Consumers eagerly anticipating a long-awaited vacation are set to encounter something of a frenzied return to the tourism scene. As chaotic images at airports and stories of lost baggage hit global headlines, the travel sector is looking at a less than smooth ride to normalcy. Yet beyond the headlines, there is another threat that’s quietly undermining the travel industry: ad fraud.
It is more than two years since the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to an abrupt standstill, putting a lengthy halt on leisure travel and vacations. Now, however, all signs point to an incredible rise in Asia Pacific travellers this year.
One report estimates that APAC’s travel and tourism sector is expected to approach pre-pandemic levels while another estimates that the ASEAN region will receive an estimated 155 million tourists in 2022.
Meanwhile, an estimated 430 million more passengers are predicted to fly in Asia-Pacific compared to last year as leisure and business trips return to pre-pandemic levels.
Naturally, these numbers should give business leaders in APAC’s travel industry a cause for optimism. However, travel’s resurgence should be a wake-up call for travel leaders to ensure they are safeguarding their marketing efforts.
The travel industry remains one of the most adversely affected by ad fraud than other sectors. According to our research, bots make up to 80 per cent of all invalid traffic for travel advertisers, a stark contrast to the 15-to-30 per cent effect on other industries.
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For the uninitiated, ad fraud is when bots, click farms, ad stacking and other illegitimate tactics are utilised to sabotage a brand’s advertising efforts through invalid traffic. When a campaign is plagued by fraudulent activity, the advertiser and agency receive no return on investment and no valid metrics with which to measure their real results.
Since the explosion of digital advertising, notably display ads, fraud has posed a never-ending headache for marketers and their agencies. Already pressured following the two-year global lockdown, the travel and hospitality industries are among the most vulnerable to ad fraud.
Travel advertisers saw an 82 per cent higher brand suitability violation rate than the average rate across other verticals. In the Asia Pacific, the violation rate was up 52 per cent. Display viewable rates in APAC were 11 per cent lower for travel advertisers as compared with other industries, and video viewable rates were 15 per cent lower.
The reason travel is so vulnerable to this type of fraud is partly due to the proliferation of third-party online travel agencies (OTAs), some of which are authorised and some that are not. These OTAs function by scraping the data of airline and hotel databases and then selling them on behalf of airlines and rentals.
As airline websites and travel apps are home to a host of data such as flight and pricing, they are prime targets for bot activity. Unauthorised OTAs deploy bots to scrape flight information and fares, then hold seats to resell them later. This makes it appear as though far more people are viewing than booking flights, thus skewing airlines’ attribution data.
In addition, the travel industry also has many high-value loyalty programmes, such as frequent flyer points and hotel chain credits, and these pose an alluring target for fraudsters to assume control of.
Moreover, in an increasingly digitised world, travel vendors are turning to apps and mobile experiences to ease the travel journey and reach their target customers. But, by trying to drive installations of their apps, travel brands are more susceptible to receiving bad quality traffic and misattribution.
According to our analysis, performance networks that are being paid to drive these installations are delivering upwards of 30 per cent invalid traffic on average. This results in many fraudulent installations and misattribution of post-install events such as flight and hotel bookings.
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This is a grim picture for travel marketers in the Asia Pacific as many markets here are particularly susceptible to high rates of ad fraud. A recent study revealed that Singapore has one of the highest fraud rates worldwide, followed by Vietnam, as other regional markets reported above-average volumes.
Taking ownership
If unresolved, ad fraud essentially remains a leaky bucket within a travel marketer’s budget. Not only are countless advertising dollars lost every day to ad fraud, but advertisers are left vulnerable to low latency and even malware from the onslaught of bad bots.
Resolving the problem requires third-party verification tools and ad fraud detection technology. Marketers and advertisers need to start adopting this technology at scale to stop the proliferation of fraudulent traffic.
For the travel industry, ad fraud technology should be regarded as a core protection tool and should be added to other cyber security measures. This kind of adoption requires a cultural change from the top-down.
Chief marketing officers, therefore, need to take ownership of this by advising their peers on which ad fraud technology they use, how they use it, and how it will impact their business.
Once ad fraud detection tools are seen as a vital part of a business’ marketing and technology stack, then the travel industry can finally solve the problem together.
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