While the weather might be finally cooling down, the fraudsters aren’t—the fight against bad actors and their bad ads continues. We recently published our 2021 Q2 Malware Recap, so take a look at what has been plaguing website publishers and users this quarter.

Let’s talk about the recap, how Ad Lightning is continuing the fight against fraudsters, and how we can better protect ourselves against bad ads.

Through 2021 Q2, publishers and platforms on average encountered 175 unique threats to domains, a 17% increase from the previous quarter. Bad actors are ramping up their attacks, but that’s why Ad Lightning has been ramping up the defense by providing innovative tools and insights.

One of the ways that Ad Lightning is providing ad quality solutions to the digital ecosystem is through the continued adoption of our unwanted advertisement category blocking tool. We are delighted to see over 67% of our clients now utilizing this tool, up from the 50% in Q1.

Many times, an advertisement might be fine, but it’s inappropriate for a specific website. For example, say someone is visiting a website for baby clothes, they probably don’t want to see an advertisement that includes sexualized or violent content.

Not all advertisements are catered to the audience that publishers attempt to reach.

As the data reflects in the Q2 our unwanted ad category blocking tool, publishers have more control regarding the types of advertisements on their websites. Here’s a breakdown of the most commonly unwanted categories we saw in 2021 Q2:

Another type of bad ad that increased was data collecting advertisements. Ad Lightning saw an 11% increase in data collecting ads from Q1 to Q2.

We understand that advertisers want to know how well their ads are operating, but unfortunately, data collection slows load times. Slow load times bog down the user experience.

Altogether, the advertisement ecosystem is continuing to evolve over 2021. Many companies are returning to working from home as the pandemic continues on. We at Ad Lightning are eager to continue the fight for providing our clients with a better user experience.

Ultimately, by using these tools, partners are maximizing impressions and ads served, taking control of ad quality fates and protecting their brand. These Q2 stats are proof that the fight for ad quality is something we’re passionate about here at Ad Lightning and by choosing the right partners and solutions, ad quality can be an asset for publishers and platforms, not a liability.