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Click Spamming in UAE: Over 50 Million Clicks in a Country of 10 Million

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The case of organic traffic theft of a leading BFSI client in UAE A major publisher partner of a large BFSI client was massively engaged in click spamming registering huge events. This publisher was stealing the organic traffic of the client. Once its engagement was blocked, the organic engagement went up for the client. A new breed of smaller affiliates sprouted to grab the opportunity through click spamming. One of the leading BFSI clients of mFilterIt in the region was recording huge events as were reported by its key publisher which was entrusted with the task of getting relevant engagement for a campaign.  The client was facing the typical situation of viewing extremely high events that even did not stand some basic logic.  For instance, the total population of the UAE is less than 10 million.  The nature of the service is not something that anyone from other countries would be interested in.  For example, one could absorb extremely high events, even more than the population, in the case of a real estate campaign in UAE assuming that foreigners are interested in buying a property in the country.  However, there would be hardly anyone looking for a financial service in the country from a foreign land. In this specific campaign analysis, it was found that a campaign registered events above 50 million in a single day.  This is five times the total population of the emirate.  It can only be interpreted that on average every single person living in UAE clicked 5 times on this campaign! Why would any person do that? On a deeper analysis, an inverse relationship was established between organic traffic patterns and the traffic acquired through a particular publisher.  mFilterIt took down this publisher and instantly started seeing the organic traffic going up for the client for some time.  However, one of the fundamental principles of effective ad-fraud protection is that there should be no exceptions.  No one can combat it effectively by monitoring only a few, or for that matter ignoring smaller agencies and focusing on the larger ones alone. The same was the experience in this case.  As soon as the organic engagement started going up, a set of new agencies, though smaller started pulling down the organic engagement by click spamming.  This is a learning for every marketeer not to be only after the ‘big fish’.  There should be no tolerance for any size of fish in the pond. It is a typical strategy to engage one or a few major publishers which account for 70-80% of the campaign KPIs and the remaining is entrusted with several smaller affiliates.  An advertiser is mostly focussing on the key partners for everything, including when investigating ad fraud.  This analysis shows that while focusing on the key partner does help, we cannot ignore the smaller affiliates as well.  Click spamming is done by all irrespective of their size and they do hijack the organic traffic, though the impact would be proportionate to the engagement level of the publisher. This is the reason mFilterIt has always been advocating for holistic ad fraud protection where the strategy should be to analyze to the 100th percentile and across platforms.  Unless that is done, ad fraud will barge into the system from one of the other weak points. The thought process for campaigns must change.  Every advertiser does evaluate a potential partner on certain KPIs as part of the hygiene factors. The need is to also include parameters like genuine (BOT free) engagement as well as brand safety assurance offered by any potential partner as part of the hygiene parameters. The approach adopted by mFilterIt is a neutral one where it does not only solve the advertisers’ problems.  It does work along with publishers and agencies as well helping them implement the best practices so that such ‘pilferages’ in campaigns wherein the long run it maximizes returns for everyone in the value chain. Get in touch to learn more about click spamming.

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The True Spirit of Ramadan 2021 Woven for a Brand

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There are four ways mFilterIt can collaborate with advertisers to deliver the best experience to their respective audiences through digital advertising during Ramadan. Ramadan is the month of introspection, altruism, celebration, and camaraderie. This period calls for spiritual reflection, self-improvement, and compassion for others. Like real life, in the digital world, we are challenged with the good and bad, and as marketers, we attempt to sail through to deliver the best for our audiences. Brands need to observe a similar discipline and therefore must come across as respectful and thoughtful. mFilterIt can be your trusted partner throughout the digital advertising journey and ensure that you deliver a pure experience with the right intent and integrity. Here are the ways mFilterIt can help you go through the digital journey. a) Acquisition of Users:  This Ramadan will leverage digital like never before. In 2020, it was a contingency approach. But this year, marketeers, even in the ‘Essentials’ category, have a thought-through process of leveraging digital platforms to deliver the best to the customers and audiences. Whether acquiring new users for an app or getting genuine non BOT traffic to web resources, mFilterIt can help brands achieve the best engagement by connecting with real humans who want the service, thus optimizing the return on acquisition spending. Typically, 1 of every 3 users acquired is not genuine due to challenges like BOT traffic, etc. b) Ads with Integrity and Safety: A mature brand is always conscious of the experience it creates. During Ramadan, brands become extra cautious and do not want to get associated with something that doesn’t go with the core thought of Ramadan. For instance, certain brands may not desire to show cooked food before Iftaar in ads. Also, marketers will go the extra mile to protect their brand image from getting associated with obscene and explicit content. The bars of safeguarding brands are raised very high during Ramadan, and mFilterIt helps advertisers create a safe and pure view of the brands within which they can engage with the audiences over digital platforms. The brand safety suite of mFilterIt scans ads to do high-quality content analysis and flag off any placement, relevancy, or messaging issues contrary to the brand’s reputation. c) Honouring the Promotions and Offers: Ramadan is also a month when people spend a lot. This is in the spirit of giving the family the best food and other essentials and buying for the needy. To complement this, brands roll out special offers and promotions. This situation is also exploited by rogues in the system. They exhibit unbelievable offers to allure genuine buyers for cheating or taking credit (attribution) for organic engagement. Even if a buyer doesn’t lose money in all such situations, it does not portray the brand in a good light. This is not the image that the brand wants to be associated with. mFilterIt’s incent tracking solution helps brands stay alert about the offers and promotions being rolled out in its name. It can proactively safeguard consumers’ interests by acting upon the fraudsters and ensuring end-users get genuine promotions. d) Creating a Ramadan View of the e-Store: Like the product placements and shelf management in the brick-mortar stores, the digital stores also need to change during Ramadan. The shelf display needs to be optimally organized for a richer experience for users visiting online marketplaces on apps and web portals to buy products that are sought after during Ramadan. Leveraging mScanIt (Powered by mFilterIt) share of shelf and other powerful insights, a marketer can decide the optimal strategy for an online marketplace and create a competitively richer experience for visitors to buy the right products and leverage the maximum from the promotions that are being rolled out for them. With the array of services offered by mFilterIt, marketers can optimize every segment to create a synergy that gives a richer, wholesome, and value-driven experience to the audiences for engaging and buying online. So, what are you waiting for? Connect with mFilterIt to make the digital experience for your customers driven by the genesis and value systems that guide us during Ramadan.   Get in touch with our experts for deeper insights. Reach out to learn more!

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Edtech and Brand Safety

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One of the serious concerns for any parent with the digital ecosystem is how they keep their children safe from the ‘digital ghost’, and ed-tech could be an easy trap. Kid safety is of paramount concern. With digital exposure, new challenges result in other types of potential harms caused by ‘digital ghosts’ or ‘digital bhoots’, which exist in the ecosystem. There is no denying that the digital exposure of children has increased. It has also gone beyond regular schooling, and parents are encouraging promoting children to opt for several courses and certifications offered digitally. This has resulted in a thriving ed-tech space, and over the past 6 months, we have even seen ed-tech companies acquiring brick-mortar education brands. Various flavors are offered in the ed-tech space to differentiate and attract as many students as possible. Much content is being recreated to go well with this mode and facilitate easy self and virtually assisted learning. At the same time, these ed-tech companies completely understand that they are dealing with tender ages meaning the Internet exposure to them cannot be like an adult. For this, they adhere to ‘kid-safe’ practices and ensure that they are using content that does not harm children – especially psychologically. The ed-tech companies are cognizant of making the experience safe and children-friendly. However, that is all within the boundaries of their application, where they have all the control. But a lot more can be counterproductive to a much larger engagement who may even never cross the line to experience all measures they take to make every element inside the application child-safe and friendly. Other than children less than 10 years of age, parents allow children to explore such opportunities independently. When in their teens, children also get a chance to recommend to parents which courses they want to pursue. In the latter case, children get exposed to the discovery of such applications, which means they interface with the promotional / advertising environment of ed-tech apps. For children less than 10, parents will primarily explore such solutions. In both situations, the decision-makers need to get assurance that the application they want to go with isn’t harming children in any way, especially the ones which could contribute to the development of any negative trait in children as they would not have the capability to handle such exposure at that tender age. For instance, hate language, obscenity, crime, and other content. We have clear demarcations of what is suitable for children and what is not in the broadcasting world. That is why even action content isn’t advised to children, and specific content is explicitly categorized as adult only. Due to brand safety issues, often without any intervention from the ed-tech solutions provider, the ads do get placed wrongly, which could be carrying content not suitable for children. This means that children and parents exploring such solutions could land in ‘bad areas’ of the Internet. While children could land up in entirely the wrong territory, which isn’t suitable for them, parents would get shocked to see the affiliation of the platform they are exploring for their children. The issue could worsen as the ads are served based on the content consumption pattern and interests of the user with whom the device is profiled. In these cases, it would be a parent, or an adult, whose profile would be targeted by advertisers through ad networks, affiliates, and other mediums. A responsible and aware ed-tech platform has to look at things end-to-end and make the entire experience safe and friendly, not just inside the app when someone is on board. This could result in the majority of the potential users having a bad experience and impression about the platform, while only the ones who convert and sign up appreciate the proactive measures taken by the app to give children their due environment. This ‘digital ghost’ or ‘digital bhoot´is something that we need to keep children away from. Otherwise, what a ghost invisibly does in the real world to the minds by causing psychological damage, which at times longs for a lifetime, could get replicated in the virtual world with children at a very tender age. Unfortunately, ed-tech is the platform that has a high risk of carrying this invisible ghost, harming children while attempting to do better for their overall development. Brand Safety is a crucial thing to address for any brand, especially those dealing directly with potentially vulnerable sections like children. mFilterIt is already engaged in this space with a few proactive ed-tech platforms piloting some activities with us in this direction. However, this should become an industry/vertical hygiene where the objective is to make the entire experience children safe, not just inside the app, which is a controlled world for the platform.   Get in touch with our experts for deeper insights. Reach out to learn more!

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Neutrality is Key to Third-Party Audits and Validation

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mFilterIt proactively gave up a million-dollar opportunity 4 years back to uphold the integrity and neutrality of validating ad-spends. Any ad fraud detection & prevention solution is algorithmic in nature. So even if the results are statistically driven and scientifically proven, the biases can be absorbed within the algorithm design. The simplest example could be white-listing traffic of a particular publisher or ad network making it a valid high-quality engagement source. Tracing back the journey of mFilterIt, it also started with the idea of establishing an ad network (mXpresso), which would offer ad fraud detection as a value addition. But soon it was realized that it’s fundamentally contradictory to act as both – someone to spend for campaigns (ad network), and someone doing the validation of whether it has been done rightfully (ad fraud). Like any ad network, mXpresso was blossoming and as goes the very nature of this business, the growth parameters were overwhelmingly encouraging. This only indicated that it was going to be soon a million-dollar opportunity. It was a very difficult trade-off to give up a growing opportunity versus creating something that would face resistance from all corners. Obviously, both could not continue. To uphold the integrity and bring neutrality and impartiality invalidating the ad-spends on performance campaigns, mXpresso was shelved for eternity, and mFilterIt, which was an add-on to the ad network became the anchor and only offering. Presently in the market majority of the widely used ad-fraud detection solutions do not give a 3rd party view. They are part of the 2nd party in the form of either being an add-on to the attribution platform or with some recent acquisitions, even an ad-network. This raises the fundamental question of how anyone can do both very important roles without diluting the conflict of interest. The same party, in its dual role, is responsible for the spending and then again responsible for validating if the spending did take place in the right way, giving the desired ROI. Ad fraud cannot be combated alone algorithmically. The neutrality and 3rd party orientation are as important as the efficacy of the tool which is determined by how deep a view it can offer basis the advanced algorithms used in its design. This is what mFilterIt has always stood for and shall continue to have this equally distanced approach from everyone in the value chain – advertisers, agencies, and affiliates. It envisioned these 4 years back, which is why it today is trusted by some of the leading digital advertisers globally for auditing their ad spending on performance campaigns and adjacent issues.

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Brand Infringement: Protecting Your Brand in the Digital Age

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The digital world is ever-expanding, encompassing a massive portion of the consumer population today. Consumers come online to purchase goods, for entertainment, banking, consultations, and many other activities that once were done through physical channels only. This shift has drawn more and more brands to the digital network over the years, in order to access the endless pool of potential customers. Of course, this massive digital exposure has brought in its share of challenges that lead to intended brand infringement and unauthorized use of material by a third party. A brand’s value lies in the unique identity and reputation it builds among its customers over the span of its existence. Brands build digital representations of themselves that are instantly recognized by consumers. However, this digital advertising can be misused or unduly borrowed by others for unethical business gains, or worse, to affect the original brand’s business. Many companies are unauthorizedly using material of a third party that is protected under the intellectual property (IP) law of a company. Such cases of “brand infringement” have been largely increasing in the digital age, posing a number of problems for companies as well as consumers. While protection of IP such as trademarks, names, logos, patents, and so on have been covered under the book of law for a long, brands have to take further steps to strengthen their guardrails from infringement. Different Types of Infringement With digitalization, violators have developed multiple ways to deceive the audience. Let’s have a look at a few:  Trademark Infringement: This is one of the most common forms of infringement. It involves the unauthorized use of a trademark, that is a word, symbol, design, or a combination of the same, that a company uses to distinguish its products, solutions, or services from others.  Copyright Infringement: Another major form of brand infringement is the unauthorized use of the original expressions and ideas of another seller. Violators produce counterfeit products that are visually identical to an existing product made by a brand, created with no knowledge of the original brand. Typosquatting: There are a growing number of websites with slight variations of domain names for popular online sites, to attract consumers and project them to counterfeit products. This form of infringement is typosquatting. Cybersquatting: Through cybersquatting, infringers claim domain names to take advantage of trademarks belonging to someone else, and typically use those domains for their benefit. The various forms of brand infringement call for high awareness of a brand’s digital surroundings, strict vigilance, and proactive brand protection practices. Real Instances of Brand Infringement Ever since a number of infamous infringement incidents came to light, the impact of brand infringements on a business has been gaining global attention. For online businesses, infringement not only causes financial losses but also the loss of customer engagement through a diverted customer base, reduced website traffic, stolen customer data, and reputation damage through misrepresentation. In 2018, the e-commerce site Flipkart came across a lucky draw contest run by a domain name www.flipkartwinners.com, which impugned their original domain name. Flipkart filed for a permanent injunction to restrain www.flipkartwinners.com’s proprietors from using the trademark. These infringed websites didn’t contain adequate information about the owner or website, and no one appeared in court for the hearing. As a result, the decision favored Flipkart. Bisleri applied for trademark registration for the word “Maaza” in Turkey and began exporting the same fruit drink under the given name. However the original trademark Maaza was given to Coca-Cola by Bisleri in 1993, and Coca-Cola claimed a permanent injunction and infringement damages for passing off the trademark. Hence in the court, Bisleri faced an interim injunction for trademark infringement. Another case is of the US-based e-wallet pioneer, PayPal, which has accused Paytm of copying its logo to grow its user base. Although the court has not come to any clear trade infringement case till now. All of these brand infringement cases prove that brand infringement can be an expensive affair, but it can prove more expensive for infringers when caught. Read more about such cases. Actions to Prevent Brand Infringement The new obstacle amid the global pandemic for brands is maintaining their reputation and value, especially at a time when COVID has compelled a lot many brands to take the digital route. With brands evolving distinct ways of operating and serving customers, the protection of their users becomes a major concern. Due to the increased fraudulent use of brands and the creation of fake trademarks, certain domestic and international government offices and courts are delaying companies’ ability to register and enforce their trademarks. So, how to safeguard such fraudulent acts during an already testing time? Brands need to develop a strong trade strategy to monitor trademark registrations, including domain names that might conflict with registered marks. A strong domain name strategy is required by brands because failing to make an effort to protect your trademark against infringing domain names might create a platform to deceive customers. A set of brand guidelines should be crafted, focused on how the brand logo and name are protected and up to what extent a found similarity will be considered as infringement. The brand guidelines should be clear and concise to employees, business partners, and all business associates and stakeholders. Brands need to maintain consistency in their product packaging name and other vital features so it becomes easy for a consumer to remember the brand and spot differences from counterfeit products. Brands can also partner with trade associations that work closely with regulatory agencies like NAFDAC and SON, who are empowered by law to apprehend and prosecute counterfeiters. Long story short, brands need to continuously keep a check on infringement. They must make their trademarks distinguishable and aware consumers of digital best practices and ways to identify counterfeits, in order to reduce the rampancy of brand infringements. After all, a brand’s identity is its most valuable asset in the digital age!   Get in touch with our experts for deeper insights. Reach out to learn more!

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Brand Infringement in the Digital Landscape

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Brand Infringement and imitation have been predominantly an offline affair. Brands have set up checks and balances to monitor any sort of violation by any individual or an entity that might be unauthorized to represent or use any of its identity like trademark, logo, etc.   In the digital landscape, this has never been taken seriously. The reason for that could be because digital primarily relates to content, reproducing the identity of one even without authorization was not considered damaging. For instance, people conveniently search for logos of different brands on Google and use them even incorporate presentations and official documents. This goes without adhering to something like Creative Commons Licenses (CCL). However, the relevance and objectives of digital have changed fundamentally for any organization. From being an add-on to the primary business, digital has become the Centre stage of activities. After the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic, digital has become the default in many cases. A brand is increasingly having many touchpoints over digital where it is represented. Through these digital touchpoints, it interfaces with several stakeholders including customers, partners, employees, government, and others.   A brand is the notional and perceived owner of all these channels and the messages that go over them in the eyes of audiences including customers.   So, it is incumbent on the brand to keep a regular check and monitoring of all its assets to ensure that it is presented rightfully across them. For instance, there are typically several pages on social media channels for any brand. These are owned and managed by brands, their partners, users, fans as well as fraudsters. Other than having a verified sign for brand-owned pages, and accounts, there is no way to make a distinction for ordinary users who genuinely want to engage. This means a user could potentially be engaging with an unauthorized representative of a brand digitally! Similarly, there could be advertising messages including promos and offers, running in the name of a brand where the brand is neither aware of nor has any obligation to respect them. But, since they are run for various reasons in their name, it only earns a bad reputation for them. The fundamental issue here is that brands engage through various channels and mediums which plot across the level of control they have on them. Even the channels where they have absolute control, like a website or an app, parallel or mirror websites and apps are being created and distributed through non-regular means, like third-party app stores among users. A brand can walk the long journey of legal redressal to bring such parallel assets down, but by then much of the damage is already done to its reputation. Even when going legal, it needs substantial proof to seek justice. Brand Infringement is not only impacting the brand reputation and image but also hitting the funnel and revenues. So, all the investments that every brand is putting in digital transformation automatically diminish returns.   Additionally, the brand also becomes a medium of data and privacy breaches as its imitated assets could be exploited through malware, etc., comprising user data. Brands with a vision and sustainability objectives always look at a wider canvas of offering the best experience rather than just a sales-driven approach.   This experience can only be created when brands are in full control and visibility of their presence on digital as well as have a monitoring mechanism in place which alerts for instant actions to bring things on track from the deviations caused by uncontrollable variables in the equation. As brands transform into digital businesses, they will require to have a 24×7 eye on their presence and reputation over digital and proactively keep the brand assets aligned with the overall positioning and principles for which a brand stands for. That will keep the brand infringement under control and add sustainability to the reputation and image of a brand.

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Brand Safety is a Big Opportunity for Atma Nirbhar Bharat, and at mFilterIt, We Are Pursuing It.

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To solve Brand Safety issues effectively, the nuanced understanding of vernacular is the essence for AI and ML-based solutions to work. This can only be handled by a local brand that recognizes the local languages. Globally, brands are becoming conscious of Brand Safety. Introducing Brand Safety at a 30,000 feet height is about keeping a brand secure from every potential controversy or damage that could result from its presence at irrelevant and unsafe digital assets. No brand would want to earn wrath by getting associated, or at least the audience perceiving them so, with something that goes against their philosophy.   A brand would never want its ads to appear on sites, apps, and video channels that do not reflect it. Not just because it would not get the right target audiences, but also because its positioning would go for a toss.   For example, an airline company would never want its ads displayed on video series like an air crash investigation. Here, even if the audience might be relevant, the sentiment set out by the content would not appreciate air traveling, at least at that spur of a moment when a viewer’s mind could be thinking that air travel isn’t perhaps safe. Additionally, there is abusive content, obscene content, and so forth.   Even if a very relevant website for a brand to display its ad has content in any local language and is abusive or foul language, the brand would never want its ad to appear there. There are essentially two core requirements for a Brand Safety solution to work.   One is the algorithm tree that will trigger needful actions based on the event we want to monitor. The other is the database of keywords, phrases, audio, images, and video, which can compare the content in real-time to decide if the content is safe for the brand to get associated with.   This understanding can only be managed by a local Brand Safety solution provider, which constantly keeps the library of potentially unsafe content updated and lets its algorithms decide whether the placement of a brand’s ad is safe.   With the Honourable Prime Minister already having advocated for Vocal4Local and Atma Nirbar Bharat initiatives, Brand Safety is an area that naturally fits the program, where achieving self-reliance makes economic sense and has a highly great product relevance.   Platforms like YouTube are increasingly becoming the default internet space for regional content in India. This content runs thousands of ads from different brands that would never understand the content. In situations like this, where a locally developed solution will make a lot of difference.   The opportunity for Brand Safety is immense. Every brand is not conscious of it, and some have already started proactively taking measures to tackle Brand Safety challenges. Over the next 5 years, brands will start making considerable spending on achieving Brand Safety. With the recent trend of digital becoming a mainstream interface and D2C (direct-to-consumer) also gaining momentum, it would be incumbent on brands to have zero tolerance towards Brand Safety. This is an opportune moment for the entire ecosystem to pitch for locally designed and developed Brand Safety solutions.   Thankfully, at mFilterIt, we are already on the charter, and every day our portfolio of locally designed and developed Brand Safety Solutions becomes wider. We aspire to make digital space a trustworthy, reliable, and accurate experience world. Our endeavor to make a Brand Safety portfolio a comprehensive solution offering end-to-end safety is a step in this direction. To know more, get in touch with our experts today!

Brand Safety is a Big Opportunity for Atma Nirbhar Bharat, and at mFilterIt, We Are Pursuing It. Read More »

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To Help Digital Ecosystem Resume with Trust, mFilterIt Announces 2 Months Diwali Care Program

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The program aims at helping advertisers resume their digital marketing activities with trust, confidence, and transparency to get the best RoI on ad spending and resurrect after the Covid-19 impact. Help digital ecosystem resume with trust. Gurugram / Noida – Friday, October 23, 2020: mFilterIt, the leading holistic digital advertising safety solutions provider, today announced ‘Diwali Care Program’ under which it has opened the entire solutions stack for the advertisers and their partners to resume and resurrect with trust, transparency, and confidence as the economy is attempting to restart after the complete lockdown due to covid-19 pandemic. Amit Relan, Director & Co-Founder, mFilterIt launching the program, said, “Digital is everyone’s hope of resumption. There is no scope of any inefficiency or trust deficit to go to market. Keeping this in view, we decided to help all forms of businesses, including SMEs to help them optimize, making the returns more visible and clearer.” Under the ‘Diwali Care’ offer, mFilterIt is offering its entire digital advertising trust and transparency solutions, which cater to over 90% of the Digital spending done by advertisers, for a free assessment for 2 months. These solutions cover Brand Safety and ad fraud solution on both browser and app-based digital applications accessed over Smartphones, Smart TVs, Tablet PCs, or Laptops/Desktops. With this program, mFilterIt expects brands to achieve 20-25% efficiency in their ad spending, making a tangible contribution in these challenging times when there is extra effort to minimize any wastages. mFilterIt solutions are unique and offer end-to-end transparency and validation of any digital events or transactions at the advertisement and online purchase levels. This gives a marketer, including partners, a periscopic view to look for fraud and trust deficit challenges even over the surface. About mFilterIt: A leader in trust, transparency, and validations of digital ad spending covering over 90% of the digital advertising mediums, mFilterIt uniquely offers end-to-end platform-agnostic brand safety and  ad fraud detection software relied upon by leading digital and mainstream advertisers globally. With a neutral and third-party partner to the digital partners, mFilterIt helps eliminate trust deficit in transactions and events that take place through the digital value chain right up to the end consumer. The scalable and robust technology platform from mFilterIt validates over 2 billion transactions every year, resulting in over $30 million in savings to the digital ecosystem. mFilterIt is headquartered out of NCR, India, and has global operations in the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, and America. A thought leader in the space, mFilterIt actively contributes to the standards and best practices in the industry on global platforms. Recently, mFilterIt was recognized as the Top Ad Fraud Prevention tool by Business of Apps in its 2020 research. Get in touch with our experts for deeper insights. Reach out to learn more!

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Why is Ad-Fraud in Retargeting Campaigns Rising as We Move Towards the New Normal?

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Retargeting and re-engagement campaigns have a difference in intent but face similar ad-fraud challenges.   Covid-19 brought the entire world to a pause. At the same time, it also either forced or allowed businesses to get into new areas. Everything got to a standstill in digital space, like the physical world. However, digital was the first to resume as it inherited the new standard properties, which included social distancing, less human interactions, and a relatively sanitized and cleaned logistics chain.   The resumption of businesses and sales fulfillment meant brands are going heavy on retargeting and re-engagement campaigns. Brands had to tell their customers that they are open and, in many cases, selling new products and services. For instance, Amazon started focusing on ‘essentials’ versus ‘shopping’ items.   So did many other e-commerce players. Yet, there was a new breed of digital players who started afresh selling ‘essentials’ or the traditional offline players onboarded the digital journey. Many industry sectors like FMCG went digital, and brands like Pepsi also forayed D2C or Direct-to-customer.   In a typical retargeting / re-engagement ad fraud, affiliates resort to organic hooking where they falsely attribute already motivated users to a retargeting campaign and take the credit. They fire a volley of clicks and steal the attribution against a device ID, which organically engages with the campaign. As the intent is genuine and high, the performance of such campaigns results very high.   However, the pandemic situation paves the way for the new normal is an extraordinary one. Here, such campaigns are more susceptible to fraud.   The explanation for that is users are organically looking for such products and services via digital mediums. Not just the ones who are used to it, but even novices are exploring digital means to buy groceries, medicines, baby food, and other essentials.   So, while users are anyways moving towards digital to buy existing and new products and services, fraudsters in the ecosystem are keeping eyes and ears open to leverage from the situation. They need to poach organic users to misattribute them, jacking up the performance results. Performance Marketing has taken precedence over Brand Marketing as marketers are looking for inorganic means to resume. The first preference is for re-targeting and re-engagement so that transactions with the existing base are encouraged. Remember, the cost of a transaction with a new customer is always higher than the existing one. So, as brands are looking at the sales graph to go up, they also keep tight control of costs and inefficiencies.   Keeping a check on ad fraud in re-targeting and re-engagement campaigns is a priority for marketers. Digital marketers have become front-line business development warriors in this new normal against the supporting role in the pre-Covid-19 era. They need to reorient themselves and start thinking like astute business development folks where they focus on sales and keep a deep view of the entire sales enablement process and partners.   Retargeting is one of the most effective and efficient techniques for digital marketers to maximize the merchandise value and take the average transaction value up per active customer.   At the same time, re-engagement can attract inactive customers, thus adding to the funnel. However, there must be comprehensive and real-time monitoring of such campaigns and give credit to affiliates for the genuinely re-engaged customers. They learn about new products and services that the online seller is offering now.   Therefore, ad fraud in retargeting and re-engagement campaigns are rising as we move towards a new normal. Here is an interesting case study giving a deeper view of how mFilterIt retargeting ad-fraud solution works and what tangible benefits it gives to a customer.

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Ad Fraud to Grow in All Dimensions – Research

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A research study powered by mFilterIt shows that the average ad-fraud rate is likely to peg between 45-55% as Digital Advertising gets the ‘Essentials’ tag in the new standard business setup.   Market researcher techARC announced yesterday ‘The Ad-Fraud Report’ revealing some interesting insights about how Digital Advertising is becoming an essential element of businesses and the broad impact of this reorientation on Ad-Fraud.   Some of the key insights are enumerated below: – Even if an ad-fraud solution gives 1% better results than the competition, it would mean a lot of money. The ad-fraud average for Digitally Mature organizations is 25-35%. However, the absolute numbers will grow as marketers shift more and more budgets towards Digital Advertising. This means the money wasted due to ad fraud will increase. In this case, marketers would require a holistic and advanced solution that gives maximum protection.   The New Entrant sectors and organizations have a learning curve journey to aboard. For these advertisers, it is a must to have an ad-fraud protection solution in the digital tools’ checklist. With almost no internal capabilities and industry benchmarks available, the SIVT percentage, hence the ad-fraud rate, will be much higher, estimated to be 45-50% of the spending.   Digital Advertising has become essential for every organization in the new everyday business practices. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, marketers have curtailed 30-50% of the overall marketing spending. However, at the same time, many have doubled their digital spending.   Performance Marketing techniques are taking precedence in the Digital Marketing mix for organizations. No organization, even the lesser-knowns, is taking the long route of investing in building a brand and then expecting to create a pull. It is an aggressive push strategy at the moment.   Investing in Keyword and Search marketing is becoming more relevant and vital. It helps brands, especially the new ones, improve their discoverability as consumers – business and end-users- look for new products and solutions to cope with new standards in their respective domains. Brands must not allow this spending to go unchecked. There was an average of 30-35% wastage for some of the digitally mature brands in keyword spend. This also hurts the organic evolution of brands over digital.   Marketers are moving towards more immersive engagement, increasing dependence on video advertisements. Being available on relevant channels and not getting associated with postures entirely against the brand philosophy is a significant concern for advertisers.   The tools presently used to ‘handle’ ad fraud primarily come from Brand Marketing orientation and prove ineffective. Performance Marketing needs advanced machine learning capabilities which can penetrate deep into the digital advertising ecosystem to follow the trail and decipher what’s fraud and what’s not. The report based on mFilterIt’s data analysis and primary research findings prescribes a robust set of best practices for marketers to follow to extract the most out of this new normal and get their fundamentals right to have a real early mover’s advantage. To learn about the best practices and other industry insights, fill up the below form and free access to the report.   Read more: Ad-fraud in re-targeting campaigns.

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