If your a regular reader of my Blogs it won't come as a surprise that I've been beating the drum for the past 6 years about the fact you, me, and many millions of other people around the world are blocking, and skipping intrusive adverts. And I'm sure not going to pipe down anytime soon.

And yet the corruption in ad land goes on.

The murky world of 'click farms' and the inability of the programmatic technology to be able to combat it is an ongoing battle with many in the industry choosing to include it as 'part of doing business', and at the last count that cost is currently running at $5.8bn, which is also seen by other experts as just the tip of the ad fraud iceberg.

Its the biggest Elephant in every single media agencies board room, because even if they had the ability to audit it for you, it isn't really in their business model interest to show you how they actually use the retainer to do what they do.

If you spend your budget on digital advertising then this topic should be front and centre of each agency review meeting you have, along with what is now proving to be a diminishing media marketing landscape.

So, when I came across this piece of research by Dr Augustine Fou, independent ad fraud researcher,  for Exchange Wire, I can't say I was shocked, other than it seems to confirm my bias that openness and visibility on the subject still has some way to go.

If you have a robust and scalable 'Social Media' strategy you will quickly notice that not only is it the most cost efficient things your company can do, but unlike 'paid media' the cost don't rise with reach, and because it should focus on 'engagement' over any other metric it becomes a pretty powerful weapon to use against your competitor, and help you win the hearts and minds of your customers.