Ad Networks on the Brink of Extinction!
It does not take a whole lot of time to find brand ads running on inappropriate content if you know where to look. I will be documenting this issue right here every week until the exchanges and ad networks address the issue and provide better transparency to advertisers and publishers. As I see it, this dirty secret is preventing brand advertising from coming to the online space and preventing premium publishers from receiving higher CPM’s.
The trick is trying to track down where the ads are actually coming from. This is no easy task with rich media and flash ads not to mention the fact of exchanges and ad networks arbitraging each other make this difficult. But if you have a browser sniffer and some knowledge about the way ads are trafficked you can track down the culprits.
In this case CPX Interactive is running a 160×600 direct response (DR) ad on Vidilife.com. Vidililife.com has (2) sections of their site mature and filtered. Since this is a DR advertiser, they may not actually care that CPX is running their ads here as long as they are getting their conversions. But what is a respectable ad network like CPX doing running on a porn site?
The second example is much more questionable. We see a 728×90 Ask.com (IAC) ad running right next to porn. It is highly likely that the network running this ad Addynamix does not have IAC’s permission to run on porn. Also, viewing the query logs - this creative is actually being served from the Right Media Exchange. So likely the ad network actually serving the ad buys inventory from Addynamix.com which in turn runs their ad on a porn site. It is unclear whether ad.103092804.com (see logs) which by the way resolves to Kitaramedia.com knows that Addynamic is running their IAC Ask.com ads on porn sites.
This is not the only example of brand ads running on Vidilife.com through this indirect relationship - refreshing a few times and we get ads from 247 fitness, Verizon, and Blockbuster. I wonder if these advertisers know where their ads are really running?
Vidilife.com
Log files from browser sniffer
Ask.com IAC ad running on porn site
My Cookie log from Yieldmanager/RightMedia Exchange from ads on Vidilife.com
