eBay Advertising announced a new program to help it combat ad fraud called Ads.txt, which stands for Authorized Digital Sellers. Ads.txt is a simple text file that sits in the page source code of the eBay domain. eBay uses Ads.txt to publicly declare the companies it authorizes to sell its digital inventory.
The company explained, “Spearheaded by the IAB, ads.txt is a new industry standard in combating fraud and will prevent the sale of counterfeit and unauthorized impressions in programmatic transactions. As publishers like eBay adopt ads.txt, buyers will be able to more easily identify the Authorized Digital Sellers for a participating publisher, allowing brands to have confidence they are buying authentic publisher inventory.”
eBay said the new practice would help as domain spoofing remains a persistent issue for programmatic advertising.
In an FAQ, eBay said its use of Ads.txt would not impact direct-sold campaigns.
“Ads.txt was created to combat fraud and increase transparency of the programmatic ad ecosystem. Direct-sold campaigns are not impacted by this release.
“Once the eBay inventory is verified through the launch of Ads.txt, there is the potential possibility for existing and prospective buyers to develop preferred partnerships. This is a prime opportunity for us to educate our marketing partners of this exciting development.”
eBay Advertising is a division of eBay offering a suite of marketing solutions for brands and sellers. “A leader in ecommerce, eBay Advertising aims to be the leading ecommerce marketing platform for brands globally.”
See more information on the eBay Advertising Blog.
No matter what they do to choose an ad to bug me with, I almost never notice them. I’ve thought about this often and I can’t think of one time where I saw an ad and made a purchase.
Actually the internet may hurt my spending. I watched a TED talk the other day and got convinvced I should be chopping up my leaves and mulching them, rather than bagging them for the trash man. The Ted talker mentioned that many leaf blowers are also vacuums and mulchers too.
So I looked at all the Amazon reviews for leafblowers and also for dedicated Mulchers too. Overwhelmingly it’s clear they are all junk. One reviewer commented that it was much better just to hit a pile of leaves with the lawn mower. Ah ha, I now have the best solution for zero spending: just rake the leaves to my mulch pile and go over them a few times with the mower, then spread them out with the rake.
Why rake them to mulch pile? Just run mower over where they are and leave them unless they are contained in one area then you may have to spread them somewhat. Instead of raking leaves I put my bagger on my garden tractor and just drive around the yard to pick them up. As far as the ads, I pay no mind to them. 95% of the time the relevant ads show a product I already bought.
Yesterday, I was scrolling through facebook and I see an ebay sponsored add for a picture. Normally, I don’t pay any attention to the ads on facebook but this one caught my eye because its nothing I would have searched for as it was a picture of an actress with her nipple out. Being a heterosexual woman, I knew I didn’t look at that on ebay, so I asked my teenage boys if they had to which I got, Mom, with the internet, why would we search for that on ebay when we can see so much more anywhere else. Good point. So I checked the history on ebay, nothing in the search. So I sent eBay a question with a screenshot of it, asking why they are showing nipples to me on Facebook. Of course, no response. The ad doesn’t appear on my facebook now so was this a prank from an ebay employee. Are my teenagers real good at covering their tracks? Is this a sign that I need to just stay off Facebook? Things that make you think…