fraud0

Will Open Web Reclaim Ad Budgets by 2026?

Adzine surveyed ad‑tech experts about whether the Open Web can reclaim advertising budgets from Walled Gardens in 2026. Contributors from Welect, Teads, Fraud0, Flap.One/Traffective and Adnomaly say the Open Web has structural advantages—reach, independent quality environments, transparent value chains and user data sovereignty—but that these strengths remain largely theoretical without binding standards, consistent measurement and marketable products. Transparency, fraud resistance, context quality and demonstrable incrementality are cited as decisive. Publishers must invest in their brands and create bundled, measurable offers. Technological advances such as agentic AI and interoperable standards could reduce operational fragmentation, but increasing automation risks turning parts of the Open Web into a new 'black box.' Experts expect gradual, selective budget shifts rather than a wholesale migration.

State of the Market: Invalid Traffic & Ad Fraud

OnlineMarketing.de reports Fraud0's State of the Market whitepaper on Invalid Traffic and Ad Fraud, drawing on billions of data points from 2024. The study analyzed 1.2 billion onsite sessions and 10.8 billion ad impressions to reveal where traffic quality declines, bots recur, and ad placements degrade. The English-language whitepaper (free to download) highlights blind spots marketers often miss, including invalid conversions, inefficient placements, and a breakdown of invalid conversions, along with metrics such as the share of conversions from invalid users, recurring bot activity, ads not appearing in the visible area, and instances of ads served on MFA pages (Made for Advertising). The content is sponsored by OnlineMarketing.de in collaboration with fraud0. It aims to help marketers optimize campaigns by identifying where optimization is truly needed.

AdTech's Future: Sustainability, Privacy, and First-Party Data

ADZINE CONNECT in Berlin gathered about 450 participants and 60 speakers across two stages to discuss the digital advertising industry’s evolving priorities. Key topics included the transition away from third-party cookies (cookieless), privacy efforts like Google's Privacy Sandbox, and the potential role of AI and first-party data in improving targeting and measurement. The event highlighted sustainability and responsible technology use, with speakers urging greener advertising and consideration of emissions. Germany’s Retail Media was identified as a growth area, expected to expand from roughly 12% of the market by 2027, while concerns about fraud and invalid traffic were raised by researchers. The conference also noted ongoing collaboration between Google and IAB Tech Lab to advance Sandbox implementations, and cited notable industry examples from brands and media owners engaging with first-party data and local media ecosystems.