The immeasurable scopes in mobile advertising has made it a favorite target of several unscrupulous elements to make a quick buck. As 2018 has witnessed an estimated loss of $19 billion due to ad fraud, advertisers are finding ways out to combat fraudulent activities. Â Surprisingly, even today there is a lack of awareness about various frauds that plague the mobile ad industry.
Fraudsters are well aware of the marketing platforms so to exploit their vulnerabilities – and equipped with the latest technologies, they have devised many ways to deceive the ad-tech systemOpens a new window .
Let’s read about the most well-known ad frauds of today to battle them out – the 7 categories are listed below:
1. CPM (Cost Per Mile) Frauds
Ad Stacking or View Fraud: Multiple display ads are stacked on top of one another in a single ad placement. The user gets to view only the top ad but all the advertisers (of ads in layers) are charged for fake ad impressionsOpens a new window .
Invisible Pixels: Ads are stuffed as a single pixel on the screen, which obviously is invisible to the user and the advertiser is charged for the impression.
Unstoppable Ads: Apps are manipulated to load ads continuously, even when the user is not using the app.
Video auto-play: Fraudsters play video ads automatically in the background when the user isn’t watching or is unaware of the ad.
2. CPC (Cost Per Click) Frauds
Automatic Redirection: Even when the user has not clicked on the ad, the fraudster maliciously redirects the user to the ad’s landing page. If the user eventually takes an action like downloading an app, it falsely attributes conversion to the publisher.
Deceptive Ads: You might have come across advertisements that serve as a warning or an alert or pose as an advertisement for some product and when you click on it you land on a totally unrelated page. Often close or X button is misused, to trick the user to click, when they are trying to close the ad. Such ads deceive both the users as well as the advertisers.
3. CPI (Cost Per Impression) Fraud
Installation/Activation Fraud: This is related to fake installs. Malicious software is used to create fake installs. Sometimes, device information is rigged, or app SDKOpens a new window is cracked to send virtual information (like app download) to the network or app store.
Sometimes a group of people is hired with many mobile devices to manually install applications (click farms)
Attribution Fraud (Click Stuffing): Here fraudsters try to capitalize on ‘first click’ or ‘last click’ attribution. They try to identify the users who are about to make a purchase and target ads to them or artificially stuff clicks (just before the purchase) using a device or user details to make it look like the user completed the click.
Click Spam and Click Injection: Click Spam or organic poaching executes clicks on the user’s behalf without him being aware of the same. For instance – if a user lands on a malicious page (or app) the fraudster could run clicks in the background, execute interaction with an ad, send impression-to-clicks as if it has converted to engagement or send clicks from false device-ids.
Click InjectionOpens a new window is an advanced form of click spam where a malicious app listens to ‘install broadcasts’ and detects when an app is about to be installed and triggers a click just before the install.
4. Post-Install Fraud
Registration Fraud: Hired workers (farming) register on landing pages using fake account(s).
Value of Install Frauds: After a fake install, bots simulate user behavior to trick advertiser into being a legitimate user, so he is motivated to run more campaigns.
Hacking the postback URL & APK: Hackers manipulate installation postback URL and fake bulk installs on a single click or bulk clicks on the ads. Thus, it becomes difficult to ascertain if your campaign has been successful or the users are fake.
5. Fraudulent Traffic
Geo Fraud/Wrong Targeting: This kind of fraud occurs when campaigns are targeting an audience from a specific geographic location, but the ads are shown to irrelevant networks and marketers are provided with false data (that alters the device location of clicks/registrations).
Fraud using Spoofing: A single device is spoofed to resemble different unique devices and clicks/downloads/installs are counted for different devices.
Bots: Bots not only trigger clicks or fake installs but are sophisticated enough to create fake user profiles that simulate a user’s online behavior to interact with ads, visiting landing pages, and showing an intent to purchaseOpens a new window .
6. Spoofing
Cookie Stuffing: Multiple cookies are attached to the user and when the conversion occurs the fraudster gets paid instead of the publisher.
Domain Spoofing: Fraudsters portray their low-profile websites as premium websites and when the user unconsciously clicks on them, the malware on their site runs on the user browser and gain access to ad tags and impersonate property. So, the advertisers think their ads are running on a premium website, while in fact, it is running on substandard properties.
This list is not exhaustive but covers major frauds that should be on your checklist while running your campaigns. As technology advances, fraudsters will come up with ingenious ways to cheat the system. Advertisers have a lot of catching up to do in being vigilant and devising measures to counter fraudOpens a new window . More on that later!