How to block low-quality ad sites from display campaigns: 5 Effective ways

Every year, advertisers lose thousands to low-quality ad sites. Advertisers expect their display ads to appear on reputable sites, but without controls, this rarely happens.

Programmatic ad networks can force ads to millions of placements, and none of them are the same. Some are loaded with spam traffic, deceptive content, or even malware.

This article explains how to spot, block, and prevent low-quality ad sites from draining your campaign budget, with automation tools like ClickPatrol doing the heavy lifting.

What are low-quality ad sites?

Low-quality ad sites don’t provide real value to users and exist primarily to generate ad revenue.

Low-quality ad sites often contain thin or scraped content, intrusive pop-ups, excessive ad placements, or simulated traffic designed to inflate ad impressions and clicks. Some characteristics of low-quality ad sites include:

• Clickbait or misleading headlines for the purpose of driving views only.
• Bot-generated or non-human traffic, exaggerating impressions and clicks.
• Content farms that repost low-effort, copied content.
• Made-for-advertising (MFA) sites are heavily loaded with ads and offer little to no genuine content.
• Deceptive or off-topic content, including adult, political, or extremist content.
• Fake news or disinformation can harm a brand’s reputation.

While these sites might seem like insignificant annoyances, their total effect on a brand’s performance and reputation can be overwhelming.

How to identify low-quality ad sites in your campaigns

You should be able to identify low-quality placements before you can block them. The following is how you can locate possible problem areas in your campaign data:

Analyze placement reports

Check the areas or web addresses on which your advertisements are running. Look for patterns like:

• Strange domain names containing numbers, hyphens, and random strings.
• Web pages that get many impressions but few clicks or conversions.
• A location that has no relevance to your target audience or industry.

Check engagement metrics

Poor-quality sites typically exhibit high bounce rates or short session times, or zero conversions. These are warning signs that the traffic can be non-human or irrelevant.

Audit site content

Visit the suspicious placements manually.

• Is the site legitimate?
• Is it original, useful, and relevant content? Otherwise, it is likely a low-quality advertisement site.

Use verification tools

Brand safety and verification tools can scan placements for fraud, malware, or inappropriate content.

However, while helpful, these tools can be complex to manage manually, and that is where ClickPatrol simplifies the process.

Step-by-step: How to block low-quality ad sites

In case you are running display campaigns on such platforms as Google Ads or programmatic networks, there are a few things that you can do to prevent exposure to poor placements:

Use placement exclusions

Excluding specific sites or areas from your campaign is possible. Check your placement report regularly and block suspicious or irrelevant sites.

Add negative keywords

Negative keywords ensure that you do not advertise on such material as gambling, politics, or adult content.

Adjust targeting settings

Target users more effectively and exclude irrelevant topics to minimize random placements. Pay attention to sites within your niche or target market.

Opt for managed placements

Rather than using automatic placements, select a list of sites where you would prefer your ads to be placed. Although this method is more time-consuming, it gives you control over ad quality.

Regularly audit campaigns

Establish a schedule (once a week or once a fortnight) to go through placement reports. Even the best campaigns can end up appearing on low-quality sites over time if left unchecked.

These measures are necessary but can be tedious, especially when advertisers manage multiple campaigns. That is why automation is key.

How ClickPatrol automatically blocks low-quality ad sites

ClickPatrol, among its numerous services, included mechanisms to prevent ads from appearing on bad placements.

Instead of wasting hours manually inspecting site lists or worrying about ad spend that goes to waste, ClickPatrol detects low-quality, irrelevant placements in real time and blocks them. How it works:

Automated placement monitoring

ClickPatrol continuously monitors where your display ads appear. It identifies suspected or low-quality domains using a combination of parameters, including engagement, content inspection, and traffic quality.

Filtering out irrelevant and malicious sites

When it detects low-quality or irrelevant placements, ClickPatrol filters them automatically from your campaigns. Your ads, therefore, appear only on high-quality, brand-safe sites.

Insights for optimization

The platform provides immediate visibility into your placement performance, telling you which sites are delivering real engagement and which are wasting your budget.

Protection from ad fraud

In addition to bad sites, ClickPatrol safeguards against fake clicks and invalid traffic, delivering complete campaign protection.

The benefits of keeping your ads off low-quality sites

When you make sure that your advertisements are placed on only reputable websites, you open numerous benefits:

1. Better ROI: Each impression is more likely to reach a real, interested consumer.
2. Improved brand safety: Protect your reputation by avoiding questionable content.
3. Cleaner data: Make better optimization decisions with accurate, fraud-free analytics.
4. More precise audience targeting: Make sure you target users who matter.
5. Less wastage: No more paying for false traffic or unconverted impressions.

Advertisers who regularly clean their placement lists and use automated protection systems, such as ClickPatrol, realise significant performance improvements over time.

Case study: Conservio: Clean traffic and high ROI

ClickPatrol’s system and AI detected non-human traffic and poor-quality placements. Exclusion policies were implemented to remove unnecessary and malicious placements (or at least “sanitize” the traffic by blocking bots).

After-deployment:

• 14% reduction in non-human traffic.
• 17% reduction in campaign wastage spend.
• Improved ROI from high-quality traffic.

Take control of your ad placements before they control you

Every impression on a low-quality ad site burns off your budget, distorts your data, and hurts your brand.

With active detection and blocking of bad placements, and automation solutions like ClickPatrol, advertisers can now ensure that every ad dollar is spent in front of real audiences and on safe sites.

Also, ClickPatrol not only detects the problem, but also eliminates it. With real-time scanning, automatic exclusion of low-quality placements, and complete protection against fake clicks, ClickPatrol enables you to keep your campaigns as clean, secure, and profitable.

Stop wasting budget on bad ad sites. Start protecting your brand and enhancing ROI today with ClickPatrol.

Abisola

Meet Abisola! As the content manager at ClickPatrol, she’s the go-to expert on all things fake traffic. From bot clicks to ad fraud, Abisola knows how to spot, stop, and educate others about the sneaky tactics that inflate numbers but don’t bring real results.

View all posts by Abisola (Abisola)

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