Calling out scam ads is easy. Fixing the programmatic supply chain takes partnership and work
Opinion
Times Media’s commercial director responds to Nick Manning’s frustration at seeing scam ads in trusted news media.
In his latest column, Nick Manning raises an issue that frustrates everyone who cares about digital publishing: fraudulent ads appearing online. But describing this as a failure of publisher governance misses the reality of how modern programmatic ad fraud operates, and who is driving it.
To understand why rogue ads occasionally breach even the most tightly controlled environments, it helps to look at how the programmatic supply chain works.
When an ad renders on a publisher’s site, it passes through an ecosystem involving demand-side platforms (DSPs), supply-side platforms (SSPs), exchanges and ad verification filters.
Premium publishers do not “set and forget” these systems. On The Times, we maintain a rigorously cleaned ads.txt file with minimal resellers, enforce price floors to make spoofing economically unviable, and restrict buyer pools to verified partners. We also deploy real-time monitoring via security partners like The Media Trust to scan and block malicious creatives dynamically.
When rogue ads slip through, it is not due to a lack of care or oversight. It is because bad actors deploy sophisticated criminal tactics like ad-cloaking – showing legitimate, compliant creative during automated audit checks, and dynamically switching to a scam URL once live on a user’s device.
A challenge of the open web
There is also a crucial distinction to be made between closed social platforms and the open web. On platforms like Meta—where scam ads have been estimated to account for a significant portion of ad revenue—the platform owns the entire pipeline from ad buyer to ad server.
Open web news publishers sit at the receiving end of a complex ad ecosystem. We continuously optimise and enforce strict standards, but publishers alone cannot police every malicious actor operating across the global supply chain.
On our titles, fraudulent impressions account for a tiny fraction of a percent of overall delivery, yet we treat every single instance as a serious breach. When scam ads are identified, we meticulously trace their path through the ad chain to identify and block the originating source.
Manning also notes seeing an ad for period pants and questions targeting accuracy. Programmatic ad delivery relies on device-level signals and algorithmic inference. While imperfect, industry controls allow readers to manage and report ad preferences directly.
Switching off programmatic advertising is neither realistic nor a solution
Programmatic revenue directly funds the investigative journalism that exposes these very scams to the public. Rather than pointing fingers at news titles fighting the same bad actors as the rest of the industry, we need constructive, ecosystem-wide collaboration.
To that end, we extend an open invitation to Manning: over the next 12 months, share the screenshot and destination URL of any fraudulent ad you encounter on The Times directly with us. We will trace the supply path alongside our technology partners and join you in co-authoring a follow-up piece for The Media Leader to show the industry the full mechanics of programmatic fraud – and how we can fix it together.
Why are The Times and Sky News reporting on scam ads while carrying them?
Caroline Tredget is the commercial director at Times Media