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Is Fraud Affecting Your Retargeting Campaign?

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Fraudsters and digital criminals jump at any opportunity to pervade a marketing campaign. Their only aim is to drain the advertising budget and line up their own pockets. ( shh, it could either be your competitor who wants to eat away the budgets) Ways For Approaching The Audience Brands usually have two ways to approach their audience: a direct approach where the aim is to acquire a new customer interested in the product offering. The second approach is to rekindle the existing (or previous) relationship between the user and the product. The second approach is referred to as a retargeting strategy to get the user who has already visited your website, or previously engaged with the products and to offer them more product offerings, thus leading to a conversion. It is important to note that if a user has already shown an interest in the product offered by the brand, they are more likely to re-engage with the brand (requires less convincing), with the condition that the user had a positive experience previously. This is also one of the reasons that retargeting campaigns attract a higher cost than regular display campaigns. FMCG has the highest expenditure on digital advertising. The majority of the brands undertake retargeting as a marketing technique to interact with old customers and target new products towards them. It is estimated that 22% of digital spending is lost to ad fraud. One can only imagine the potential losses the brands may be facing. Let us deep dive further to understand the nuances of retargeting frauds. How fraudsters infiltrate your retargeting campaign? Remarketing traffic are the users who’ve proven to be legit and active users who’re no longer under the purview of ‘fraud traffic’. When advertisers retarget these users they lower their shield because these users have previously been approached and converted. This is the biggest loophole that is exploited by the fraudsters to deploy attribution hijacking techniques and take away the credit of legitimate partners. With CPA campaigns being higher than CPI campaigns, the existing users re-engage with the product offerings, view, ads and contribute to revenue generation for the advertiser. It then becomes a lucrative way for the fraudsters to enjoy the higher CPA rate (using attribution hijacking techniques). One can well imagine the potential impact when a fraudster enters the remarketing database and the negative amplification of the equation. Click flooding, install hijacking essentially eliminates the legitimate partner from getting the credit for acquired users. In other such instances, fraudsters deploy bot traffic which makes the shopping real; browsing through the website, adding items to the carts. The ad program doesn’t differentiate between the human and a fake bot thus identifying them as high-quality leads. This becomes a vicious cycle of bots pretending to be humans, ultimately depleting your ad budget. To conclude, marketing efforts and retargeting campaigns are not immune to fraudsters. Many loopholes can be exploited, new techniques are invented, but as a brand and as a marketer, one needs to be vigilant and deploy tools and solutions to keep these scammers at bay and reduce the probability of Ad fraud in their campaigns.

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Types of Mobile Advertising Fraud Across Industries

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India has witnessed an exponential rise in smartphone usage, internet penetration, which has furthered the growth of the Indian Digital Advertising ecosystem. Studies estimate that there were 624 million Internet users in India by January 2021 and the number of mobile connections was equivalent to 79% of the total population (1.39 billion is the current population). The growth in internet adoption, smartphone usage, and the ongoing Covid19 pandemic has impelled businesses to leverage digital marketing to reach their customers directly on their mobile devices. This growth, however, comes with its own set of challenges as the internet has become a playground for fraudsters MMA India Report states that 62% of all digital ad fraud occurs on mobile advertising, the most dominant type of digital advertising in India. Increased mobile adoption opens Pandora’s box of opportunities for digital criminals. Thus, one of the many reasons to develop an understanding of the different types of mobile ad fraud and how to detect them across industries. The ever-evolving ecosystem of mobile devices allows advertisers to deploy ads in varied formats. This provides the fraudsters with a number of ways in which they can trick their victims: from fake installs to attribution manipulation. Let us have a look at the different types of ad fraud in mobile advertising which are fairly common across industries. 1. Ad Stacking One of the most common types of mobile ad fraud, ad stacking is a scheme where multiple ads are served and displayed at once, one on top of the other, akin to a stack of folders in offices. This gives a window to immoral publishers to say that the said ad has been served (even though it was technically never visible). This form of ad fraud is also referred to as ad hiding thus can be a major cause of concern especially when a brand awareness campaign is being run. 2. Click Flooding In click flooding, fraudsters aim for tapping the last click/engagement prior to an actual install of the product being advertised. This is done by sending fraudulent clicks in large numbers with the intention of any click being credited for the download. Each click has a unique ID that is aimed to match any real user who downloaded the advertised application. 3.Bundle ID Spoofing Another very sophisticated type of ad fraud is Bundle ID spoofing. This is the methodology where fraudsters trick advertisers by making them believe that the ads are being run in the intended app, whereas in actuality it’s being run on another app. This is done by changing the parameters of the second application and giving the app a fake identifier, hence called bundle ID spoofing. The ads could appear on a black screen or in the background, making them invisible to the user. 4. Bots and Emulators Bots and emulators can be used on any platform to perform any type of ad fraud. For a mobile advertisement ad fraud, an emulator (software that can be run on any device to host devices to simulate tasks) can fake any device to look like a smartphone and then perform fake app installs, impressions without using the real device. Using this methodology, fraudsters fabricate the users and also fake attribution to claim the advertising credits. Similarly, bots can also be automated to perform and execute tasks at a high frequency (much faster than human users) and can generate fake clicks, installs, views, etc. 5. SDK Spoofing Another sophisticated method of mobile ad fraud, SDK spoofing creates legitimate-looking installs by using data of real devices without any real installs thus consuming all the advertising budget. The fraudsters also use this method by listening to the communication between the mobile measurement platform, app stores, ad networks, and attribution tools. These communications are then replicated (and edited) to simulate activities as per the set ad parameters such as installs, views, clicks, etc. Frauds and scams have been haunting the digital ecosystem since time immemorial. With advancements in technology, more sophisticated ways of mobile ad fraud can be witnessed. Understanding the types of mobile ad fraud can help prevent and fight against the rise in such instances.

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Your Go-To Guide for E-commerce Competitive Intelligence – Part 2

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Top 4 ways to succeed in your e-commerce business Businesses don’t build and succeed in a day. It takes sheer determination, persistency, and the right mix of tools to become relevant. Such tasks are often very challenging and time-consuming in nature but in order to grow, it is important to grab all the possible opportunities and stay ahead of the curve. mScanIt helps businesses uncover powerful insights for brands, sellers, retailers, and the marketplace. Take in charge of your business by automating vendor management, price listing stock availability, and much more. In order to succeed, every business should be able to track the following parameters: Discoverability Availability Visibility Search Analytics Execution Compliance & Brand Safety Performance To mark your presence in the e-com marketplace, monitoring and banking upon competitors’ weaknesses and strengths give added advantage of becoming the go-to brand. mScanIt gives an in-depth Ecommerce competitive intelligence and helps your business track all the above parameters, not just for your business but gives insights into your competition’s business. The dashboard translates data into actionable insights and reports to help you strategize your next move.   Let us have a look at the ways in which mScanIt can become an effective tool to help your e-commerce business succeed. 1. Monitor Competitor Pricing in Real-time It all makes sense why successful entrepreneurs talk about having an eagle’s eye of the business ecosystem. The tool helps your business in keeping an ‘eye’ on how your competitors are pricing their products which will help you make informed decisions about your line of products. This intelligent tool helps in tracking, comparing, and analyzing the prices in real-time across numerous competitors. Business strategy can be formulated basis competitor’s pricing strategy so as to when should you lower or increase the prices. For instance, a certain product that is in high demand and no other competitors cater to the audience, your business can increase the product price to capitalize on the opportunity. 2. Product Availability Have you been observing that the retailer is re-stocking your competitor’s product more often than he stocks your product? Or is your direct competitor frequently re-stocking a product on specific days of the week? The tool will help you analyze the products which have gone out of stock on the retailer’s website, the days it’s been unavailable, and what’s the ongoing conversation between the retailer and your shoppers about the unavailable products. It will also help you analyze the reasons behind why your direct competitor is more preferred by the shoppers. 3. Customer Reviews Customer is king and they’re the ones driving fuel to your business. Product reviews offer tons of actionable insights. The tool help you monitor not just your product but what reviews are being given to your competitor’s products. Based on the feedback you can improve your product line and even target customers who’re unhappy with your competitor’s products. One can also gauge insight into the new entrants who’re faring well in terms of customer reviews which can then be worked upon in your business to improve the satisfaction score. 4. Offers, Promotions, and Ads Witnessing a dip in your loyal customer base? This could be because your competition is taking over your loyal customer base by offering them better rates or wooing them with different schemes and offers. The tool will keep track of any offers and promotions undertaken by your competitor to help you make informed decisions and also help you track your promotional campaign results in terms of output generated. To stay relevant and lead the race of success, it is important to know all about your competitors. Whether it’s about growth strategy or analyzing the products, automated tools similar to Ecommerce Competitive Intelligence help in bringing valuable insights which benefit in better positioning of your brand and add credibility among your customers. Book a trial with us today!

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Your Go-To Guide for E-commerce Competitive Intelligence – Part 1

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2 part series to succeed in e-commerce business “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” – Otto Von Bismarck Competition keeps a business on its toes. From bringing in new product line categories to scouting for consumers (and engaging old customers), the idea is to become the go-to choice for your customers. Online shoppers are merciless beings (no offense) as they’re spoiled with a plethora of choices and offers. While shopping for their requirement, if the competition’s business appears before your business does, you tend to become a history for them. In today’s world of free-market and internet accessibility, e-commerce has become a lucrative choice for shoppers and businesses alike. No matter what product you offer, there will always be 20 other websites to offer similar products that are trying to woo customers with varied schemes and offers. The competition is pervasive and if you do not keep a close eye on your competition, there’s a good chance that your business will no longer be in the competition in times to come. The E-commerce business is in cut throat competition. Every business must have its eyes and ears everywhere, all at once. Understanding Ecommerce Competitive Intelligence Understanding the competitor is not quite an easy task as it may sound. Although every query is a click away, however, the idea is to first understand the kind of competition you face. Direct competitors are those businesses in the competition who sell the same products and services as your business does. Indirect competitors are businesses that do not sell similar products as your business but satisfy the same customer need. The sweet spot is to determine how your business offerings fare in comparison to theirs and what are the differences stand out. Ecommerce competitive intelligence, therefore, is a strategic understanding of your business in the marketing related to our competition. What’s your business like, who’s your competition, what are they selling and at what price, product availability, discount, and offers; there’s a wide range of intelligence that is gathered and the same information is put to use to outshine your competitors. Gathering effective competition intelligence in today’s barrage of marketing and avalanche of digital marketing techniques requires a dedicated team that will monitor and report data in real-time. The difficulty arises when such processes are done manually which is cumbersome and time taking. By the time all such data is gathered and analyzed, your competition might have already wooed your loyal customers making your business redundant. Automation is the key Processing massive chunks of data manually is nearly impossible. As you start scaling your business, processes become more dreadful with repetitive tasks. Taking care of product availability, vendor inventory, order dispatches, packaging, every task has to be on point all the while staying on top of customer service and reviews. Apart from managing your own business, it is also important to keep a close check on the competition to better position your services. None of this is practically possible by employing manual processes. That is where automated tools such as mScanIt offer optimized analytical support for your e-commerce business to succeed. It is imperative to analyze your e-commerce business through the right mix of relevant insights, including, competitor price and discount comparisons, RoI on ad-spends in marketplaces, automated reports. Not just this, such tools also help businesses in finding USP (which might be different than what the business thought), analyze your competition’s weaknesses, and explore possibilities to tap into untouched market segments.

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Top 3 Reasons to Invest in Programmatic Advertising for FMCG Brands

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We’re all living in times of pandemic, with the virus having a palpable impact on consumer behavior, media houses, agencies, and businesses alike. Marketing strategies and planning which seemed relevant two weeks ago may come off as jarring today. Marketers cannot simply ‘set-it-and-forget-it’. It has become more critical for brands to interact with their audience in innovative and non-intrusive ways. There are only a few channels available at a brand’s disposal to communicate with its audience in the current times. Not only this, the messaging and the creative design have to be structured in a way that maintains a healthy balance between ‘brand recall’ and does not appear to capitalize on the global pandemic. The solution is to adopt new technology with Programmatic advertising topping the charts. One such technology puts the control of spending in the hands of the marketer/advertiser. Businesses ranging from large enterprises to SMBs have wide adoption and an increased appetite for data-driven strategies, thus paving a successful growth and optimism for programmatic advertising. They are using the platforms more frequently to reach consumers who spend more time inside and online. Programmatic advertising has become the proven tool to garner customers’ increased engagement and awareness for FMCG brands. Personalization is the word of the decade, leveraging programmatic data; brands can use these data points to generate highly personalized content for their consumers. For FMCG brands, it is all about catering to consumers’ interests and affinities. Having laid the foundation, let us move on to understand further the top 3 reasons to invest in programmatic advertising: Relevant and Contextual ad settings A significant chunk of the population uses ad-blocking tools to avoid being bombarded with unwanted and repetitive ads. Offers that long expired; adverts that serve no purpose to the user, event passes that have already been bought, and many more such advertising cases are rampant, thus neglecting a consumer’s privacy (ultimately making them lose trust in the brand). In the case of programmatic advertising, the platform uses CRM and customer loyalty data to increase relevance, thus ensuring that the ad reaches the intended audience. Using native ads to create a positive experience for a user mimics the look and feel of the web page, thus bringing contextual alignment to the ad being served. Ads served in a Brand Safe Environment. Brand safety has lately become a topic of discussion on a global scale. A primary concern and a nightmare for brand managers, they have to constantly be wary that their ads are not displayed next to objectionable or offensive material that can compromise the brand. Programmatic advertising helps in reducing the likelihood of such instances and keeps a check on the ad being shown at unwanted places, thus increasing brand safety. The platforms have specialized teams to screen ad inventory and remove objectionable ones. Ad-Fraud Reduction Ad fraud has been a challenge that haunts businesses and marketers alike. A significant chunk of display ads is lost to unwanted and invalid traffic, thus wasting the ad budget. In India, where advertising is a significant industry, the ad-fraud rate is even higher. Investing in programmatic advertising helps eliminate ad fraud cases by giving the publisher complete control on the targeting parameters such as geography, interest, audience, etc. The platform can also block bots and other types of fraud, thus reducing budget wastage and giving value-driven and focused results. Programmatic advertising does not eliminate ad fraud because the platform makes a decision (based on several predefined criteria) in less than a second. Since humans cannot monitor such a rapid decision-making process in real-time, such campaigns may be susceptible to ad fraud. But programmatic advertising becomes the go-to choice vis-à-vis traditional advertising to reduce the possibility of fraud. With the recent announcement of Third-party cookies exiting, programmatic advertising will inherently see advancements in technology, become more sophisticated, a shift in ways the audience is targeted, and brands are getting more innovative to ensure transparency with the consumer by seeking effective and efficient solutions to interpret online consumer behavior better. This being said, programmatic advertising is the future of digital marketing to ensure optimum budget utilization and enable a data-driven automated approach to marketing.

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Top 3 Cost Benefits of Using Ad Fraud Solution in BFSI Sector

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Make most out of your ad spend Among a plethora of challenges faced by a brand and a marketer, ad fraud makes it to the top of the battle list. This battle is real- the bots eating up the digital ad impressions and burning a hole in the effectiveness of ad spending. What’s the outcome? The advertising has no effect on your business and money spent on ads goes down the drain (well, to the bots). Studies indicate that 25% (maybe more) of ad clicks are fraudulent clicks which means that brands and marketers pay the fraudsters one out of every four times when an ad has been clicked. Not really the most effective way to spend money on advertising, right? So where and how does an ad fraud solution help your business? In the BFSI sector, the number of transactions and requests that have to be looked at and analyzed are in millions. It’s no surprise that the marketing departments of the brands in the BFSI sector are becoming a hide-out for fraudsters cashing out the ad budgets. With high incentives and minimal chances of being caught, these fraudsters are feasting off the spending while the businesses deal with the loss. Here we list the top 3 cost benefits of using an Ad Fraud Solution to make the most out of your ad spend. 1. Ad Spend Optimization Although it’s been a subject of debate regarding the total cost of ad fraud‘s impact on business. (Debate whether if it’s higher than the stated value, imagine the plight!) According to studies, the bucks are set at a whopping loss of $87 billion by 2022. Now imagine betting against the odds of losing 25% of the ad revenue to fraudsters and scammers. An ad fraud detection solution helps in reclaiming a business’s lost spending thus giving a better and more accurate clarity on obtaining lucrative results on the campaign by pinpointing lagging indicators, diagnostic metrics, and identifying leading indicators of a campaign, among others. The tools cut through external noises and help a marketer to have a focused viewpoint rather than giving a myopic view. 2. Improving Your Metrics The digital age is running on data as its fuel. From big to small businesses, big data and analytics are leveraged to provide a solution and improve performances. An ad fraud solution helps in reducing fraud by providing the marketer with clean data to determine and help formulate strategies and solutions for online ad campaigns. These clean and clear data sets will provide a pathway to optimize the campaigns and give insights into what’s working and what’s not. Thus, aiding in intelligent-data-driven decisions (and possibly convincing C-suite leaders to double up on ad spends). 3. Increased Budgets, Growth, and Revenue Acceleration Optimizing the ad spend by protecting against fraudulent activities (bad clicks, fake installs, fake impressions, etc), ad fraud detection solutions help campaigns generate favorable results by rightfully spending the budget. This means that the 25% of the money which was flowing into accounts of unscrupulous actors are now prevented and utilized to fulfill the objective of the ad campaign. And with the right data churned by such tools, a bigger budget can then be defined to undertake big campaigns. Adding it all, ad fraud solutions thus drive ROI in campaigns, increase demand, awareness which ultimately helps in accelerating the company’s growth. With such tools, expansion is all that matters: in metrics, conversion, revenue, and growth. Moreover, the money doesn’t go to the fraudsters, a win-win scenario! Ad fraud is a problem that is only expected to grow and get worse over time. It has now become more important than ever to invest in the right ad fraud solution tools to safeguard your marketing spending. Request a trial with mFilterIt to see how ad fraud is affecting your business and how can you tackle it and spend your ad budget effectively.

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Is Ad Fraud Impacting CMO’s Performance?

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Is Ad-fraud responsible for shrinking CMO tenure? With digital spends cross over 50% of the total media spends, inefficiencies like ad-fraud will hit their potential as well as the performance. Recently, executive search firm Spencer Stuart revealed an interesting insight about the shrinking tenure of CMOs reaching to 40 months, lowest since 2009. In sharp contrast the tenure of a CEO reached an all time high of 80 months. So, one wonders what’s going wrong with CMOs when the ‘captain of captains’ – CEO is stable. The answer perhaps lies in the fact that Ad-fraud is not only impacting the marketing spends but also adversely affecting the performance of the CMOs as well. We have already entered into the third era of digital marketing where it is now more than 50% of the total market spends across various mediums. As the digital spending as a percentage of total media spends keeps on increasing, any inefficiency or weakness in the value chain will not only restrict but retard the growth. Overall, ad-fraud and adjacent inefficiencies waste 6-9% of the total digital spends, while on performance marketing it results in almost 30% spends without any returns. Tracing the journey of our clients, we have noticed how the digital marketing mix is switching in favor of performance marketing than brand marketing. Some 3 years back, performance marketing would constitute just 20-25% of the total digital marketing spending, which is now in many cases over 55%. So even if for argument’s sake, we say that ad fraud only happens in performance marketing, its impact on the overall digital spending is only increasing. This is nothing less than a nightmare for any marketer including the captain – the CMO. In digital, the results should be delivered in real-time. At the same time, many CEOs are still catching up with the nuances of digital. This sets off wrong expectations when they see results not coming up quickly as is inherently attached with the digital. As a result, CMO has to take responsibility. For the CMO, it will take some time for the entire CXO suite to understand that even in digital things don’t happen overnight and in real-time. However, what definitely can be plugged in is the inefficiencies that ad fraud results in. Otherwise, the CMO is going to be questioned every time inside the boardroom as well as otherwise about the return on ad spends over digital. By taking cognize of ad fraud a CMO can instantly reduce wastes on performance marketing in the range of 25-30% translating in improvement in overall return on digital marketing by another 6-8 percent points. CMO has become a change agent as well as a business officer with digital getting more prominence. A CMO today not only drives return on marketing but also brings in leads, sales, and eventually revenue. So if there is no clean and safe medium to market digitally, the results will always be interpreted as underperformance of the function as well as the individual. This is what will continue to create turbulence in the marketing functions of any organization and we will see CMOs departing the CXO suite more often than any other CXO.

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Changing Role of Marketers With Respect to Brand Safety

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Addressing the skill gap in the digital ecosystem with the rise in cyber threats. Brand Safety Officers – The New Career Choice We’re living in a world of connected technologies. With social distancing norms in place, digital has become the new way of connectedness. From our daily routines to spending habits, social interactions to travel aspirations, digital adoption has become the new normal and will remain in times to come. The shift towards digital has also caused a significant disruption in how brands approach their customers. The 24X7 online culture has given rise to the fact that more and more people are looking for products and services online, thus showing the scope of growth for businesses. Brands are now increasing advertising budgets to reach more and more customers. The onus now lies with the brands and CXOs and the marketers and brand custodians to implement strategies to leverage the opportunity to increase sales and brand visibility effectively. However, the 24*7 online culture has also increased the online threat landscape. Long gone are days where marketers had to justify the ad budgets based on the impression, reach level data, sales conversion, etc. In present times, they’re marred with more complex challenges like brand infringement issues (fake websites, counterfeit products, fake customer care numbers), ad-fraud issues (bot traffic, fake installs, geo-location fraud), and brand safety issues. These issues have brought a significant skill gap in the digital ecosystem – understanding brand safety components in marketing and advertising. The traditional capproach talks about impressions and reaches data across the marketing funnel. Covid19 has disrupted this conventional approach by citing challenges of advertising environment and brand safety components. Is your content placed in a brand-unsafe environment like adult content fake news? Are you validating impressions and reach level data- fake users, bot traffic, fake installs? What checks and balances do you consider as a marketer concerning brand safety? Brand Safety and infringement directly affect the ROI of brands. One negative news about the brand now hurts the goodwill, revenue, and brand experience. Building trust and relationships with your customers is paramount in times like these. Marketers need to adapt themselves with skills that look at the entire gamut of marketing in its true sense, which captures brand safety, addresses ad-fraud, thus utilizes the ad budget efficiently. This new breed of marketers can aptly be called Brand Safety officers. Banking upon trust and addressing the changing role of marketers, mFiltrerIt takes pride in re-launching its Ad-fraud and Brand Safety certification program, which adds value and confidence to the digital ecosystem. The program has been designed in a multi-tier structure that will empower professionals across the hierarchy with the requisite skills and knowledge. Adding trust to digital is the future forward for marketers. It’s about a time when marketers and brands should consider where the ads appear and think about the ad’s surrounding environment. When the customers can differentiate between safe and unsafe settings, why shouldn’t marketers and brands address the same? A meaningful and substantial experience is what your customers require. Today’s marketers should deliver to the customer experience keeping brand safety in mind and equipping themselves with the skills that will add value to the organization marketers work for and better their career progression.

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Facts That Brands Need to Know About Brand Safety and Affiliate Marketing Fraud

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Affiliate marketing fraud can damage brand reputation, increase advertising costs and generate client chargebacks. The last few decades have witnessed a drastic evolution in affiliate marketing, for it has matured beyond what brands and marketers would have imagined in the past. It has become the most sought-after way to advertise the brand, generate traffic, and attract customers. Affiliate marketing has methodologically evolved as a sophisticated channel backed by intelligent analytics proving its value by acting as an omnipresent channel at all customer touchpoints. But being omnipresent has its unique set of challenges when we talk about brand safety and digital fraud. With the increase in affiliate marketing popularity, the chance of encountering fraudulent activity also increases, thus damaging the brand in many ways. The trouble comes when the affiliates’ actions are being paid for are fake, but real commissions are paid out to fraudsters. This drains the marketing budget and puts a brand reputation at risk by getting involved with wrong affiliates and hurts the overall campaign for a brand. Every brand needs to ensure that brand safety is the core tenet in their partnership with their affiliates. The reason is that the customers engage with the brand through partners, but they place their ultimate trust in the brand. The partner’s wrong positioning of the brand (luring customers on the pretext of fake coupons, redirecting to adult sites, stealing information) may damage the brand considerably. Monitoring and prevention of fraud, including affiliate fraud, should be the top priority for any brand. While brands have much to gain from the symbiotic relationships with their strategic partners, monitoring the same should be an always-on process employing both automated and manual action. The How Any affiliate link which leads a consumer to unseemly domains can misrepresent the brand in the wrong limelight. The brand reputation is at risk, but other consequences also arise in terms of excessive spending because fraudsters are gaming the system and cannibalizing other channel efforts. In some cases, the court ordered a brand to pay $12 million in restitution for indulging in affiliates who intentionally promoted their products on fake sites with false claims and free offers that never materialized for users. In many cases, counterfeit actions are generated by bots that direct a computer to another site, fill a form, or even purchase a product, mimicking human behavior. This is also called Click farm, another tool used by fraudsters in affiliate marketing. Brands take them as precious affiliate partners in today’s era of social media influencers. Little do they know that not all influencers are equal or accurate. Influencer fraud means that when fraudsters have inflated their numbers (followers, engagement numbers, etc.) to portray themselves as lucrative partners. They tend to charge high premiums for promotional ads, but the outcomes are not significant because their followers aren’t real. To conclude, the only prevention of affiliate marketing fraud is early detection and stopping fraud before it causes significant damage. Investing in fraud solutions and tools helps bridge the gap and generate insights in real-time by validating affiliates and eliminating fraud.

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Burning the Ad Fraud Fat from Digital Advertising

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mFilterIt’s Quick Guide for Marketers Ad fraud is just like bad fat in the body. It unnecessarily makes things look ‘healthy’. At the same time, it results in other lifestyle diseases just like obesity. To manage it and make sporty campaigns, here is a quick guide from mFilterIt based on excerpts of best practices implemented by it across some of the leading digital advertisers globally. Extremely good or bad performance are both indicators of ad fraud. Analyze the performance mix of the campaigns and get a deeper audit done if the results are too good to believe or too bad to absorb. There is no single medium that is fraud-free. Do not switch from one medium of advertising to another to combat fraud. Achieve higher integrity of ads within the existing mediums of engagement otherwise, there will always be a fresh learning curve to uphill. Ad fraud is not just about losing money. Similar to obesity, it results in other ailments like Brand Safety issues. Do monitor the placement of the ads and the relevancy of channels being engaged. The quality of the campaign is also to be monitored. Changing the model of engagement will again not result in tackling ad fraud. Irrespective of the model on which campaigns are running – CPC, CPCV, CPL, CPS, etc., fraudsters can trick ad fraud. In fact, the tougher the metrics to qualify, the higher the motivation to fraud. Engage with partners who understand ad fraud. Do not go by the disclaimer that there is no ad fraud through a particular partner. Evaluate if the partners are being checked and have ad-fraud specialists who are certified for it. Encourage your teams to understand ad fraud. Organize cross-team workshops for awareness of ad fraud as this impacts digital marketing function as well as other functions. It does have an impact on revenue, sales, procurement, and others as well. Check every element of an ad. Reassure yourself about the compliances and brand guidelines being followed by partners while designing ad-creatives, content, etc. Brand infringement is not only about wrong information about your business and products. It is also about selling fake/counterfeit products and services which could result in legal hassles for your brand. Watch out for any brand infringement in the digital space in real-time. Organic stealing not only makes you pay unnecessarily someone else hijacks the attribution. It also demotivates the internal digital team as their good work goes unnoticed. Track who is bidding on your brand keywords and diverting traffic through them. The above action points will help marketers to effectively manage and curtail ad fraud, brand safety challenges, and the growing brand infringement problems. However, strategically the best practice is to address ad fraud with an open mind rather than going with the hypothesis that no ad fraud to possible. This can then be audited and validated by a mix of home exercises and a professionally run ‘gym’ to burn the fat and have a sporty, strong, and good-looking campaign, which will fetch great results.

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