The Big Ad Fraud
To stop mobile ad fraud and to keep advertisers from being ripped off, experts recommend better analytics and monitoring Digital advertising is not as exciting as it is for mobile ad marketing fraudsters. Over the years, multi-billion dollars have been invested in digital advertising and ad fraud cases, and scams are on the rise. According […]
Topics
To stop mobile ad fraud and to keep advertisers from being ripped off, experts recommend better analytics and monitoring
Digital advertising is not as exciting as it is for mobile ad marketing fraudsters. Over the years, multi-billion dollars have been invested in digital advertising and ad fraud cases, and scams are on the rise. According to Pew Internet, even after the percentage of mobile internet users became stable, the digital ad spend percentage continued to soar. As shocking as it sounds, the mobile advertising ecosystem is being overfed with data, creating holes for fraud to manifest.
Experts reckon that some of the main reasons they can squander massive amounts of money are the impersonal nature of money transfers, the complex supply chain, the trust in unworthy metrics, and the failure to leverage efficient detection strategies. TrafficGuard predicts that ad fraud will reach $87 billion by 2022.
The Fraudulent Ways
One of the nastiest fraudulent activities they indulge in is Ad Stacking. Mobile ad fraudsters stack 10 or even 50 ads on top of each other in the same slot. They also send bid requests for each of them to keep advertisers trying to de-duplicate the bid requests away.
Moreover, they indulge in pixel stuffing, where the ads are stuffed inside a 1×1 pixel instead of the standard 300×250 pixels. Why wouldn’t they when they can get 75,000 ads in space? No wonder some websites make the browser in your phone appear to be super slow.
With geolocation marketing, they leverage latitude-longitude parameters into bid requests to earn more money. What’s worrisome is that the locations might not be accurate or even real, but many advertisers do not countercheck. Thus, in a Cost Per Thousand (CPM) fraud, mobile ad fraudsters make even more money by producing ad impressions.
One of their most notorious methods is to give away free Software Development Kits (SDKs) that unaware mobile app developers build into their applications. The fraudsters get some ad revenue back for themselves, and then they take the same application, clone it several times. They change the icon images only for a few. With guaranteed money one way or another, why bother? Even if the app store bans a few suspicious applications, the fraudster has 100 others in the store.
If soaking in impatience, they do not wait for their applications to be downloaded, rather choose to create millions of mobile emulators in data centres to download and install applications themselves. With better fake engagement and longer usage by bots, the ad impressions can rise to 30 billion ads every minute. Even if only one application blindsided detection and finds success, the profit is high.
The Perfect Crime
Experts believe that mobile ad scammers are skilled at covering their tracks. They can indulge in fraudulent activities for a long period of time with simple but clever tactics. For instance, they can disguise their bot data centre traffic as residential proxy services or use bots to fake traffic and ad clicks, making them look genuine. Additionally, the fraudsters tamper with viewability measurements. What’s worse is the ad fraud criminals can fake placement reports, which would state their ads to have appeared on legit websites and applications. Advertisers fall for such a trap and shift their core ad budgets to these fraudulent applications or websites.
Do Android and IoS have a role to play?
With iStore’s strict app approval policies, it’s a widely accepted fact that Android apps possess more fake ads and apps. Android allows third-party app stores to make the download even if Google Play Store denies the request.
Although the two platforms possess certain limitations to ad frauds, they have certain elements that make them vulnerable to ad frauds. For instance, Android app developers can ask for installation, location, and camera permissions, and ad fraudsters take advantage of them all to get their way. iOS, on the other hand, might have put themselves in a spot. The role of Identifiers for Advertisers (IDFA) in impacting some critical fraud detection tools within the system is something that time shall reflect. Meanwhile, Interceptd study states that over 21 per cent of iOS apps are fraudulent.
Also Read: Implementing Machine Learning for Data Analysis
Unearthing Clues
Most fraudsters think of creative methods and often upgrade their fraud stack. It can be challenging to measure mainly because most fraud detection companies’ javascript tags are not efficient in the mobile environment. To top it off, some marketers naively claim that there is little fraud in mobile ad marketing by trusting some questionable reports. While we cannot be sure about the foul play involved in such reports, marketers should vigilantly monitor their mobile programmatic campaign ads. A watchful eye is crucial.
Is the user really playing our game for 24 hours straight?
Mobile ad frauds possess certain indicators that, once uncovered, can be used to eliminate the fraudsters. For instance, some indicators like user behaviour inconsistencies and system sensors can be discovered with consistent monitoring, and some indicators such as activity patterns can be identified by using attribution providers. In other cases, continuous monitoring is required. Additionally, a larger database can help companies identify malicious patterns faster. Marketers can leverage Click to Install Time (CTIT) to detect click-based fraud and New Device Rate (NDR) to monitor the new Device Ids.
Fraud detection platform Adjust’s Fraud Prevention Suite provides better security with user acquisition fraud. The platform helps prevent fraudulent traffic from entering the brand’s paid channels, which means the ad spend is invested successfully with increased engagement. In addition, the solution helps analyse real-time events and scans for any potential abnormalities. Other detection tools and services offered by platforms include Interceptd, Performcp, AdPushup, and AppsFlyer. Additionally, brands could run their own ‘turn off’ tests that provide insights on business outcomes when the digital ad is paused for a while.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) can also play a critical role in detection. The advanced solutions along with a huge mobile attribution database can combat ad fraud effectively, according to experts. Juniper Research claims that ML could reduce ad fraud by $3.5 billion in 2022.
Also Read: Can Blockchain Reduce Ad Fraud?
How does Mobile Ad Fraud Crime Affect Customers?
Billions of customers shop from their smartphones, and billions of dollars are spent on advertisements and marketing. By releasing malware, the scammers can derive customers’ personal and financial information through fake online forms or surveys. With the stolen data, a chain of identity theft, phone scams, and email phishing might get activated.
Experts warn both customers and companies to be aware of adware. According to an Avast report, in the first half of 2021, 45 per cent of smartphone and tablet cyber threats were adware. Fake applications are second on the list at 16 per cent, and banking Trojans are at 10 per cent. Mobile ransomware is increasing. To stay a step ahead, advertisers should warn their customers of possible ad frauds and recommend scam identifier applications such as Robokiller and YouMail to be installed.
Although the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) thinks that ad fraud will become the biggest market for organised crime in 2025, it is not impossible to change the prediction.
