Digital and mobile have officially become the "sine qua non conditio" of technological innovation of companies. The data shows us how digital technology is having a "disrupt" and innovative effect on the way advertisements are made by brands and how they can create new connections with their customers.
Forecasts suggest that in 2018, digital will be the top in terms of global advertising spending, surpassing television for the first time. The Digital share of the total expected spending volume will reach 37.6% in 2018 (up from 34.8% in 2017), compared to 35.9% for television (37.1% in 2017), equal to a total value of $ 215.8 billion.
Digital advertising spending is growing rapidly and within the industry there are many innovative tools that focus on the future of advertising. For example, in 2018, online videos should grow by 32.4%, 28.9% social and 25.4% of programmatic advertising (automated ad sales).
But today, who is the master of the global digital advertising market, there are two big players: Google and Facebook. Google and Facebook together represented a surprising rise in 99% digital advertising revenue in the US last year, according to an analysis of IAB estimates. Both giants gained a total of 77% of gross spending in 2017, up from 72% in 2016.
Currently, Google and Facebook dominate the digital advertising industry, and this situation is causing industry shortages and the emergence of unscrupulous operators.
An example? According to the Imperva Capsule Report, 52% of the online flow is generated by software created to perform automated tasks. Overall, bots have conquered the majority online with 51.8% of traffic generated against 48.2% of humans. A new surplus, as last year, flesh and bone users reached 53%. From the picture emerges that the new peak is, however, to be attributed to the growth of "good" bots, those used by search engines such as Google or social as Facebook to enhance user experience on their own platforms, compared to "bad" "Used by cyber-criminals to block sites or spread fake news.
"Non-human" digital traffic can create serious damage to the global advertising market because it does not allow for qualitative data analysis. A bit like fake followers on social profiles, how many times have we come across "dopati" profiles where 90% of the followers were fake users, what's the point in business? There may be a greater visibility, but not concrete and that will not lead to any result.
Another consequence of digital anarchy resulting from "non-human" traffic is the so-called "digital fraud", such as the "Methbot operation".
"Methbot Operation" is a "digital scam" (discovered by White Ops) of programmatic video advertising, capable of generating more than $ 3 million a day. But what are its effects and what is it?
This is a real global advertising fraud that only in the first quarter of 2017 caused damage to $ 16.4 billion. It is estimated that the digital advertising market has lost more than 20% of total revenues for 2016.
A huge army of more than 500,000 "zombie computers" with an IP address from the major US Internet Providers, although the zombie computer network was located elsewhere.
These bots pervasively replicated human behavior without waging any kind of suspicion: simulation of mouse and keyboard movements, creating a history of visited sites, even with Facebook profiles and other social networks. The system studied was perfect in its "criminal" logic: different operating systems, different browsers, different versions, and different connection locations.
So, what are the prospects of digital advertising? What will you do in the future to try to monitor "non-human trafficking" on the web? How will companies that decide to invest to protect themselves from these forms of fraud that "duplicate" the advertising market? Today, more than ever, there is a need for the presence of specific professional figures, the Data Scientist, who can "read" the data and analyse them, and on the other hand the use of "independent" technology platforms to support the activity.
E-Business Consulting has been operating since 2003 in the field of digital communication and Internet advertising. We suggest and propose to the Companies, Media Centers and Partner Agencies the most appropriate marketing tools to promote products and services in Italy and abroad, with due regard to commercial performance.
