Defining MFA and Ad Clutter Sites
MFA, an acronym for Made-for-Advertising, epitomises a category of websites[1] built on catchy headlines, clickbait, and controversial content to drive traffic and ad revenue. Often sacrificing content quality, these sites inundate users with intrusive ads and pop-ups in a relentless pursuit of revenue.
MFA sites aren’t sources of fraudulent inventory, per se. In fact, they typically perform well against traditional ad metrics, such as viewability and click-through-rate (CTR), making them a compelling choice for advertisers. However, once a brand’s campaign gets stuck in the world of MFA, the main issue becomes clear — MFA websites simply do not drive meaningful results and lead to wasted ad spend.
Distinguishing Between MFA and Ad Clutter Sites
While both MFA and Ad Clutter sites may exhibit similar characteristics, understanding the difference[2] between the two is essential for advertisers who want to mitigate risk and maximise campaign performance. Ad Clutter sites share similarities with MFA sites in terms of intrusive advertising practices — but the key distinction lies in their monetization strategy.
Unlike MFA sites, which engage in ad arbitrage by buying traffic and excessively monetizing it, Ad Clutter sites do not purchase traffic but may still inundate users with excessive advertisements. While these sites may compromise user experience and brand perception, they do not engage in the same level of deceptive practices as MFA sites.
Fig. I: Distinguishing between MFA and Ad Clutter site, IAS
Why It Matters
Distinguishing between MFA and Ad Clutter sites allows advertisers to tailor their strategies accordingly, mitigating risks and optimising campaign performance. By leveraging MFA measurement and optimisation[1] products (Fig. I), advertisers can identify and block MFA sites at scale, safeguarding their brands and maximising return on ad spend.
Despite their dissimilarities, MFA and Ad Clutter share a common drawback for advertisers.
Navigating The Pitfalls: Three Main Challenges of MFA Sites
While MFA and Ad Clutter sites present a host of issues for advertisers, there are three reasons why they stand out as particularly detrimental to campaign success and brand integrity:
- MFA sites often prioritise quantity over quality when it comes to content. To attract clicks and maximise ad revenue, these websites churn out sensationalised headlines, clickbait articles, and controversial content. Consequently, users are bombarded with shallow or misleading information, eroding trust and credibility in the digital space.
- User experience takes a backseat on MFA sites, where intrusive ads, pop-ups, and autoplay videos dominate the landscape. These disruptive elements not only detract from the browsing experience but also hinder engagement and interaction with advertised content. As a result, advertisers risk associating their brands with negative user experiences, ultimately impacting brand perception and loyalty.
- Advertising on MFA sites exacerbates environmental concerns. MFA sites often engage in more instant auctions for ad inventory than websites with typical ad loads, resulting in higher carbon emissions. In fact, there is a 73% decrease in carbon emissions when comparing quality sites to MFA sites. This discrepancy in carbon footprint undermines advertisers’ efforts toward carbon reduction goals, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable advertising practices
The Importance of A Scalpel Approach to MFA
Taking a scalpel approach to MFA is a key way to address these three major challenges outlined above. The MFA measurement and optimisation product uses a scalpel approach as opposed to an all-or-nothing approach to effectively identify MFA at the subdomain level.[1] Competitive offerings can only flag at the top-level domain, which doesn’t allow for the nuance of MFA subdomains that can be mistakenly generated off of a quality publisher’s primary domain.
A Data-driven Look at Ad Performance on MFA Sites
Global view of ad impressions on MFA
In an observational study conducted by IAS, we uncovered the underlying realities behind MFA and Ad Clutter sites. First, we explored how the rate of ads that end up on MFA sites varies globally.
The good news is that European sites for the most part fell below the global average of ad impressions on MFA sites, which is 3.84%. Assessing at APAC, Japan hit the lowest global rate at 0.33%. But the bad news is that MFA ad impressions in the Americas often lay above the global average, climbing as high as 5.21% in the U.S. and even reaching 10.61% in Mexico.
Vertical view of ad impressions on MFA
Ad impressions on MFA sites also varied quite a bit by vertical — but all verticals came in above the 3.84% global average in this study.
We observed that the lowest rate, 3.85%, belonged to advertisers in the automotive vertical, while CPG followed closely at 4.14%. Retail rounded out the top three at 4.71% — still almost an entire percentage point above the global average.
The government/non-profit/education vertical is where things get dicey. These verticals, packaged together in this study, soared to reach an unprecedented MFA rate of 7.21%. The travel vertical also experienced a surprisingly high MFA rate of 6.84%.
Conversions and cost efficiency tell an even bigger story[2]
After dissecting global MFA ad impression rates by vertical, we wanted to understand how conversions really differ on MFA and Ad Clutter sites versus quality sites.
Conversion rates on quality sites were 174% higher than those on MFA sites. Plus, conversion rates on quality sites are 91% higher than conversion rates on Ad Clutter sites — showing a major difference in low-funnel campaign performance on quality sites versus MFA and Ad Clutter sites.
Cost per conversion (CPCV) data followed a similar story. CPCV rates on quality sites were 51% lower than on MFA sites, and 25% lower than those on Ad Clutter sites, rounding out the notion that, when it comes to MFA, advertisers don’t need to choose between quality and cost efficiency.
Advanced Machine Learning For Protection At Scale
The AI-powered MFA solution helps advertisers increase conversions and reduce wasted ad spend.[3] This offers them unparalleled control over their campaigns & media quality which combines both supply chain data and site characteristics.
When identifying sites as MFA or not, the fundamental question we want to answer is: is the site conducting ad arbitrage? To address this case, we have to consider the following two key questions:
- Is the majority of traffic coming to the site paid or organic?
Supply chain data collected from our partner Jounce Media helps us find a conclusion to this question. - Is the primary purpose of the site to deliver content or ads?
We then examine site characteristics collected from our partner Sincera to answer this question.
By incorporating Jounce and Sincera signals along with additional proprietary data from IAS, our machine learning model can effectively identify MFA sites. If the majority of traffic coming to the site is paid and the primary purpose of the site is to deliver ads, the model will flag them as MFA. This aligns with the ANA’s[4] definition of MFA, as it has been trained and is routinely vetted against Jounce Media’s widely adopted list[5] of MFA domains, resulting in the industry’s first pressure-tested solution for detecting and blocking MFA at scale.
[1] Ibid. “Programmatic Transparency: Made for Advertising Websites Are Too “Good” to Be True”
[2] Integral Ad Science. “Boost Campaign Success with MFA Measurement & Optimization”. June 7, 2024.
[3] Ibid. “Detect and Avoid Made for Advertising Sites with IAS’s AI-Driven MFA Technology”, March 5, 2024.
[4] ANA stands for Association of National Advertisers.
[5] Ibid., “IAS Expands “Made For Advertising” (MFA) AI-Driven Measurement and Optimization Solution With Industry-First Ad Clutter Detection and Avoidance Innovation”, March 5, 2024.
[1] Ibid., “Expands “Made for Advertising” (MFA) AI-Driven Measurement and Optimization Solution with Industry-First Ad Clutter Detection and Avoidance Innovation”, March 5, 2024.
[1] Integral Ad Science, “How Marketers can detect and Avoid Made-For-Advertising Sites”, October 16, 2023.
[2] Ibid., “Detect and Avoid Made For Advertising Sites with IAS’s AI-Driven MFA Technology”. 2024.
