UK anti-ad fraud group UKSAFC calls on the industry to look more closely at where ad budgets are being spent
UKSAFC (The UK Stop Ad Funded Crime Group) is calling for advertising industry cooperation as it announces the launch of a consultation on a forthcoming initiative to tackle ad-funded crime and fraud.
Ad fraud is a major problem for advertisers. Estimates put the cost of ad fraud at up to $100 billion and suggest that almost half of ad spend drives no results. While there is no single measure to combat ad fraud, UKSAFC believes the scale of the problem could be significantly reduced if advertisers and their agencies took the time to verify the credentials of the publishers and websites on which their ads appear.
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The UKSAFC’s Know Your Customer (KYC) initiative will invite all players in the programmatic advertising supply chain to carry out due diligence checks on every company they deal with – requiring them to provide independent verification of the company’s name, registered address and company number, company directors, and the company’s bank details. Companies that get behind the initiative will benefit from increased trust and investment in their platforms from brands.
The initiative stems from discussions held at UKSAFC meetings throughout 2024 – a year in which significant progress was made at both an industry and government level. The riots which occurred in the summer, and the part played by fraudulent MFA (Made For Advertising) sites in fuelling the violence, raised awareness among politicians of the ad fraud issue and its consequences. UKSAFC is committed to continuing to push action on ad fraud during 2025.
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“The fight against ad fraud is a journey, not a destination,” said UKSAFC spokesperson Ian Moss. “If advertisers and their agencies have better control over where their money is going, we feel we could eliminate many of the bad actors at a stroke. The Know Your Customer initiative will go a long way towards cleaning up ad networks. Now we need everyone in the industry to get on board.”
The UKSAFC will be undertaking consultations with the industry trade bodies, platforms, agencies and brands over the coming months to get their feedback and support.
The UKSAFC was set up in 2023 to highlight the scale of advertising fraud and the threat it represents, and to coordinate a multi-stakeholder approach to addressing the issue. The UKSAFC’s taskforce, which consists of advisors from the industry, has come together to tackle the problem in the UK and provide a template the rest of the world can follow.
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