36% of all web traffic is considered to be fraudulent in nature.
One of the most popular fraudulent activities currently in use involves using bot-traffic to generate fake
display advertising impressions, running up the count and over-charging advertisers for impressions that
couldn’t have been clicked, or even seen, by real human beings.
Another popular scam relies on sending fraudulent leads to advertisers, either by using fake names and
contact information, or by using real names, contact info and other details that have been stolen,
purchased, or otherwise created in a fraudulent fashion (lying about the leads’ interest in a product or
service).
Fortunately, a variety of lead scoring products are now available to help put a stop to this under-handed,
and otherwise expensive activity.
Preventing Lead Generation Fraud
Digital advertising agencies like U.S. Interactive Media utilize lead scoring and verification systems to
ensure that all leads being collected and then sent to a client were populated by real people who are
actually interested in the related product or service.
As leads come into our database, the information is matched to similar details from a Neustar database
to verify that the lead’s information matches up. Our system and Neustar compare the lead’s name,
phone number and address to automatically filter it out if any of those details don’t match.
Reasons to exclude a lead include that the address and phone number having been associated together
before, or that the lead’s address doesn’t actually exist, though there are other possibilities that trigger
rejections as well.
If the lead does pass through the initial verification step, then Neustar’s lead scoring service is used to
rate the lead based on how well it fits with the client’s preferred customer profile, leveraging data like
demographic information, salary details and other basic information to determine whether or not the
lead is a desirable one, or one that should be rejected from delivery.
All leads must exceed a certain rating – set up for each specific campaign – in order to successfully pass
the verification process and be sent to the client. This two-step process, the initial review, then follow-
up lead-scoring piece, ensures that only legitimate, well-qualified leads get delivered to our clients.

3. Preventing Display Advertising Fraud
U.S. Interactive Media also leverages advanced techniques to prevent fraud in the display advertising
space by integrating fraud detection partners into its agency trading desk, Quantum 11. Fraud detection
technologies integrated into Quantum 11 are able to detect fraudulent activity, then refuse to serve
display ads, preventing impressions inflation.
In addition to protecting clients from fraudulent impressions, we can also confirm whether or not our
system is actually receiving inventory placements that have been bid on, ensuring that all of our ads are
shown on appropriate websites, and to the targeted demographic group.
Our system also watches for suspect IP addresses, and blacklists suspected fraudulent IPs on a system-
wide level, in real-time. For example, if the system notices that an IP is reporting more impressions than
we had originally bid on, that IP address will be automatically blacklisted.
Since many of our direct response clients optimize their display advertising campaigns based on leads,
it’s important to ensure that they aren’t receiving fraudulent impressions, and that every dollar spent
has the potential for generating real responses.
The Future of Fraud
Based on a study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, digital advertising budgets are projected to
continue growing each year at a double-digit rate. The additional dollars being allocated to online
advertising are likely to encourage even more fraud, making it especially important to actively combat
emerging techniques.
At U.S. Interactive Media, we will continue to protect our clients’ spends by leveraging the latest
technologies, monitoring campaigns in real-time, and manually reviewing performance to ensure that all
campaigns continue to deliver high-quality traffic.
Though the digital advertising industry faces a potential epidemic growth of fraudulent activity, we’ve
taken strides to protect our clients from these types of scams, ensuring that we will continue to deliver
premium quality, high-converting leads, and that our clients will be able to reach their marketing and
business goals.