how the money flows from the advertisers through the ad tech intermediaries to longtail, fraud, and fake sites, with the help of botnets and traffic sellers
Brighton SEO April 2024 - The Good, the Bad & the Ugly of SEO Success
Digital ad dollars trickle down chart
1. How your $$$ trickle down into
fraudsters’ and middlemen’s pockets
$140 billion
$15
billion
$125
billion
DCN (good)
publishers
Other sites that carry
programmatic ads
Source: IAB, April 2021
97%
spent by big brands
(thru media agencies)
Source: CNN, Jan 2020
Google
50% share
Facebook
27% share
Botnet 1 Botnet 2 Botnet 3
Big Exchange Big Exchange Big Exchange
Small
Exchange
long
tail
sites
traffic
resellers
(round numbers)
Source: DCN, May 2020
Source: DCN, Oct 2018
18% network
Source: DCN, Oct 2018
82% own properties
Small
Exchange
Small
Exchange
Small
Exchange
Small
Exchange
All Others
14%
Amazon
9%