Ezoic's High Quality Inventory: Insights from Dr. Augustine Fou

Ezoic has been steadfast in their mission of helping publishers properly value their ad space. That meant evening the playing field where advertisers had been equipped with far more systemic advantages. Yet, fundamentally both of these parties rely on the premise that advertising has real value. The digital environment presents several challenges in this regard because of the potential risk of bad actors, hidden costs, and outright fraud. That’s why we’ve always committed our business to ensuring that the value to all parties is maintained and upheld; even when it isn’t popular or specifically gainful.

In this two-part case study, we first dive into supply path optimizations (SPO) and quality assurance efforts that Ezoic does to uphold these standards, providing advertisers with the confidence that their campaigns are reaching real, engaged audiences. Next, we present an exclusive interview with Dr. Augustine Fou, one of the industry's leading and thorough ad fraud researcher, who shares his expert insights on why Ezoic’s traffic stands out as highly human in an industry often plagued by bot traffic and invalid sources. This content piece offers advertisers a valuable and data-backed perspective on why partnering with Ezoic ensures their ads are seen by genuine users, maximizing the impact of their campaigns.

Part One: SPO + Quality Assurance

Ezoic’s SPO initiatives are designed to enhance the value and efficiency of website inventory for advertisers by cutting out resellers that don’t contribute meaningful value to the bidstream. When too many unprofitable requests are sent through the bidstream, they can overwhelm the SSPs (Supply-Side Platforms) and DSPs (Demand-Side Platforms), leading to “shaping” of the requests. Since DSPs can only process a limited number of bid requests per second, SSPs prioritize the bids they believe will yield the best response. If too many low-quality requests are sent, even potentially valuable requests risk being shaped out, reducing the chances of successful bids and ultimately affecting campaign performance.

By removing unnecessary resellers and streamlining connections directly with top SSPs, Advertisers, and DSPs, Ezoic ensures that only the highest-quality, most direct path from Website to Advertiser are present from bid request to ad rendering. This not only improves the efficiency and effectiveness of ad campaigns but also ensures that advertisers' budgets are spent thoughtfully without unnecessary intermediaries taking piece of the budget. Additionally, the reduction of millions of ads.txt lines from these intermediaries across our portfolio further enhances transparency and reduces carbon emissions as a positive byproduct. 

Combined with our stringent quality assurance processes, which involve both advanced AI and a dedicated platform quality team, advertisers can trust that their ads are reaching engaged, organic audiences on high-quality sites. This approach positions Ezoic as a reliable partner in delivering optimal performance and maximizing return on investment for advertisers. Don’t just take our word for it, “see Fou yourself” in our latest interview with Dr. Augustine Fou. 

Part Two: Dr. Fou Interview

Alyssa: Dr. Fou, can you provide a brief overview of your experience in the ad fraud space and the importance of identifying quality traffic in today’s ad industry?

Dr. Fou: I’ve been studying ad fraud for nearly 13 years, ever since leaving Omnicom in 2012. Back then, simple bots loaded webpages to cause ad impressions to load, and get paid on a CPM basis. Bots also clicked on ads, like search ads, to help fraudulent sites make money on a CPC (cost per click) basis. Bots have gotten more advanced, so it’s important to always stay vigilant and use analytics that show you more details than just a percent %IVT (“invalid traffic”). This way you can understand why something was marked as a bot, or more importantly why it was NOT marked as a bot or fraud. 

Alyssa: How do you typically evaluate the quality of traffic for a website or platform? What key indicators do you look for that signal high-quality, human traffic?

Dr. Fou: In FouAnalytics, we not only measure for bots and invalid traffic, we also measure for humans. This is because the lack of detected bot traffic doesn’t necessarily mean it’s humans. When the legacy fraud verification vendors report 1% invalid traffic, most people just assume the other 99% is human. They should realize, instead, that most of that 99% could be unmeasurable or simply not measured (e.g. because bots blocked the detection tags of the legacy vendors). That’s why they couldn’t mark the bot as IVT.  So the other 99% should not be assumed to be humans. You have to positively measure for humans, like FouAnalytics does. In FouAnalytics charts, the dark blue means humans, and the dark red means confirmed bots. The chart below shows platform-wide Ezoic data; it shows a large amount of dark blue (humans), and a low amount of dark red (5%). Bots will never be 0% because any public website can be visited by bots at any time. The key is to monitor it with detailed analytics so you can see which bots they are, where they are coming from, and why they are there. 

Alyssa: In your analysis, how does Ezoic’s traffic compare to industry standards? Could you share any data or specific metrics that stood out during your evaluation?

Dr. Fou: For supply sources like Ezoic, it’s important to vet the sites before letting them into the network and also important to continuously monitor them for suspicious activities, like buying traffic. This is how Ezoic has been using FouAnalytics for years. And the colors in the chart above is a testament to the hard work and vigilance of the Ezoic team. The SPO and Quality Assurance efforts mentioned above are key, and using the right analytics platform which gives you the details to understand whether something is invalid bot traffic or human visitors means Ezoic could actually vet sites before letting them into the network (some 87% are rejected) and continue to monitor the network for fraudulent or suspicious activities. 

Then, with the FouAnalytics charts, the Ezoic platform can only show ad buyers that there is low IVT, it can also show them large amounts of dark blue -- i.e. human audiences. For those advertisers who care about showing ads to humans, this is a good place to start. It’s even worth paying higher CPMs for this high-quality inventory, compared to buying tons of crappy inventory elsewhere. 

Alyssa: In your opinion, how does having verified human traffic influence partnerships with advertisers and publishers?

Based on your findings with FouAnalytics, what makes Ezoic’s traffic notably “highly human” and “highly engaging”? Could you expand on how this contrasts with common issues like bot traffic or invalid traffic sources?

Dr. Fou: Advertisers don’t even have to just trust that we labeled the humans correctly (as dark blue). FouAnalytics data shows that visitors to sites in the Ezoic platform are also active on the page. For example, data on mobile users below show 84 - 86% of them touched the screen, 44 - 52% moved the mouse, and 42 - 51% clicked something on the page. Obviously humans have to be looking at the smartphone screen in order to do any of these things. That means they are paying “attention” to the ads on the page too. For advertisers using “attention” as a KPI, we can show this in the data, so they don’t have to just take our word for it. Also, none of the legacy verification vendors have any of this data to show. For contrast, bot traffic on sites show nearly zero activity like this, because as soon as the bot loads the webpage, the ads load; so the bots don’t waste time interacting with the page. They leave the page as soon as possible so they can load the next page fraudulently.   

Advertisers who want to show ads to human audiences should ask any supply source to show them proof, like we did above for the quality and “humanness” of the audience on the Ezoic platform. The data above was measured “on-site.” Advertisers can “see Fou themselves” when buying ads from Ezoic, by adding in-ad tags into their ad server or DSP. 

Conclusion

This case study highlights how Ezoic's dedication to maintaining quality and transparency in the digital ad space sets it apart for advertisers. Our focus on optimizing the entire supply path, from bid request to ad rendering, ensures more efficient and impactful campaigns. The endorsement and validation from Dr. Augustine Fou has further demonstrated that Ezoic’s traffic is not just free from fraud but also highly human and engaged, which is rare in today’s market.

For advertisers, the value of working with Ezoic goes beyond simple metrics—we offer insights backed by data and a commitment to delivering authentic, responsive audiences. By focusing on quality over quantity and actively monitoring traffic to ensure genuine human engagement, Ezoic empowers advertisers to confidently invest in inventory that drives real results.