In 2020 Perion Network Ltd., a global technology company that provides digital advertising products and services headquartered in Holon, Israel, acquired a lesser known Israeli company called Content IQ in a deal valued at around R130 million.
On May 12th, Content IQ quietly shut down a network of websites, URLs and their own web presence. Since then it has been reported that ContentIQ (CIQ) is the owner of well-known MFA sites.
MFA stands for Made For AdSense sites. This – put simply – refers to websites which buys traffic cheaply by showing ads on other websites or on digital advertising platforms such as Meta Ads or Google Ads.
The cheaply purchased traffic is then directed to web pages which are littered with ads. Essentially, the goal is to earn more from the advertising on the webpage versus the amount that you pay for the traffic – resulting in a profit through a digital marketing scheme known as ad-arbitrage.
What does this have to do with Independant Online (IOL)?
IOL is a self-proclaimed independent publisher with ownership links to Sekunjalo Investment Holdings, PIC and the Chinese state interestingly; China International Television Corporation and the China Africa Development Fund.
Among previous controversies and Doxing. IOL published an article on 8 June famously titled: “Exclusive: Gauteng woman gives birth to 10 children, breaks Guinness World Record“. The article was published by Piet Rampedi. The article broke global headlines and even reached the BBC.
The Link between Content IQ and IOL.
Above is a screenshot taken n 15 August 2024 in google ads transparency center showing an ad run by ContentIQ LLC. The ad title is Woman pregnant with 7 babies” and shows an image of the same woman pictured in IOLs article, see below;
The ad run by ContentIQ directed traffic to the following URL: https://petsfanatic.com/woman-pregnant-seven-babies-update/
The page is now offline since ContentIQ took down it’s network of MFA sites. Using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine we can see what the site looked like:
How ContentIQ made money off IOLs Viral Fake Story
When you go to a a website, if the content is free – Like here on The Frontline – serving advertisements can be a form of monetization to support the work we do. Digital Advertising comes in different formats though.
ContentIQ used its network of MFA sites and partnerships with well respected publishers to publish content with viral appeal and then purchased advertising to drive traffic to this network and then profit off of an overload of advertisements stuffed around the article.
The story of a woman who gave birth to so many babies definitely will generate clicks – ContentIQ picked up on the articles virality most likely due to it garnering global interest and reproposed it on one of their own websites then stuffed it with ads. Here’s a look at some of ContentIQs other ads:
Next ContentIQ purchased advertising inventory on Google Ads and we’re able to generate clicks at a lower cost versus the ad revenue they we’re generating from the article. Ultimately profiting from a Fake Story.
But there’s more..
Advertisers are paying ad platforms like Google to get their ads in front of prospective customers – and not to have their ads placed alongside a clickbait article stuffed with lots of other ads – often resulting in accidental ad clicks by readers wo we’re tricked into clicking on the clickbait article.
Let’s walk through a practical example to expand on this
- You visit a trusted news publisher, let’s say South Africa’s leading news site: News24.
- You click on the headline article.
- You read the article and reach the end where you are greeted with additional articles suggestions among sponsored listings.
- News24 partners with Outbrain to deliver native advertising as a method of monetizing its content.
- Many of these sponsored listings are from MFA sites. When you click on these sponsored listings or even just view the ad – News24 may earn ad spend from the MFA site owners, who then in turn profits from showing an increased number of ads to users when they reach the MFA site.
- Advertisers sometimes unwillingly pay for these impressions and clicks from users visiting MFA sites.
Below is an example of sponsored article listings under a news24 Article.
The sponsored articles borrow credibility from News24 by fitting into the content by having a similar native look to News24’s surrounding content.
Below we can see what one of the sponsored articles looked like. Here we counted no less than 10 advertisements from reputable local and international brands.
Do these brands know they are serving their advertisements alongside websites whose sole purpose is to profit from companies’ ad spend? Do brands know how much money they’re loosing due to ad impressions reported which users most likely did not even see due to there being 10 other ads on the page.
Another trick used by these MFA sites is to continuously refresh the ad placements with new ads while users are still on the page extracting even more ad revenue. Additionally, this not only results in financial losses but also tarnishes the reputation of honest brands linked with subpar content.
In an article published by Performance Marketing World on 1 July, it is estimated that MFA sites with excessive ad loads and clickbait content make up 15% of digital ad spend and 21% of all ad impressions.
What companies can do to avoid their ads showing on MFA sites
Brands who advertise online, especially where their ads are displayed on publisher sites need to regularly review and exclude sites which qualify as MFA sites.
If brands don’t directly manage their digital paid media efforts they can approach the responsible agencies and ask them to monitor and exclude MFA sites.
Its important to have a good understanding of where your ad spend is going and ensure you are optimizing for the best return.
A lot of MFA sites rake in a lot of money and many times these MFA sites are owned by large multi-national corporations such as Perion mentioned in this article who allowed ContentIQ to exploit this money-making scheme.
The impact is on South African brands who are investing in growing their digital business but end up losing a fair portion of that spend to these MFA sites-network operators, ultimately seeing even more money leave the country, and especially impacting brands with smaller ad budgets because they aren’t able to extract the full value that digital advertising has to offer.