In-app programmatic advertising is substantially more prone to fraud and wasted impressions than Web-based ads. This according to a study from Lucidity, which uses a blockchain-based technique to verify ad metrics. While 96% of Web impressions were confirmed by all members of the ad supply chain, just 65% of in-app ads were. Non-confirmed impressions are likely to be fraudulent or wasted. Confirmation rates improved substantially when placements were optimized to avoid discrepancies, which implies (but doesn’t prove) that performance improved as well.

Enough fancy technology. Small businesses need simpler solutions. Constant Contact is addressing that world with a new Marketing Advisor program that will include actual human contact (well, 30 minutes on the phone each month) to help small business marketers figure out what to do and then do it.

Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.