#digitaladfraud

In the fast-changing world of digital marketing, the United States is the leading country in the rapid growth of advertising field. But as the saying goes every coin has two faces, this development is followed by numerous ad frauds. Ad fraud not only depletes budgets for campaigns but also undermines the sincerity and success rate of online marketing activities.  

This blog post is about how the US has witnessed an increasing rise in ad fraud, why advertisers should be concerned about it, and possible mechanisms that can be used to shield advertising campaign budgets from further decline caused by this widely spread problems. 

Click farms are wreaking havoc in the digital world, duping innocent marketers and forcing vulnerable farmers to work in poor conditions. Thanks to human interference, click farms outsmart even the most sophisticated bot detection solutions. These farms could be why you cannot meet your goals despite hitting your KPIs.

Understanding Click Farms

Managed by human-run fraud organizations, click farms exploit large numbers of low-wage workers from developing countries. The job of these workers demands clicking not on a few but thousands of online paid ads, social media posts, or PPC ads.

Workers in click farms click on ads without intending to convert and add empty impressions to the metrics. The fraudsters often go as far as visiting the sites, filling out the form, authorizing application installations, or making a (fake) purchase.

Erosion of trust in digital advertising platforms

Paid digital advertising is often a solution businesses opt for to increase their sales. However, with the increasing number of ad fraud techniques and invalid click impressions, advertisers’ faith in these practices is shaken.

This lack of trust adversely affects ad spend and brand marketing tactics. Building a mutually beneficial relationship among advertisers and platforms becomes a real challenge, distorting the broader digital advertising ecosystem.

India has witnessed an exponential rise in smartphone usage, internet penetration, which has furthered the growth of the Indian Digital Advertising ecosystem. Studies estimate that there were 624 million Internet users in India by January 2021 and the number of mobile connections was equivalent to 79% of the total population (1.39 billion is the current population).

The growth in internet adoption, smartphone usage, and the ongoing Covid19 pandemic has impelled businesses to leverage digital marketing to reach their customers directly on their mobile devices.

This growth, however, comes with its own set of challenges as the internet has become a playground for fraudsters MMA India Report states that 62% of all digital ad fraud occurs on mobile advertising, the most dominant type of digital advertising in India. Increased mobile adoption opens Pandora’s box of opportunities for digital criminals. Thus, one of the many reasons to develop an understanding of the different types of mobile ad fraud and how to detect them across industries.

The ever-evolving ecosystem of mobile devices allows advertisers to deploy ads in varied formats. This provides the fraudsters with a number of ways in which they can trick their victims: from fake installs to attribution manipulation.