Unfortunately, this issue is getting worse. Both mobile app ad spending and digital ad fraud are increasing. Mobile advertising fraud has increased between 2017 and 2018, according to Adjust. Fraud absorbed around 80% of certain businesses’ marketing costs. It is not unexpected that among the top concerns of marketers over the past six to twelve months, fraud has consistently shown up in surveys. However, not all competitive click fraud is created equal. To quote Sun Tzu, “Know thy opponent.” Knowing what is available can aid in fraud identification and prevention.
Here are six of the prevalent forms of mobile ad fraud that exist today:
IVT
Any traffic that does not originate from actual users is IVT traffic. Crawlers, spiders, and bots are all IVT and aren’t always malicious. Of course, IVT made it appear like human activity is a big issue in mobile advertising.
Injection Click
Click injection, also known as click sniping, is particularly common in campaigns tracked by last-click attribution. It’s the second most typical form of app install competitive click fraud, according to Adjust mobile measurement experts. Fraudulent app instals resulting from click injection are a significant issue for brands executing app install efforts for user acquisition.
So how does it function? Essentially, a fraudster enters the picture to place himself between point A (the last ad clicked) and point B (the final action taken by a user that an advertiser is eventually paying for) (the final desired action, like an app download). Because advertisers only compensate the ad networks or exchanges in charge of the action, scammers utilise click injection.
Click on Spam.
Con artists send out multiple bogus reports through click spamming in the hopes. Similar to a denial-of-service attack, click spamming aims to overwhelm the current anti-fraud systems. Additionally known as “click flooding,” it was the cause of 16% of all app install fraud identified by Adjust between 2017 and 2018.
Ad Stacking
This kind of fraud scam involves the simultaneous presentation of many advertisements, one on top of the other. It enables a dishonest publisher or another involved partner to claim that they technically delivered an advertisement and should be compensated if an ad was never visible. Because of this, this is also sometimes referred to as ad hiding. Fraud of this nature can be particularly detrimental to branding initiatives.
Other fraud schemes function on a related theory as well. For instance, a scammer can try to claim that an advertisement appeared even though only a portion of it was visible. It can also happen with video advertising, with a con artist saying.
Spoofing of apps
By sending in ad requests while posing as a legitimate publisher, a fraudster can illegally obtain demand from advertisers using app spoofing, sometimes referred to as domain spoofing in the browser world. For instance, Bob’s Spam Factory might impersonate a renowned publisher, such as The Guardian, to solicit advertising from all the businesses wishing to partner with the newspaper.
