What is Mobile Ad fraud?
Mobile ad fraud is a representation of various methods used by fraudsters to exploit attribution systems used to measure ROI on advertisements.
Ad fraud is most often perpetrated by publishers as well as individuals/groups (aka fraudsters). These malicious entities go after the budgets of advertisers, agencies, and users.
It is mostly committed by individuals/groups who eye on the marketing budget of agencies and advertisers.
Almost all ad campaigns have a payment attribution system and measure them based on CPI, CPA, etc. These days there is a hefty amount spent on ads, this makes it the ideal place for criminals to make use of and get their pockets filled by committing fraud.
Most of these ad frauds are committed through ad networks, but there are times when they also become victims of fraud.
Mobile Ad Fraud is a specific subgroup of online ad fraud that is mainly conducted on mobile devices on two channels:
- Mobile Web Browsers
- Mobile Applications
Why does Mobile Ad fraud matter?
For mobile advertisers, mobile ad fraud affects the entire marketing process, from current to future activities. It pollutes crucial data, resources and lose budgeting.
While advertising budgets are stolen, advertisers are far from being the only ones impacted – fraud damages are felt across all entities and players within the marketing ecosystem.
Types of mobile ad fraud
When examining the most common fraud methods, these can be broken down into 2 main categories: attribution hijacking and fake installs.
The main difference between the two categories is the users.
Real users Fake users
Real engagement Clean traffic N/A
Fake engagement Attribution hijacking Fake installs
Here’s a list of most types of mobile ad fraud:
- Ad stacking
- Attribution fraud
- Bots
- Click farms
- Click fraud
- Click flooding
- Click hijacking
- Click injection
- Click redirection
- CPA fraud
- Device farm
- Device ID reset fraud
- Display fraud
- Duplicate IP
- Emulated devices
- Fake users
- Impression fraud
- Install fraud
- Install hijacking
- Mobile malware
- Phone farms
- Purchase fraud
- SDK spoofing
-
CTV Advertising: How Mobile Marketers Make the Most of It
Despite the rapid advancement of technology and the entertainment industry, certain things haven’t altered all that much. The majority of TV advertising has remained static. By replacing outdated and ineffective advertising strategies with fresh, efficient, and interactive ones, CTV advertising (Connected […]
Read More -
Measuring K-Factor: How to boost K-Factor for your Mobile App
Mobile App Publishers are always looking for ways to understand how they can improve their user base and how impactful their app is in the market. One way to do this is by mobile app attribution of your marketing strategies. […]
Read More -
What You Should Be Looking For In Mobile Marketing Platform?
Mobile Marketing Platform (MMP) is a term utilized for software solutions that are meticulously designed to work with and optimize mobile marketing campaigns and communicate accordingly. MMPs are primarily mobile-centric software, that excels in core abilities like real-time communication and […]
Read More -
What are Data Clean Rooms and why do you need them?
Data Clean Rooms is one of the most talked-about topics in the marketing, analytics, and advertising industries. As Google has given up support for third-party cookies from Chrome and joined Apple(Safari) and Mozilla(Firefox) in their odyssey of a cookieless world, […]
Read More -
Introducing Trackier’s Mobile Marketing Platform
Over 5 years ago Trackier started its Ad-tech journey with our Performance Marketing Software. After gaining much success, we started recognizing an emerging need in the mobile industry as well. With the app economy accelerating in the last few years, […]
Read More
