#mobileadfraudpreventiontools

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 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 the install level is 57% which rapidly increases to 70% on Android devices.  

Every performance marketer running a user acquisition campaign has the same goal – to increase the number of app installs and lower CPI. But often, the post-install metrics don’t match what campaign dashboards show.

Despite high marketing spends, performance looks inflated and unpredictable. The numbers eventually stop making sense due to low engagement and poor retention. And this usually means one thing: you’re acquiring installs, but not real users.

This gap between installs and engagement clearly indicates mobile ad fraud – deceptive tactics used to manipulate mobile advertising campaigns and post-install metrics. A threat that eats into budgets even before marketers notice.

That is why, while chasing installs, it is also important for marketers to ensure those installs are not the work of bots, click farms, or devices mimicking real behaviour, but real active users