Hello, dear listeners. A very warm welcome to the Partner Marketing Podcast. My guests today are Daniel Karlovic and Ryan Irvine. Daniel is the founder and CEO of AdPolice and Ryan responsible for global sales. AdPolice is a highly specialized global tool to protect brands against fraud. But I let Daniel and Ryan introduce themselves and explain what exactly it is and how it works. We will speak about fraud and partner marketing in general, how to fight it, some experiences and some best practice. Hello, Daniel and Ryan. Great having you here today in the Partner Marketing Podcast. Welcome. Hi, Matthias. Thank you for inviting us. Hey, Matthias. Thank you very much for having us. Hey, Daniel. Hey, Ryan. It's the first time actually that we do a podcast recording with two guests.

So, we have a talk of three. I have listened to many podcasts with three people. With two people as guests, I think that will be very good. Starting with AdPolice, Daniel, what inspired you? You're the founder, you're the CEO, and you have set up AdPolice some 16 or even 18 years ago, if I recall correctly. What has inspired you? What triggered AdPolice? Yeah, as you said, it's 16 years ago now, and AdPolice was founded in 2008. And at that time, I was responsible for online marketing, especially for paid search and affiliate marketing. And I was a little bit frustrated about a few affiliates. They were engaging in ad hijacking and stealing commissions from the brands that I work for. And that was the starting point of AdPolice. The ad you didn't like?

No, not really. Maybe generally, because fraud is such a broad topic. Especially now, me working in partner marketing, it is something I'm here at Trade Doubler for 17 years. So I'm familiar with this topic for 17 years, basically. But maybe you could explain a bit why it is such a big problem in general. Obviously, right, it is stealing commissions. So it is criminal, obviously, and it's something really bad. But I think there is more impact of fraud on the region. And I think there is a relationship between brands, partners, or brands with their service providers, like Google, etc., where they work. Can you explain a bit more why it's such a big problem? Yeah, as you mentioned, on the one hand, you have, of course, this illegal topic that somebody is stealing your money.

But on the other hand, of course, it's also a big trust thing in the industry. So when somebody is stealing your money, it's also a big trust thing in the industry. So when somebody is stealing your money, it's something that nobody wants to have in a company. So when somebody is stealing your money, it's also a big trust issue in the industry. So when somebody is stealing your money, it's also a big trust issue in the industry. And as I mentioned before, that was also the reason why we built up Atlas-Pasta. Not to be frustrated too much about a couple of affiliates, they are stealing this money. More to focus on the real relationships. Because everybody knows that paid search is an important topic for brand greedy companies.

Companies and also affiliate marketing, and to build a relationship with a publisher makes absolutely sense for brands, and this is also a key fact in affiliate marketing. It has quite an impact as well when you have fraud in your online marketing channels, despite what kind of channel that is. It has quite an effect on how you manage, how you steer these channels as well, right? Yeah, so essentially the way that it works is that for ad hijacking in particular, there's no gain for the brand apart from the publisher itself that is ad hijacking and you have to see it as a way of when an ad hijack occurs and a sale is generated from an ad hijack, essentially that's being stolen from the paid search performance and what will happen for a brand that continues to allow affiliate ad hijacking to persist is that while the numbers on paper look good for the program and the SLT will rejoice and sing songs of the affiliate channel is doing really well,

essentially it's an inflating balloon that will eventually pop because what will happen is you'll see the sales dilute from the paid search channel but overall when reviewing both, there will be a lot of people that will say, There'll be no change in the amount of sales that are generated and the brand sooner or later will recognize that they're paying the same amount or they're paying more for the acquisition per sale in terms of affiliate commissions, but they'll recognize that there's been no uplift in sales across the channel overall. So that is really where it comes to breaking point, and it really what we then make brands realize is to be proactive in this situation in terms of being able to cut out the bad stuff within the program, understand the real figures, and then they can then reinvest that money back into partnerships that actually build up real value to the brand itself.

Very interesting. How do you work now? How do you help brands to protect themselves when, like looking at your website, you basically say that you have four kinds of services. The one is fighting against brand abuse, affiliate fraud, reseller fraud, and then competitor violations. How do you work? What can brands expect from you? Yeah, so for the App Police solution, it's not just focused on affiliate monitoring as you've just highlighted. There are wider applications. So essentially what App Police does is we simulate a real search user query and we will search your keyword and we'll identify all ads being placed on said keyword at the time of searching it. And this can be a publisher within your program, it could even be a competitor's affiliate to even help with your recruitment strategy.

It could be resellers that are bidding on various keywords that are not authorized within your reseller agreements. And ultimately as well, it could just be wider competitor intelligence. So understanding who are your top competitors on your branded keywords. Are there any agreements that you can form with said competitors or just understanding and informing the wider bidding strategy. But another key actionable with brand fraud is competitor trademark fraud. So, if you do have any competitors that you've recognized that are using your brand within the ad copy, actually within the eyes of a search engine, that is a trademark infringement. And the process for those would be to submit those as a direct complaint in order to get those ads taken down. That is something that App Police supports the process with.

We semi-automate that entire process for our clients. How does that work? I'm very interested in that because it's difficult for me to imagine. How does that work technically? Yeah. So essentially, what App Police does is for each and every ad variation that we find for let's say competitor one, there may be 25% of those ads that actually include your brand within the ad copy. What App Police is able to do is we create an ID for each specific ad variation. We then place those ads within a specific portal within our dashboard. And we would then only advise the client to submit those ads if they're confident that it is a direct trademark infringement. But what we have to do is to assess the landscape individually for each client.

So we have to set up specific rules in order to exclude relevant publishers because that's not a direct trademark infringement. That's for the affiliate. So we have to set up specific rules in order to exclude relevant publishers. Whereas if there are any resellers or just any third parties that are in the way of delivering value to the brand is what the search engines deem it as, this would not be a trademark infringement. So we always have to be really careful with the way that we're optimizing certain accounts to ensure that the complaints that we submit to the search engines are relevant. Because if you don't, if you fail to submit ads that are not trademark infringements, the search engines will in fact actually take more time to review them and subsequently take more time to review them and subsequently take more time to review them and subsequently take them down.

So that's why it's so essential within a paid search monitoring solution that we highlight the right ads, the right infringements, and then we deliver the right action goals moving forward. So every setup that you have with a client is kind of like customized? Absolutely. There's no, there's no one size that fits all. The process for any client that joins Adpolice, it's a continuous process. Strategies change and that's why we have dedicated account management teams that work throughout the partnership of any client that we work with. When they have some kind of brands, when you start working with a brand, they have some kind of interface where they can monitor their activities and amend accordingly, and have somebody, an expert, on your side to help them with.

Is that how I can imagine it to be set up? Absolutely. So every dashboard within AdPolice is pretty different. And it really depends on the use cases. So, there may be some clients that don't have an affiliate program and actually what they're more focused on is, is reseller monitoring and understanding: are their resellers actually the cause of increasing CPCS year over year? Are there ways that they can use their police solution to help inform that wider bidding strategy and introduce some reseller rules? Um, there's lots of clients that we have that reseller monitoring is the core focus. Whereas for other clients, there's all different areas what the dashboard is able to do within that place: it allows multiple, multiple teams within in a single brand to work in unison within the dashboard.

We can create a workflow for the affiliate team, the wider paid search team, and even the legal teams may even want to look for any counterfeit sites that are mimicking domains and running paid search ads on those-that is also a use case that we can implement. As part of our place, you have two different products, one being brand protect, the other one being industry watch. I think what you just described is rather going into the brand and protect direction; right, industry watch is then watching competitors if they're bidding for example on your brand terms, is it like that? Correct, yeah, so for industry watch, it's more just understanding the landscape and what we're able to do with an industry watch, specifically designated market in marketing areas.

Um, monitoring, so for let's say, for example, the US, it's an extensive market; um, there may be some teams that want a specific to monitor, specific Markets, um, industry watch allows you to do them so for lots of our clients we actually have a certain amount of keywords in this specific region in the US that is constantly monitoring and there will be different trends and different insights that we'll get from different market areas so that is something that industry watch empowers brands to have more visibility on, you say, on your website as well that you can give information like something like market share for example how do you do that? Yeah, so essentially what App Police does is that we want to monitor is we don't specifically show the specific share of voice of The ad essentially what App Police does, can show you the visibility score.

So all the ads that we find across all the competitors and all the keywords that we're monitoring, we will show you how each competitor or publisher's visibility score for each individual keyword so let's say if we were monitoring at least discount if we found publisher one, it would show us specifically how many times we are finding that specific publisher on that keyword on that specific market. So that's something that we want to show you every day. We also show the common trends: so the hour of the day and also the day of the week. So if we were going To focus on affiliate marketing, for example. If you do not allow affiliates to brand bid, a common trend or pattern that you'll recognize is that some affiliates will start bidding maybe on the weekends or even on the middle of the night, yeah, on the middle of the night.

And what App Police does is provide you a full transparency on that so we create a full profile for every single advertiser or publisher profile that we have within the dashboard, so paid search teams can really understand what are the common behaviors, what search engines are they targeting. There's so many wider applications that you can use just by analyzing This data there are many clients that we work with that probably won't have campaigns set up on the smaller search engines, but what their competitors will be doing or publishers is capitalizing on that because if they if the actual brand itself doesn't have a presence on those specific search engines it's then much cheaper for the CPCs for those competitors and third parties to capitalize on.

So we can actually help inform that wider bidding strategy and say look, based on this data, we would suggest running an A/B test on this specific search engine and then testing, answering, and monitoring the results because if your competitors Are doing it there's a reason why, because it must be delivering traffic, and we can say over the last three months it's been a consistent trend for this competitor. Now is the term for the brand to actually try to disrupt this pattern and actually see if there's a profitable income from actually running campaigns in the search engine. It's a very good angle because it does not only protect you from fraud, but it gives you insights as well about how to amend your own campaigns and make them more profitable, and how you expand them-right kind of like benefiting ideally a little bit on that.

Absolutely interesting, you have a new product coming as well um called affiliate center maybe um what does that do yeah so in in q2 of this year actually we've deployed a brand new portal and it's a free upgrade for all of our clients um and essentially what affiliate center does it's encompassing basically the core mission of what at least is focused on throughout 2024 and 2025 which is sub network monitoring so a key concern for most publishers for most advertisers is sub network transparency and for years sub network fraud has been an issue but there's been a lack of tool and also transparency to deal with specific sub network fraud so what the affiliate Center will do is it will be able to allow our clients to filter on a main network, but also on a sub-network level. It will then also be able to allow you to upload publisher information where you can then send out automatic violation emails or reports directly to a sub-network. So, let's say if we have sub-network one, we would show you within the affiliate center all the specific sub-publications that we're going to be searching within the affiliate center; it's really not separate from any of the new sub-network packages and then we will then we will then be able to allow and work properly with over identities of all the Frax. Frauders um throughout the entire chain, so not just over the strike warning rule for affiliate brand bidders before they then take the final step to remove them from the program. We have also encompassed a structure like this within the affiliate center and this can be defined uniquely to each customer that we work with, but out the box this is essentially how it would look. But we'll also be able to customize this in line with the specific terms conditions that the advertiser has set within their program. So yeah, we're really excited.

Essentially, the reason for forming the affiliate center is that within Applease, we've Recognized that an affiliate, let's say a Publisher One, could be within a sub network and what they do within that sub network if there are no limitations or guidelines that the sub network has put forward. Sometimes you will see a publisher that will subscribe with multiple IDs to that sub network and they will start committing ad hijacks. Within an Applease profile we will show all the different redirects and the different sub-publishers, and then the advertiser can then submit a protest publisher IDs. And all this indicates is that actually within the sub-network, it may only be one or two bad actors instead of it looking like there's over a hundred.

But it's really clever the way that some affiliates have become sophisticated in the way that they commit fraud, because if they split their assets, if they're able to split their assets across multiple IDs, essentially there's less risk averse of them getting caught and losing out on that money. What the affiliate center will be able to do is provide you full transparency. Is it the same publisher just changing their campaign with a different ID? And it will then also set you up with the capabilities to report all of those cases directly to the sub-network. So it will essentially be a game changer in the way that a paid search monitoring tool will not just be a tool to identify ads, but also a platform to remediate it within the one button takedown.

That's a good link about starting to speak about fraud in partner marketing itself. Daniel, you work with brands that directly, you work with networks as well. What is the difference in the setup when you work with brands like we just spoke about that, but when you work with networks then as well? Of course. We work also with agencies together. So there are three main customers for Adpolis. And when we are working with brands together, we are trying of course to mobilize the tool a lot for the customer. And also the difference between networks and customers is that we have more keywords monitored and also the scan volume is typically higher than at networks. Because the difference is of course that the network can provide only a base set up for the customer.

And networks are working with multiple brands. This means that when we are working with a network together, we are monitoring thousands of accounts for the networks and we are trying to automate it and to find as much as we can. But of course, it's not possible to have the 100% of the scope. And this is something that is a little bit different when you're working directly with a brand together. Okay, I understand. But that means as well, like, we work together. Just like as information and disclaimer for all our listeners. So you work then with the brands directly with agencies, as you said with the networks. So you really are monitoring thousands of accounts worldwide, right? Yeah, so it's something like 20,000 accounts, actually, over 120 countries.

And we are monitoring millions of keywords every day. So it's a huge number that we have to manage in the back end. And what are the most common types of fraud now you see in partner marketing? Is it this ad brand hijacking, as Ryan just described? Or what's the most common threat, so to say? Funny enough, when we started with Adpolice 2008, it was the ad hijacking topic and six years later, it's again the ad hijacking topic. But what we also are seeing is that of course, the optimization and also the professionality of the fraudster is increased from 2008 to 2025. And so there are several cloaking techniques there that fraudsters are using. And, also, Ryan mentioned next to the ad hijacking topic, there are several other topics like sub-affiliates trying to yet to mask their own campaigns or what different um if yes or different sub networks and this is a common um fraud topic for this year and the next year so it's a constant race between fraudsters, brands, networks, or security tools like at police basically who's most sophisticated, who's most technically advanced-that's the case. You would you see it like that. Yeah, this is exactly the case. And of course, there are also some different um topics from the market for example Google changed also in the beginning of the year a few things that affect the whole industry so when you want to track now Google you have to read JavaScript on the one Hand in hand, on the other hand, Google is trying to do everything to block um the tools like at police and because they don't want anyone to try to read their own pages.

What is funny enough because Google is the biggest spider worldwide and um, but they are trying now to to block everybody and that was a common topic for the beginning of the year, and but we are able to manage this also and against Google and yeah that was a big challenge but it works really well now. It's really interesting that a big provider like Google makes it rather more difficult um than the other way around, right? Yeah, it is. It is. But again, there's a Little bit of insights about the mindset, yeah, it's the AI topic, I think this is the main reason why they are trying now to block everybody from their own data and because all the people who are trying to block everybody from their own data, they are they are doing the same as Google is doing.

But data is king, I can imagine there will be; it's i guess it's the same with any kind of cyber or i. t crime do you believe that fraud can ever be eliminated or you see that as a constant battle going forward from my perspective as a constant battle and i think it's unrealistic to eliminate all fraud and as as you see then we started in 2008 and the topic is the same topic as 16 years ago and but what we are trying is really to reduce it on a management level and this is our target now brands networks agencies can obviously work with tools like ad police in order to protect themselves what else can they do what is common mistakes or what would be your recommendations to its brands and networks to prevent fraud as good as possible yeah i would probably say that the terms conditions of a program is the biggest asset and

essentially if there's no clear terms conditions that are put forward such as clear ppc guidelines um there's been many advertisers that we've worked With that, haven't clearly stated this and although at the brand at their discretion can remove publishers, they don't really set a clear playground for the affiliates if they don't say to them that you can't brand bid; um, the affiliates will brand bid, and so it's about setting firm conditions but also highlighting what the steps are with compliance; um, so forever, whoever works at that company moving forward will have a clear basis in terms of what is the compliance strategy moving forward and then we'll stick to that process; um, in a way that's quick and simple, so if we do find a violation, what is the next step process.

And appreciate it's not always black and white but really for ad hijacking there should be a zero tolerance. There are some brands that will allow a publisher to stay after after ad hijacking; um, whereas I would deem that as intentional fraud. However, for brand bidding it's not considered as serious as as ad hijacking, but there needs to be clear steps involved highlighting who are the authorized affiliates to be running PPC campaigns; um, and then all those that aren't having a clear step next process in order to stop that activity, to allow the affiliates that you have authorized PPC rights to, to continue those campaigns. Because if you are not enforcing compliance and essentially helping those affiliates out that you've given authorized rights to, it will just increase their own costs on running those campaigns, which is just not healthy for forming that relationship.

Outside of this, it's also about the KPIs that I think the SLTs will set, and in some ways the programme can be seen as a channel at growth at any cost. More and more over the years, so it's been over five years now that I've been working with teams and affiliate teams, and understanding their strategy and goals, and most of the time the biggest concern within the senior leadership team is the KPIs for revenue, and sometimes this can be quite unrealistic. And for lots of successful affiliate managers that I've spoken to at lots of amazing brands, really the process is quite different in that it's a slow and steady process when forming a programme, and you have to let it thrive, but with the relationships that work.

And there's so many, time and time again we'll reach out. The core message of Bad Police is to reach out and say look, we found ad hijacking for one of our clients. We have followed the Google profile in the Ads Transparency Centre, and we have found that you're also been affected. Do you want to have a chat about it? And some of them do, some of them don't, but I do think that a lot of affiliate managers are guilty in some way of turning a blind eye to fraud. Even though they know that it's happening, we may highlight that maybe it's one of their top one to five publishers that are committing fraud, and in some way there's not enough incentive to actually remove that fraud from the programme, because if they follow their own KPIs of growth, for example.

Exactly, yeah, so even though that's damaging to the business, the industry itself and the standards within the industry I think needs to have a big shake up, but that's about educating. You need to be pushing your leadership teams at the top network affiliate programmes to understand that actually it's corrosive allowing this fraud to happen, and setting unrealistic revenue targets actually does more damage to the bottom line of the company, and the only real winners here are the ad hijackers, because an affiliate manager probably isn't recognised enough for dealing with affiliate fraud within the programme, and there should be more KPIs fixed on how much money have you saved us, rather than how much money have you saved us.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point, and I think that's a really good point, and I think that's a really good point, and I think that's a really good point, because essentially all that's doing is if you stop that affiliate fraud, if you stop ad hijacking, for example, or even brand bidding, you will then see the paid search channel flourish, and lots of times there's a silo between how paid search teams and affiliate teams work together. They don't really work in unison in many of the cases, whereas if that was the change, and if let's say the affiliate marketing team were then celebrated for the inadvertently driving up the performance and profitability of the business, then that would be a really good thing to do.

I think that's a really good point, performance marketing channels, that really should be celebrated, and I don't really think it is enough within teams that I speak to directly. So I think if there was a way to bridge both those teams together, this would be a really easy way to stamp out fraud within the programme, because I do think a lot of it is known to the brand or the affiliate teams, there's just not enough incentive for them to deal with it. They don't want to be seen as the one to sink the ship, really, in terms of revenue. If we highlight that their top five publishers are actually committing fraud, then they have to deal with the implications of letting the senior leadership team know that, and then understanding what the backlash could be from doing that.

So I think really it's a point of education within advertisers, understanding that it really shouldn't be as much revenue as possible within the programme. And the real benefit should be, okay, we've highlighted the issue, let's cut out the meat of it, and let's reinvest the money into partnerships that actually deliver value and growth for the channel itself. Is it mainly this attitude and education topic that you think is the key one? Because like Daniel said, many of the topics, they date back to 2008. And I remember very well, we were speaking about the same topics. Though, back in these days, affiliate networks, partner marketing networks were working completely differently, right? We didn't give this transparency, you didn't know what kind of publishers you work with, there was not so much insights into the data.

There were no sub networks like they are today. So it was a completely different way of working. Daniel Zeiss: Today, we claim that we work fully transparently, we give out all these data, we have sub-network agreements in place. So, we show what kind of like sub-publishers are working in these networks. Still, obviously, because there will always criminals out there, we are faced with fraud topics. So, you think this attitude and education thing is the key piece to tackle that besides all the technology advances, of course, where but where we always see this kind of like, constant battle and constant race between fraudsters and protectors? Daniel Zeiss: Yeah, absolutely. I do think it's the key. I mean, I won't name I won't name the brand.

But this happens all over in the industry, whereby there was a post-publication on the performance of let's say, affiliate channel one. And I know that the affiliate team are already aware of the fraud. But essentially, what they were essentially celebrating is that they've been over 1,000% increase over the last year. Daniel Zeiss in commission payouts, the program had grown over 300%. And all of that was predicated on fraud. But from the senior leadership team perspective, or the business perspective, they were seen as doing a really good job. But the reality was that actually everything was was predicated on fraud. And so the KPIs really need to change. And there needs to be something that an affiliate manager needs to demonstrate, okay, show me how much money you've made for the channel, but also show me how money you saved.

But then yeah, there needs to be a clear direction, there needs to be a lot more of a symbiotic relationship between the paid search team and the affiliate team. Sometimes there's a bit of a silo there. So I think for well, all that is possible, right? Because we have the data nowadays, we have the user journey reporting, we can identify sales, we can validate sales, right? So technically, that is all possible. It is it is all possible. It's entirely possible that that's that's what it is. That's why every every business that we work with, there's a different strategy involved. But it's entirely possible for every company to make this to make this work. And you have to see you have to see the main aim is is not to cost the business unnecessary payouts.

So it's whether it's from the pay search perspective, in terms of CPCs, they're not getting any cheaper. Year over year, they're getting more expensive. So actionable insights would be okay, well, what can we deal with? And from the pay search perspective, it will be affiliate fraud that is within their interest to stop, that's within the affiliate managers' interests because eventually that bubble will pop and they'll be caught out eventually, all this money is not driving any additional sales. But unless they're all working together, they won't effectively stamp out this issue, which is why a tool like Applease, it encompasses all these different workflows that allows each individual member within that performance marketing team to work in unison.

So yeah, that's that's the main ingredient, I would say, in order to stamp out, but also one of the biggest challenges as well for a lot of advertisers. You spoke a bit about sub networks, and you spoke about your new product affiliate center. Sub networks themselves, is that the latest trend in that is coming up for fraud? Or what would you say? Is where are we at the moment? Yeah, what is the latest trends? What's what's what is what what keeps you and us busy now? Yeah, so I'm sorry, then. Yeah, sub networks, on the one hand, this that's what we saw from last year, and this year, this is the most hottest topic is also Ryan described it. What we are also seeing is the switch from third party to first party tracking.

This affects our work, and also the work from your all merchants and the networks, of course. But it makes also on the one hand, of course, to, to manage or to track the sales better. But on the other hand, it makes it even more easier to do fraud without any click tracker. And this was a main topic for us last year, where we can now provide our customer a full transparent solution in 2025. And so this is something that we can manage. And, as I mentioned, also before, the Google changes in 2025. This is also something that you have to be aware of it. And, you know, you have to be able to manage all this blocking stuff from Google.

When speaking about sub-networks, like me speaking on behalf of a partner marketing network, we have sub-network agreements in place, we have the tracking in place, we work with you, for example, to monitor all that. Would you say then, for brands, we're going to have to do something like that? Or we're looking at sub-networks in an environment like that, that is then fine, if you have all these settings in place? Can you then give some comfort on that? Yeah, I think I think the key topic at the moment, and the reassurance that we need to put forward in the industry is not to demonize the sub-networks. However, as long as the sub-network is willing to provide that transparency, and is willing to provide that data, and will liaise and work on that relationship with the advertiser, then yes, absolutely.

Sub-network marketing, affiliate marketing, is still a really powerful asset to a channel; it can help you reach new depths, and new and new different customers that you wouldn't have reached otherwise. However, what you need is that transparency, to even allow the make the business to understand: Is this actually a profitable relationship with the sub-network? The biggest challenge that a lot of advertisers have is that they're not able to get this information from the sub network, or they haven't to previously, so they can't actually guarantee. Let's just say even if there's one fraudster that they found, if they were just running a manual search, if then the sub network isn't providing that transparency, rather than and a lot of the time, they'll come back and say, some sketchy ones will say, Oh, no, this isn't happening, or the data is wrong.

And there's no accountability. So then the affiliate managers back to square one about how do we deal with this issue. But if they are providing that transparency, if they're showing that demonstration, willingness to work with you, then yes, absolutely, that it's a it's a partnership that works. So yeah, I think all Yeah, moving away from demonizing the sub network is the key mission of police. Because we can provide you with that transparency, you can then demonstrate to the leadership team. Actually, yes, there are a few fraudsters that happen. But fraud can happen outside of sub network as well. It can be influencer sites, it can be, it can be the main network. But it's just about the steps that you take to address it is the most important thing.

Do you have like out of interest? What would what are the most recent cases of fraud incidents that you have experienced now recently? Can you share? For one of our clients, maybe maybe without saying the brand, obviously, but just like describing was what has happened. The most one that I can remember, is, is from yesterday. One of one of them from yesterday. And that what we saw, we find out yesterday, for example, is that an affiliate started to put different trackings in one tracking together. So as I mentioned before, so we have the switch from third party to first party. So we have the switch from third party to first person tracking. And now you have the original domain from the customer and with a different parameter and the link, you can fire the pics, the pixel on the website.

And that what happened here is that they tried now to steal from different networks, the money. And this is, for example, one case, where we have an eye on it. And on another example, was one of our customer, they lost every month, five digits in ad hijacking. And again, that's, that's all from from this topic, ad hijacking, and again, sub networks, and sub network tracking. So that are the common topics, right. So, these are not, these are not fraud topics for this year. And this is something really where, where we see, the most, yeah, to do is for us, when, when you look at cases like that, are you surprised how these are building up over time? Because usually, it shouldn't pop up like this, right?

So, you should be able to discover like the brand, I mean, should be able to discover that much, much earlier, shouldn't they? Yeah, it should on one hand, but on the other hand, it's also first, you have to recognize it. So maybe we let's talk quickly about this ad hijacker or the fraudster. So they're not like, yeah, normal people like you and me, and we are trying a little bit to do this ad hijacking topic. So there are big agencies from Asia from India, and they are working with 56,000 people in these companies. So this is not like, there's somebody doing something and they're trying and it's not somebody sitting in their garage trying to make some X. Yeah, so that was 2008 and 2005.

But now as, as I mentioned, this is changed completely. So they have a knowledge, they are doing advertisements for for customer, they have the technical resources, and they have the manpower here. Yeah. And, and this, this is that's what it makes also really difficult to protect the brands completely. Because every time when you think you you find the way and you can protect the brand completed, then you find another other fraud. Your possibility, as I mentioned this from yesterday, that we found multiple parameters and in the ad and in the display URL, or in the URL. And so this is again, now a question to all the networks where we have to mention this, where we have to ask the networks, what happens now, is it possible that you can get the commission, if it's possible that the affiliate would get now the commission from each affiliate network, or they will get only one commission, how it works now.

And yeah, this is something where we have also to talk a lot. To the networks, and, yeah, and this is also the advantage that we have here to have the direct cooperation to trade up and to discuss all this, all this deep topics, where normally nobody will maybe see it. And this is our daily business. When you now think about artificial intelligence, AI, is that something that can rather help you in order to spot fraudulent behavior? Or is it something that we should be rather afraid of, because it equips fraudsters maybe even better in finding ways of stealing sales? Yeah. Actually, it's helped us to develop tools for and to find, of course, for us, AI is, of course, important. But also, to be honest, it's, it's a tool for us for development, and it not replace a human here.

So the expertise that we have with Ryan with me and with other people in the company, and to interpret, interpretate this data and to act on this, this is really something that came from from a human, this can change and will change 100% in the next few years. But for now, AI help us more to develop and not to yeah, to replace something. Okay, it should be able to find rules, find some kind of algorithms with the help of AI, maybe to spot some regular behaviors, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay. What would I say, would be the biggest less lessons or surprises that you have learned yourself on the way now, working with at police, both of you for? Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's been quite hard, since we were thinking, you know, for so many years, and then like really going into deep insights on what happens in in brands, online channels and all their activities? What would I say is the biggest lessons that I've learned working with brands? So for me, personally, prevention is not at one time set up. So it's a continuous progress and really to be dynamic and to find approaches for each customer and it's an ongoing strategy. And for you, Ryan? Yeah, I would say that it's just keeping a dynamic approach with how you assess and continuing changing your strategy. If you notice a different pattern, you need to adapt to that change and you need to be proactive rather than reactive.

And so, yeah, it's always keeping in touch with industry insights and new news. As we've just highlighted, obviously, key topics for us at the moment is ad hijacking and undoubtedly the scenario will change. And it could be, as you mentioned, AI could be the source of a different type of fraud that we'll encounter in the years. It's an ever-evolving landscape. But yeah, just keeping well informed of that. That is the best thing that you can do to be proactive in changing the strategy if it's required. It's a very, very interesting topic. It's so dynamic. Super, super annoying. Obviously, at the same time, we're kind of like fascinating as well when you sometimes when you spot things and say, this is unbelievable. But it's really great to have tools like Adpolice to help us with all that.

Yes, good. So just like summing up what we discussed, I would say as a customer, I would say as a kind of like conclusion. There has always been fraud. There will always be fraud. It's some kind of a race between criminals, fraudsters, and then the brands and the ones that want to protect them. While the game is obviously getting more and more sophisticated all the time, like a pattern that we see basically everywhere, anywhere. And that it's really down to the right setup. That you have the awareness. That you have the technical help. But as you highlighted as well, that you have the right mindset, that you, that you put the right KPIs in place and that you are aware and educated about how to tackle that and understand it as well.

It's being an essential continued task to have fraud monitoring the right processes, tools and awareness on your activities all the time. Would you say this is a kind of like a fair conclusion? Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I would say if a brand does take the steps to remove fraud, embrace the dip, embrace the dip in performance, because that is the actual real status of the affiliate channel. And it's then you use this as a benchmark to then build and then fulfill the full potential of the program. But yeah, the biggest step is actually addressing the issue and cutting out that fraud, essentially in a way starting again. It's the only way to build up a meaningful relationship. It's the only way to build up a meaningful channel within the performance marketing.

But yeah, that's probably the biggest step that an advertiser can take if they know that there's fraud active in the program for sure. Great. Super interesting. Thank you so much for all these insights. At the end now, I have three questions that I ask all my guests, if you don't mind. The first one would be, it's a bit selfish for myself as well, right? I need inspiration. The best book you've read. What would you share? So I know what Ryan will say, the challenger say, but it's also one of my books that I read, but maybe also subscribed. So this is also a book that I can recommend. 

Subscribed? Yeah. What is it about? It's about the subscription model and how to be successful. Okay. Very good. Nice.

And the one you said or wanted to say, Ryan? Well, yeah. As Dan highlighted, Matt Dickson's The Challenger Say is a great book. However, the book that I have actually read the most in my life is 1984 by George Orwell. So it's also a book that I studied in university as well. However, that is the book that I've read the most and spent the most hours on and days on. Yeah. Kind of a bit of a weird touch. I'm bringing in the dystopian thing, but yeah, it's a great book. Good. Thank you so much. What would you say you as technicians, technologists, what is the tool or the app you would recommend? What is something that you say you can't live without? I have actually Teams and chat GPT, so it's more old school.

Not really. But to manage with my daily. Tasks. Teams is really important. Yeah. That's a really difficult one, I guess for me. Teams on the go. But if I was not to have such a serious one where I could live without it, I'd probably say the Premier League app because then at least I can keep on top of my fantasy Premier League every week. Still top of the league as well. When you check your phone, it's probably one like these that are top of the list. Exactly. Yes. Same here. Yeah, yeah. So that's probably one of the apps that I go on the most. So if you want to go on the top of the list, what would you recommend? If you weren't working at police, what would you be doing, Ryan?

Something in football then? Do you know what? If I was going to say a joke answer, if I wasn't part of the good guys, I'd be living tax-free in the bar or something as an ad hijacker. I'm joking. Well, you know all the insights now, right? No, not quite. We need to make an effort to keep you on the side of the goods. No, right side of the NDA. Exactly. I'm on the good side of the world. But no, I think I'd love to be a ski instructor. And, you know, it's always something that I wanted to do. If I could turn the clocks back, I would love to do a few seasons doing that. Lovely. That's nice. Then, if you wouldn't have found it at police, what would you be doing? It's a really good question. I think I would open a bar or a restaurant in Croatia on the beach. Something like this. Maybe in a ski resort? Yeah. Then you can still work together, right? Yeah, maybe. Lovely. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's great talking to you. It's equally great working together, right? So, we share a lot of experience together in working in partner marketing. It's great talking to you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for inviting us.