Whether you’re an advertiser, publisher, or user, it’s natural to have concerns about the growing threat of ad fraud. As digital marketing evolves, fraudsters become more sophisticated and develop new ways to defraud marketers.

Preventing ad fraud is essential, as is staying current on fraudsters’ terms and techniques.

To ensure this, we have answered the most frequently asked questions about ad fraud to help you understand the intricacies of the techniques and tools used by fraudsters.

Prepare to binge-read!

What is ad fraud?

Ad fraud is an attempt to defraud advertisers by stealing money and manipulating their data using invalid traffic. Fraudsters typically use bots to commit ad fraud and trick advertisers into believing they receive genuine users. As a result, advertisers lose ad revenue from invalid traffic. Furthermore, based on the inflated traffic, advertisers believe their ad campaigns are effective and continue to invest in bot-impacted ad campaigns. According to a Juniper Research report, ad fraud could cost up to $81 billion by the end of 2022.

What is bot traffic?

Bot traffic refers to automated traffic generated by bots rather than humans. Bots do not create all traffic; they only occasionally contribute to it. Sometimes, search engines send bots to crawl websites for ranking purposes. Bot traffic, or SIVT or sophisticated invalid traffic, is a concern when used to carry out ad fraud. Bad bots manipulate ad campaign data and commit various types of ad fraud, such as SDK spoofing, fake clicks, and fake installs.

How do you detect bot traffic?

Bot traffic can be detected in a variety of ways on websites, apps, and APIs, including:

• Typically high page views
• Unusually high bounce rate
• Increased traffic from unknown locations.
• Exceptional session durations
• The high rate of junk conversions

What is Impression Ad Fraud?

Impression refers to the total number of times an ad was displayed, regardless of whether it was viewed. Impression fraud occurs when fraudsters create a fake website and list it on an ad exchange. When an advertiser buys ad inventory on these websites, bots generate impressions. The inflated impression numbers lead advertisers to believe that their ad campaign is generating traffic. The ads attract bot traffic, and fraudsters profit from invalid traffic.

What is Ad Stacking?

This is a type of mobile ad fraud in which the fraudsters ‘layer’ or ‘ stack’ multiple ads above one another in the exact ad placement. While only the top ad is visible to the user, the impression or click is recorded for all ads stacked beneath it. This leads to advertisers paying for fake impressions or clicks.

What is VPN Proxy Click Fraud?

A VPN generates a new IP address and conceals a user’s location. This is an essential tool for fraudsters to hide their ad fraud activities. They use a VPN proxy to generate a new IP address, allowing them to remain anonymous from ad fraud detection solutions. Fraudsters use this technique to conceal their device’s location and commit Fraud.

What is Fake Attribution?

A fake attribution is a practice used by fraudsters to steal credit for an organic install by reporting a fake click as the final engagement. As part of the “last-click attribution,” attribution platforms consider a fake click organic.

A fake attribution is typically triggered by malware when a user installs an app from an unknown source. The malware monitors the user’s activity and alerts the fraudster when the app is installed.

The malware searches for relevant information, which it then enters into a fake click report to register as the last click engagement and receives attribution for an organic install or one generated by a media partner.

What is cookie stuffing?

This is a technique used in affiliate marketing fraud in which a fraudulent affiliate dupes the advertiser into believing they have sent traffic to their website. However, they have not sent any traffic. This technique, also known as cookie dropping, is widely used in affiliate marketing.

They receive a commission for deceiving advertisers and directing users to their websites. Furthermore, the advertiser wastes money and needs more traffic from their affiliate campaigns.

What is Ad Pixel stuffing?

Pixel stuffing occurs when fraudsters use an frame to embed an ad or website within a 1×1 pixel frame. This renders it invisible to the human eye.

When an average ad appears, the impressions are tracked for the legitimate ad, and the ads are stacked beneath the invisible pixel. In this way, the fraudsters are compensated for their fake impressions. Furthermore, they use bots to generate fake impressions with pixel-stuffed ads, wasting the advertiser’s money on invalid traffic.

What is Incent Fraud?

This is a type of Fraud in which fraudulent affiliates conduct non-incentive campaigns on incentive platforms. As a result, they attract low-quality users who install for incentives but have yet to be interested in the app itself. This technique is typically used to increase install volumes, improve low CR ratios, moderate the quality of user acquisition, or increase margin.

What is Click Injection?

This sophisticated form of click-spamming is widely used in Android devices. When a user downloads a malicious app, fraudsters can detect when another app is installed.

Once they know this, fraudsters initiate a click before the installation is complete. As a result, the fraudster receives credit for the installation, which appears legitimate and results in a CPI payout from the advertiser.

What is Click Fraud?

Click Fraud is an ad fraud technique in which bots mimic human behaviour and click on advertisements. In the case of mobile advertising, bot-generated clicks can lead to an app installation, a conversion, or a site visit.

In pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, publishers are compensated based on the number of clicks on an ad on their website. When an advertiser places an advertisement on a fake website, the fraudsters use bot traffic to inflate the click rate. Furthermore, advertisers lose money on invalid traffic, whereas fraudulent publishers, profit from fake clicks.

What is a Click Farm?

A click farm is a physical location where multiple devices are configured to generate clicks in bulk. These click farms generate automated clicks, inflating the CTR and draining marketing campaign budgets. Because humans typically manage click farms, they can easily mimic human behaviour, making detecting fraudulent traffic patterns complex.

Click farms engage in repetitive click-based actions on social media platforms to increase engagement and drive website traffic.

What is Click Spamming?

Also known as click flooding, this is a type of mobile ad fraud in which fraudsters generate excessive fake clicks. This method allows them to receive credit for the final click before a conversion. By stealing the last attributed credit, fraudsters deceive advertisers with fraudulent clicks and steal their marketing budget.

In click spamming, fraudsters generate thousands of clicks at once to trick MMPs into misattributing the clicks, resulting in a payout for fraudsters. Additionally, it has an impact on the advertisers’ marketing data. As a result, advertisers continue to allocate budgets to ad campaigns that do not generate traffic or conversions.

What are Fake Installs?

This is a type of mobile ad fraud in which fraudsters use techniques such as device farms, SDK spoofing, or device emulators to simulate the installation of advertised apps. The fraudsters use these methods to steal the advertiser’s marketing budget by claiming that the app installation is legitimate. The fake installs not only steal the advertiser’s ad spend but also skew the marketer’s data.

Because of the inflated numbers, advertisers believe the install campaign is doing well. As a result, they continue to invest in the same ad campaign without evaluating the results.

What is SDK spoofing?

SDK spoofing is creating legitimate installations using data from real devices. However, no actual installations are occurring. Fraudsters use this method to generate installs on real devices to defraud advertisers and steal their advertising budget.

What are device Farms?

This is an older method of mobile ad fraud, also known as phone farms and click farms. Device farms are mobile ad fraud in which fraudsters manually perform tasks (such as clicks, installs, and other forms of engagement) to fool the advertiser into believing the campaign is legitimate. They conceal their malicious activity using new IP addresses and device IDs.

Conclusion

Every day, fraudsters create new ways to defraud advertisers and steal their advertising budgets. To protect your ad campaigns from sophisticated bots and advanced fraud techniques, you must work with an ad fraud detection and prevention solution provider, such as mFilterIt.

We use AI, ML, and data science capabilities to detect invalid traffic in your ad campaigns and take immediate action to ensure cleaner traffic. Contact us today to learn more about how we combat ad fraud!