• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, May 17, 2016

Tackling the insidious problem of ad fraud, Videology and White Ops on Tuesday said they blocked more than 28 billion bot requests on video ad campaigns, the equivalent of $553 million in wasted ad spending. They claimed they saved clients more than $8.5 billion globally by blocking bots before ads were served, instead of refunding them after the fact.

Videology, a software provider for converged TV and video advertising, said this number was achieved over a year’s time by integrating with White Ops technology, a firm that focuses on invalid traffic detection. White Ops’ deterministic technology pinpoints fraudulent traffic in all forms of media and is able to differentiate human from bot Web-browsing from the same compromised machine.

"It’s an undeniable fact that advertising drives results, but that only happens when the creative is seen by actual humans. In today’s data–driven environment, we set up and deliver campaigns to achieve very specific goals in a very specific time frame. It’s crucial those ads are delivered to humans — not bots — and are delivered when they’re supposed to be,” Videology founder and CEO Scott Ferber told Real-Time Daily via email.

“Partnerships like this one between Videology and White Ops, are clearly making a substantial impact in reducing wasted impressions to non-human traffic,” stated Camilla Day, director of programmatic at PHD U.K.

According to a study by White Ops and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), advertisers will lose $7.2 billion globally to bots in 2016.