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Can mobile ad scams be avoided? What to look for, how can you protect yourself from the illegal actions of those who want to steal at least a fifth of your advertising budget? Gathered tips and tricks in this article.
Advertising on the phone – the joy of scammers?
Each of us today has a smartphone with an Android or iOS operating system. Each of us uses a smartphone as a device for receiving information. Advertising on the phone is also catching up with us at every turn.
According to analysts, the global volume of mobile advertising in 2022 will grow to $240 billion. It is unlikely that fraudsters will pass by such a tasty morsel. Is there any way to avoid interacting with them and protect yourself?
Mobile advertising fraud schemes
USA, Europe, the EU countries, the bourgeoisie – all market participants are faced with fraud in mobile advertising, everyone loses part of their advertising budgets due to fraudulent activities, everyone dreams of avoiding this.
First, let’s take a look at some of the activities that can be part of mobile ad scams, and then tell you how you can avoid them.
Fraudulent practices in mobile advertising
Clickfraud
The task of scammers who use this scheme when advertising on the phone is to imitate the actions of real users, and also to make sure that the analytics tools available on this or that online platform would take such an imitation for real user actions.
Not every online platform has such an advanced analytics system as the Alanbase SaaS platform, which allows us to protect our users from click fraud in mobile advertising.
Interception (injection) of a click
This scheme injects malware onto the device. It keeps track of which applications are downloaded to it. As soon as the application is downloaded, the program clicks it without waiting for the user to launch the application. Accordingly, the scammers write the reward for such a click to their account.
click spam
Simulate a lot of clicks from real devices to get rewarded for supposedly organic installs. A characteristic feature of click spam is a long time interval between the click and the installation of the application.
According to research by the Israeli firm AppsFlyer, click spam was more common on iOS devices than on Android devices. True, the difference was insignificant.
Device farms
A particularly popular method of mobile advertising fraud. It uses real devices to click through ads and install apps. Only after installing applications, they are reset, and then a new cycle begins. Suspicions should be aroused by the suspiciously patterned actions that this type of fraud involves.
Bots and emulators
They work on the same principle as farms. The only difference is that this mobile ad scam does not use real devices. This approach allows fraudsters to simplify the way data is cleaned, but you can still trace the characteristic pattern of its use.
Motivated traffic
Also used in a mobile ad fraud scheme. Fraudsters simply pay users for clicks on ads or installs. In order to hide too high a percentage of conversions, this type of fraud can be combined with a large number of fake clicks being sent.
There are other ways to scam mobile ads. But it is important to know that scammers are constantly improving their technology as the capabilities of smartphones expand.
And here is what to do to avoid losses from fraud with mobile advertising, we will tell a little lower. For now, here are some impressive numbers.
Monetary losses from mobile ad fraud
Global mobile ad scams began in 2018. It was then that the largest case of fraud was recorded, when the losses from it exceeded $10 million for Google and its partners. On average, scammers earn up to $75 million annually from advertising on the phone, and this figure is constantly growing.
How to avoid losses from mobile advertising fraud
Advertiser Tips
Be aware of possible fraudulent schemes and activities, constantly study and monitor the methods used by fraudsters. Here, as nowhere else, the principle of “forewarned is forearmed” works.
If there is even the slightest suspicion of using a fraudulent scheme, be sure to report this to the CPA network or the owners of the online platform through which you are promoting your product.
A ban as a tool for “educating” an unscrupulous partner should be applied immediately and by default, and ideally, you need to bring the case to trial and charge the guilty party with reimbursement of expenses and compensation for losses from fraudulent activities.
Analyze statistics, track the quality of traffic and the quality of conversions from partners.
In order to protect yourself from financial losses and court procedures related to fraud, prioritize security at the stage of planning the promotion of your offers.
Carefully choose the sites and applications where you intend to place ads.
Tips for partners
Use honest methods when working with advertisers. We understand that it is useless to convince fraudsters that their actions are unethical, but we believe that most partners are honest and conscientious people.
User Tips
If you do not want to receive any malware used in fraudulent schemes on your smartphone, you need to install applications only from trusted sources.
Instead of a conclusion
New forms of fraud will emerge as technology advances. This applies not only to mobile advertising.
The common task of all conscientious market participants is to try to minimize the negative consequences of fraudulent activities. Will it be possible to do this in 2022?
It depends on how all stakeholders will work together to solve this problem, and how quickly they will share effective methods to combat fraud in mobile advertising with each other.
