<story><title>Publishers Bought Millions of Website Visits They Found Out Were Fraudulent</title><url>https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/these-publishers-bought-millions-of-website-visits-they</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>acchow</author><text>A bank spends $1000 on advertising and it ends up with dozens of accounts and credit cards opened and they decide it&amp;#x27;s a good ROI. So they spend another $1000 on advertising and get the same results again.&lt;p&gt;Why does it matter that millions of the ad impressions were fake?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>saas_co_de</author><text>It matters to buzzfeed it their competitors are getting deals off fake traffic :)&lt;p&gt;But really, when you are a large corporation that advertises through hundreds of channels there is no way to attribute conversion to particular ads. You are paying to have your ads seen by real people to create brand awareness and get the multiple touches that will result in conversions. If those ads aren&amp;#x27;t getting seen then obviously they are not effective.</text></comment>
<story><title>Publishers Bought Millions of Website Visits They Found Out Were Fraudulent</title><url>https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/these-publishers-bought-millions-of-website-visits-they</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>acchow</author><text>A bank spends $1000 on advertising and it ends up with dozens of accounts and credit cards opened and they decide it&amp;#x27;s a good ROI. So they spend another $1000 on advertising and get the same results again.&lt;p&gt;Why does it matter that millions of the ad impressions were fake?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdavis703</author><text>Many ad campaigns are sold by the impression. It would be like if you bought a bag of rice, but after you opened it you discovered that half the grains were in fact plastic. Of course you could  still filter out the fakes, and you&amp;#x27;re still left with a half bag of edible rice, but in the end that&amp;#x27;s not what you thought you bought. In other words, this is fraud, and marketplaces fail if there&amp;#x27;s too much fraud.</text></comment>