A study from research firm Adalytics shows that demand-side and supply-side techs are still delivering ads to so-called “Made-for-Advertising'' websites, despite numerous announcements from key ad tech companies and agencies. Last summer, industry panic rose over the high volumes of MFA websites. Various AdTech companies responded strongly with optimistic communications, emphasizing their efforts to solve the problem. The recent survey by Adalytics showed that a large number of MFAs are still taking money from big brands.

This MFA problem isn't going anywhere, at least for now.

At Adloox, we have been specialized in finding and removing MFAs for a decade, and we know the problem is far from over. MFAs are the most prevalent type of inefficiency in the open web advertising ecosystem. And the worst part is that their techniques are known from the industry but yet most of them keep slipping through the cracks.

Daily Adloox spots and blocks between 12 and 15 billions of bid requests on MFAs. New customers usually show around 20% of MFA traffic on their campaigns, in some recent cases. Which is inline with what the ANA reports and the Adalytics study. Despite announcements, big verification firms still struggle to identify and removeMFAs.

Learn more about MFAs on our dedicated knowledge center →

What you should ask your advertising vendors:

The main issue, clearly highlighted by Adalytics' report, is that leading verification vendors are found on MFA domains, with their tags attached to creatives. It goes the same for agencies or ad tech platforms that recently communicated about introducing solutions to stop delivering on MFAs (which seems to haven't worked).

If you’re a marketer or an exec at a top advertiser, here’s what you should ask:

➡️ What is the scale of the issue? Is it 1%, 2%, 5%, or 20% of your impressions that end up wasted on MFAs?

➡️ Are these domains flagged/filtered in the verification vendor reporting? If not, why?

➡️ Do we have pre-bid filtration on, and with what setup? If yes, why do I appear on MFAs? 

➡️ Are bid requests spoofed or am I using the wrong verification technology?

There’s some simple steps that can be taken against MFAs:

✅ Integrate third-party technology for auditing diffusion lists,

✅ Conduct A/B tests with an expert MFA measurement solution,

✅ Implement Prebid Optimization to track and block MFAs at the source,

✅ Initiate a refund request from your DSP for any discrepancies or errors after advertising on MFAs,

✅ And finally, make sure that your vendors comply with MRC guidelines on purchased traffic.

Here's the classic ad delivery model, and where MFAs should be stopped:

What’s next?

The key issue highlighted by Adalytics is that most big advertisers use pre-bid blocking solutions. As a marketer, advertiser, or agency, you invest in both pre-bid blocking and measurement. Yet, despite this, your ads still end up on MFAs. What's happening? 

We think they are only two logical explanations:

1️⃣ fraudster are spoofing bid requests and/or creating new domains at an intensive rate,

2️⃣ or verification vendors are missing most of MFAs.

Based on our experience and what we previously discussed in this article, we believe there's a significant issue with how leading verification vendors handle MFAs. On average, our customers’ MFAs rate drop from 20% to only 0.88% with the implementation of our pre-bid blocking. If you consider the significant number of MFAs we observe on certain key ad exchanges and DSPs, it indicates that the industry still hasn't fully grasped this issue.

Learn more about MFAs on our dedicated knowledge center →

Watch our latest webinar about MFAs: