Rich Kahn - How Much of Digital Advertising Is Fake | E90

Digital advertising runs on data, but how much of that data can marketers actually trust?

On this episode of the Madvertising podcast, we sit down with Rich Kahn, co-founder and CEO of Anura, to unpack the hidden economics of ad fraud, fake traffic, programmatic advertising, and the growing challenge of distinguishing real humans from increasingly sophisticated bots. 

Anura grew out of a problem he encountered firsthand: a significant portion of the traffic his company was buying simply wasn't behaving like real human traffic. What started as a small piece of code became a sophisticated fraud-detection platform. 

We discuss the scale of ad fraud, why AI is making the problem worse, which advertising channels tend to have the most fraudulent traffic, why programmatic advertising is particularly vulnerable, and why marketers can end up making major decisions based on bad data.

Rich explains the difference between general invalid traffic (GIVT) and sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT), how fraudsters can spoof seemingly legitimate users and devices, and why traditional pre-bid fraud detection may miss increasingly sophisticated attacks.

We also get into the business side of marketing: how to sell to CMOs by solving their actual problems rather than selling them a product they don't think they need, the value of in-person relationships, and Rich's advice for young marketers and technologists entering an increasingly AI-driven workforce.