Digital Ad Confusion and Concerns: Fraud, Bots, Blockers, and Transparency

Summary

No longer a nice-to-have, digital advertising – particularly for travel marketers – has become a must-have as part of virtually any annual strategy. As so much of the traveler experience now begins and ends online, to reach prospective buyers at the right place and time, travel marketers continue to re-allocate greater advertising budget to digital. Yet complexity and fast-changing technologies continue to plague digital advertising at-large, especially due to growing concerns over accurate measurement criteria, ad fraud, non-human website traffic, fake news, brand safety, and user-installed ad blocking software. Issues of trust and transparency have further compromised digital advertising.

This report will overview the current state and predictions of the size of digital advertising spends, confusion and concerns clouding the industry, roles and responsibilities to course-correct the problems, and recommendations for marketer best practices.