#app fraud

Advertising platforms optimize for signals—not intent.  

In mobile marketing, the most important signal is the install. More installs usually mean a campaign is working. Platforms see this, assume success, and push more budget in the same direction.  

This is where install fraud begins.  

Fake installs are easier and cheaper to generate than real users. Fraudsters use bots, device farms, or incentivized tactics to create large volumes of installs that look genuine on the surface. Since the numbers look good, platforms assume the campaign is performing well. Budgets increase. The same sources get more spend.

If you are an app marketer, you might relate to this situation.

“You launched an app campaign, on the surface, the metrics look promising, installs are going high, and the campaign performance looks good. But something is still not adding up.

Retention rates are lower than expected. Installs are spiking at odd hours from unfamiliar geographies. Your post-install events don’t reflect real user behavior. Even after constant re-engagement efforts, ROI still falls short, and your reporting starts to lose credibility within the team.

Despite investing heavily in your app campaigns to acquire new users and retain the existing ones, you are not getting the desired results. All this is a sign of a threat — mobile ad fraud.

Mobile ad fraud has evolved far beyond the install stage. Fraudsters now exploit loopholes at every stage of the app marketing funnel.

According to a first party analysis by mFilterIt of 196 campaigns run in 2024, a significant rise was seen in ad fraud in apps at each level of the funnel, highest being at the install stage at 43%, impressions at 20%, clicks at 17%, and events at 35%.

Moreover, app marketers relying on MMPs for fraud detection often fall short in identifying sophisticated and evolving forms of mobile ad fraud across the funnel.

App Fraud Protection in India , UAE , Saudi Arabia , USA.

Imagine that you onboard affiliates to market your newly launched app. They commit performance, and you start seeing thousands of new installs overnight. You’re at peace that you’re getting a good return out of your marketing investments.

But within a few days, the users start uninstalling your app, engagement drops to near zero and you’re at the same spot where you were on Day 1. Are you thinking what went wrong?

The answer could lie in Incent walls.

A deceptive method used by affiliates to deceive advertisers into thinking their app campaigns are performing. Here users install apps only to earn rewards, not because they genuinely care about the app itself. While this tactic might appear to boost performance metrics, it creates a dangerous illusion of success, leaving advertisers with inflated numbers but little real value.

In this blog, we’ll uncover the risks of incent fraud, how fraudsters manipulate soft KPIs using incentivized traffic, and, most importantly, how advertisers can protect themselves from wasted budgets and misleading campaign results.

Incent Fraud in India, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia.

Mobile apps are big business and the same is apparent through the significant advertising budgets dedicated to increasing app installs. In 2022 alone, advertisers spent more than $18 billion on advertising their apps to drive more installs. This obviously makes the app install advertising business lucrative.

Unfortunately, this lure also attracts bad actors and frauds. That’s perhaps why, today, app install fraud is one of the most common forms of ad fraud in the online realm. According to our analysis, we have found that on IOS, the average fraud at installs level is 57% which rapidly increases to 70% on Android devices.

The Hidden Tactics Behind Install Fraud

While it may seem like app install fraud is a single threat, the reality is much more complex. Fraudsters utilise a number of simple and complex methods to fake installs and steal from advertisers’ budgets. Here’s a quick overview of the most common methods employed by app install fraudsters:

Click Injection: This is one of the most sophisticated forms of app install fraud. To execute this, fraudsters publish an app that “listens” for app download broadcasts. Using this information, they are able to “inject” a click right before an app install is completed. This allows fraudsters to claim the credit for the app install despite not contributing anything to making it happen.

Click Spamming: Click spamming is usually employed to target campaigns where advertisers are paying for clicks on their ads. As the name suggests, fraudsters generate a large number of fake clicks, usually using bots, and claim the rewards. However, the advertiser unfortunately ends up paying for clicks that will not result in any genuine interest or installs of their application.

Mobile apps are big business and the same is apparent through the significant advertising budgets dedicated to increasing app installs. In 2022 alone, advertisers spent more than $18 billion on advertising their apps to drive more installs. This obviously makes the app install advertising business lucrative.

Unfortunately, this lure also attracts bad actors and frauds. That’s perhaps why, today, app install fraud is one of the most common forms of ad fraud in the online realm. According to our analysis, we have found that on IOS, the average fraud at installs level is 57% which rapidly increases to 70% on Android devices.

Fraudsters use fake app installs to steal from advertising budgets. The financial impact of this, while significant, is only a small part of all the trouble caused for the advertisers as a result of these activities. What’s more troublesome is that fraudsters are evolving their methods and employing sophisticated methods to carry out their fraudulent activities.