The bad ad ecosystem: Here’s what the research says
As consumers scroll through their short-form video platform of choice, they’ve likely encountered cheaply made advertisements promoting deals too good to be true, such as heavily discounted electronics or miracle gadgets meant to solve life’s problems. Or they’ve seen a strange looking ad which appears in search results or on a website that may contain malicious code. These are just a few examples of “bad ads,” and their existence and proliferation is seriously hurting good ads, per a recent report from Forrester.
While bad ads have been around for a long time, the problem is growing due to the rise of generative AI combined with high inventory. Without action, the issue of bad ads will only continue to fester.
“It's a pretty dynamic thing right now… It's sort of a changing threat,” said Mo Allibhai, senior analyst at Forrester. “We're in this place of playing Whac-a-Mole until we as an industry tighten up overall security, and really figure out a way to sort of punish these bad actors.”
The Forrester report, “Bad Ads: All The Ways Ads Misbehave And How To Stop Them,” examines what bad ads look like, and how they negatively affect good ads. When exposed to bad ads, consumers are more likely to mistrust good ads and even block all ads, decreasing reach for marketers.
For the review, Forrester interviewed a variety of sources, including platforms and publishers. This was done to understand the buying process along with what types of ads are targeted for blockage.
The bad ads breakdown
The report identifies five types of bad ads, each varying in harm for the marketer: malicious ads, spoofed ads, scam ads, heavy ads and miscategorized ads. On the top of the harm scale lies ads which intentionally scam consumers or install malware on their devices. Lower on the harm scale lies ads which are miscategorized or are unable to load.
Not all bad ads are created equal. An advertisement which fails to load properly does a lot less damage than one which scams the consumer or infects a computer with malware. While some bad ads are in marketers’ control, such as heavy ads that overload the website they appear on, a lot of ads aren’t in their control. However, that doesn’t mean marketers shouldn’t care about the bad ones. These ads can lead to increases in the use of ad blockers, which affects the visibility of good ads.
There are a lot of reasons behind why bad ads have increased in recent years. There are a lot of ways for bad ads to be released to the public. AI, for example, can make it easier to generate bad code and to create fake ads featuring celebs. Another culprit is the layoffs of ad sales personnel. These employees tend to act as gatekeepers, ensuring bad ads stay off platforms. As roles are replaced by technology or are downsized, there is a higher likelihood that bad ads can end up on the website.
“An ad salesperson is not just a person who sells more ad dollars, it's the person who takes a phone call from another person and does a little bit of that human vetting to make sure that they're a real company on the other end,” said Allibhai.
A large volume of inventory also contributes to the proliferation of bad ads. Short-form video platforms such as YouTube and Instagram have particularly large inventories, meaning the sites can be less picky about what ads find their way to users' feeds. This makes it easy for low-quality ads to show up on the platforms. One way of combating this, according to Allibhai, is a price floor. Lower quality ad creators tend to not want to spend a lot of money on distribution. A price floor would help price them out of existence.
“The easiest thing is [ad buys] are cheap. [Bad ad creators] don't wanna spend a ton of money on it. So they proliferate in places with really low CPMs,” said Allibhai.
What marketers should do
There are many ways of approaching bad ads, per the report. Marketers should develop a direct relationship with publishers as a way of ensuring the quality of placement, with mass automated distribution making it easier for ads to show up on lower-quality sites.
Secondly, marketers should hold partners accountable for ad safety. This can be done through asking about the difficulty of launching a programmatic campaign, along with ensuring a demand-side platform works with at least one vendor which is meant to protect creative and scan for malicious content. There should also be fail-safes set up in case any of these protective measures fail.
Lastly, marketers should work on making good ads. Ensuring the proper ads for the right environments is key, along with keeping on top of creative, especially as bad ads get better and continue to spread. Still, even marketers who create great ads need to be aware of the issue.
“[Large corporations] are the prime target for this next wave of bad ads,” said Allibhai, “and now with very realistic, deep fake technology with the ability to even modify trademarks just enough to evade existing trademark detection tools means that anyone with brand equity to lose could potentially lose it.”
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