In an explicit interview taken by our very own Hardik Gandhi, Ashwin Subramaniam, COO of Griffin Digital Media and a media- buying mogul, we learned a lot about GDM - an ad network that smoothens the media-buying process, and the benefits of using Botman.

‍Let’s start with a brief about GDM’s Vision!

Ashwin:

Our company's vision is to be able to cater to any entity in the digital advertising ecosystem with the maximum level of customization possible, for each and every budget.

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‍So, where does GDM fit in the Media Buying Industry and how is it contributing to make it better?‍

Ashwin:

We are an ad-network involved in programmatic advertising in the search, display, native and video space making a conscious effort to be as transparent as possible in the supply chain. That involves understanding an advertiser's requirements and ensuring that they're aware of where the traffic for their campaign is originating from and how their desired audience is within our reach.

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‍How did you ensure that transparency is provided and how has this principle helped you?‍

Ashwin:

This transparency is provided by communicating with your publishers regarding what is expected of their traffic and letting the advertiser know which sources the traffic that they will be bidding on comes from. You can add your Advertiser's app-ads.txt and ads.txt entries in your publisher's properties which clearly differentiated a direct integration from a reseller integration. This principle has helped us reduce instances of Masked and Spoofed traffic and it's also easier to win the trust of both your advertisers and the publishers. 

‍On that note, what are your views on Media Buying and Ad Fraud?‍

Ashwin:

I believe that combating ad fraud is the most challenging part of a Media Buyer's job in today's time. Unless there are proactive measures in place, one can simply assume that a good chunk of your media spend is going towards fraudulent traffic. We were constantly tackling Botnet and Data-center traffic, followed by injected ads, ad stacking, domain masking.

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‍With the Advertising Industry being drained of it's Spends due to various types of Ad Fraud, which specifically hurt you the most?

Ashwin:

Out of all the cases of ad fraud that I've experienced, the one which stands out the most in terms of the effect it had on me is that of the Methbot scandal in late 2016. I was working in the video advertising division of a company when the METHBOT scandal was exposed and we got charge-backs roughly worth $45000. We also had a couple of demand partners who shut down within a month of this scandal due to its negative impact on their fund flows and sustainability. In my opinion, it just rattled the entire industry forcing it to rethink and innovate in order to identify and deal with the more sophisticated forms of ad fraud. I was stunned to see the biggest of AdTech platforms plagued by it and the number of premium websites that were spoofed.

‍Why is it important as an Ad Network to tackle and eradicate Ad Fraud?

Ashwin:

It is important to tackle ad fraud for the simplest of reasons, that these are real advertising dollars spent on a counterfeit audience. You spend an amount anywhere on this planet, you expect quality service or product in its return and the digital advertising industry deserves nothing less. It is the ethical way of conducting business.

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‍How did our product - Botman, help you solve the incoming IVT problem & would you recommend the same in the industry?

Ashwin:

Botman enables us to identify the sources of poor quality traffic and eradicate it in the most automated fashion possible. Add to that all the customization options available on the dashboard and we're able to pull any information regarding all the invalid traffic that was detected. The Botman support team is also very vigilant regarding the data our dashboard has collected and always has valuable inputs helping us improve our traffic quality further. So, yeah I would recommend this - with Ad Fraud scaling up each year, working with platforms like Botman is like an oasis for a Media Buyer & I am glad it's not hard on the pocket.

Not only does this help us understand the goals and challenges of a modern media buyer but also throws light on the impact of ad fraud in the industry. More on this in our next blog on Botman Bytes - a talk on the unsung side of the advertising industry.