Mobile ad fraud have been a big concern in 2019, and it’s expected to be a bigger concern in 2020. So, getting informed about the types of mobile ad frauds can be a good start to fight with them. Also, you can check the free App Fraud Health Assessment at the end of the post to check your app’s health score.
IVT (Invalid Traffic)
The term means any clicks or impressions that may artificially increase the cost of advertisers or earnings of publishers. These clicks have no real value since they’re not linked to real users’ actions. Invalid traffic consists of
- Publisher producing the result advertisers want, like click or impression on ads they serve.
- Publisher using automated tools that generate fake traffic
- Fraudsters using bot traffic to spam the websites.
This could be the result of a mistake or a deliberate action with the intention of fraud. Either way, it’s a cost that should be minimized. Invalid traffic can be in the form of two types: General Invalid Traffic (GIVT) comprises bots, spiders, crawleers that scan pages and do not mimics human traffic, this type of mobile ad fraud can be easily identified. The other type pf invalid traffic is Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) and this one is harder to identify and eliminate because it uses machine learning and other advanced technologies.
SDK Spoofing
SDK Spoofing means illegitimate installs. This fraud is created by using data of real devices but without the presence of any existent installs. SDK Spoofing is on increase since 2017, and it’s one of the reasons why the fraud numbers have doubled since then. The mobile ad fraud increases the number of users and ad spend budget, the problem includes more than the cost of ads. This fraud also alters the datas and makes the advertiser’s analytics harder to analyze.
Click Spamming
In this type of mobile fraud, fraudsters increase the number of user clicks. Large numbers of clicks are sent to an MMP. Unless you prevent this, you pay for the misrepresented amount.
Click Injection
Can also be called as click sniping and is one of the most common mobile ad frauds. Clisk injection is a sopfisticated verion of click spamming. This is the result of fraudsters increasing the last click attribution artificially.
Ad Stacking
In this type of mobile ad fraud, multiple adsa re placed on top of each other and displayed all at once. And even though the ad is not visible, the fraudsters get paid for them. That’s why ad stacking is also called ad hiding.
Mobile ad fraud is the real-world nightmare of advertisers and developers, if you are worried here’s a guide answering What is Your Mobile App Fraud Health?. By assesing your app’s health, you can also find out optimization ideas for your ads.
