How CompassTV Eliminates Auto Redirects
In a Nutshell
Head of Programmatic
The Problem
CompassTV is the media sales house for Jorudan, the leading public transportation navigation provider on the Japanese web. The Japanese mass transit infrastructure is comprised of numerous railway systems, which are among the most advanced in the world and are used heavily. Commuters here rely on Jorudan’s up-to-date, easy-to-access transit service information on a daily basis. Through 2017 and 2018, CompassTV extended its activity in the programmatic marketplace and onboarded several programmatic ad partners. The company’s goal was to further improve programmatic advertising sales.
However, opting for programmatic exposed the publisher and its users to major quality problems stemming from malicious ads. In particular, users were hit with waves of auto-redirect attacks. These redirects prevented CompassTV from fully monetizing the user’s session and risked the user’s lifetime loyalty by pushing them toward alternative competitor sites.
In an attempt to resolve the problem, the company whitelisted specific DSPs and raised its floor prices – a deterrent to bad actors seeking out inexpensive ad inventory through which they could push redirect code. This has reduced the number of user complaints, but also significantly reduced the company’s CPM. This led to an overall decrease in the company’s revenue. At this point, the company contacted GeoEdge.
Head of Programmatic
The Problem
The Solution
CompassTV integrated GeoEdge’s creative wrapper into its main domain. Thanks to GeoEdge’s behavioral based detection, allowing for zero-day detection – malicious attacks on the company’s users stopped almost immediately
Within minutes from integration and in real time, GeoEdge’s wrapper began collecting insights about ad security and user experience risks. In the daily reports received from GeoEdge, CompassTV’s team was given visibility into incidents of auto-redirects, ad creatives containing malicious URLs, and adult content in the banner image and the landing pages.
Following those reports, CompassTV asked GeoEdge to allow its wrapper to begin blocking those unwanted and harmful ads before they reached the site. The wrapper replaced the bad ads with pre-approved fallback ads as the page loaded, allowing CompassTV to continue monetizing the user’s session.
Going forward, CompassTV felt secure in onboarding new ad partners into their tech stack without putting their users at risk. GeoEdge took care of all ad quality matters and provided the company with a safe and clean demand for their site. This allowed the company to focus on its business and optimize revenue, without having security concerns.
For CopmassTV, working with GeoEdge brought a major increase in revenue. After a serious auto-redirect problem, resulting in revenue loss, CopmassTV contacted GeoEdge and was able to see immediate results. The company reported all reports of harmful or inappropriate ads ceased within 24 hours of integrating the GeoEdge creative wrapper. Between their ability to retain users on their site and to set floor prices that could maximize fill, CompassTV saw over 115% increase in its desktop ad revenue and up to 200% increase in its mobile ad revenue.
