Doubleverify Unveils Industry First Holistic Mfa Protection Solution

The renowned software platform for measuring digital media, DoubleVerify has recently extended its brand safety and sustainability offering. It attempts to make it possible for advertisers to track and get rid of MFA (Made for Advertising) websites. DV has advanced a precise definition of MFA with this breakthrough. Moreover, it helps marketers recognize and successfully handle MFA-driven challenges. To analyze MFA, DoubleVerify has unveiled its patented process that uniquely fuses human and artificial intelligence auditing. In their brand safety and suitability profile, customers may now easily enable DV’s solutions for measurement and monitoring. DV Authentic Brand Suitability will also be activated to avoid pre-bids.

Concerns about MFA websites

An ANA report was published in June amid worries that AI techniques were hastening the creation of offensive online content. It claimed that 21% (one-fifth) of all programmatic impressions were derived from MFA websites. Moreover, it attracted 15% of total ad expenditure. Additionally, DV carried out its independent investigation, wherein it was discovered that some MFA sites generate hundreds of millions of impressions each month.

Due to the lack of a standardized definition of what MFA is, it has led to misunderstandings. MFA content is often misconstrued as solely bot-driven and fraudulent traffic. But it only represents a small percentage of MFA traffic. Due to their false identities, these websites are excluded from standard fraud controls. On the other side, legitimate human users drive a majority of MFA traffic. They usually are directed to paid channels like social media and content recommendation engines.

DV’s definition of MFA sites

According to DoubleVerify, MFA sites are the ones whose single purpose is to deliver ads. One can analyze several factors to locate these sites. The factors are set across ad monetization activities, ad traffic sources, and approaches to content creation. Particularly, these websites have the following characteristics.

Significant ad density compared to the page’s actual content; frequent ad refreshes to optimize yield each visit.
With hardly any traffic originating from organic sources, monetization is primarily dependent on paid traffic channels – for instance native and social.
Constant scrolling and browsing through the same domain’s content
Content that has been literally copied across several websites and is occasionally generated automatically by generative AI.

The approach that DV uses makes it possible to prevent false positives and miscategorization. It accomplishes this by enabling a thorough and complex level of testing. For instance, a website may have a sizable amount of ads while also receiving a lot of direct and search-enabled traffic. The publisher would not fit DV’s definition of an MFA website in this case. DV has mostly given its clients the capability to access MFA sites upon request. Beginning September 20, 2023, DV’s offering will be extended in beta to all advertisers. The solution will continue to change and advance over successive development cycles.

Here’s what they said

Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify stated,

DV continues to lead with customer-driven innovation that helps advertisers tackle the rapidly evolving challenges in digital advertising that impact media quality and performance. With the rise of AI tools that can rapidly spawn MFA sites, DV’s own AI tech is crucial in empowering global brands to identify, measure and avoid problematic MFA content in real time and ultimately drive better marketing outcomes.

Jack Smith, CPO at DoubleVerify added,

The term ‘Made for Advertising’ has created significant confusion within the industry. As an industry-leading measurement and verification provider, we believe it’s crucial to lead by example and offer clarity. Our goal is to safeguard advertiser investments and support high-quality publishers who are seeking to monetize legitimate content.

Author Profile

Netra: Netra is a Dual Masters graduate in International Business and Marketing. She is a content-writing enthusiast and a social media addict. In her downtime, you will find her headbanging to Pop songs from around the world. She is also a sports fanatic and especially loves F1, Volleyball, and Cricket. Her hobbies are baking and watching Anime.