Wherever there is money, there are bad actors… And mobile advertising is no exception. With an estimated loss of $1.3 billion annually to mobile fraud, according to the IAB, and up to $350 million to mobile app install and engagement fraud, marketers must draw their swords and fight back. To ensure the best possible outcome, make sure to read the following excerpt from our Mobile Ad Fraud: What You Need to Know guide.
1) Prevent fraud before it taints your data
Efficient prevention is key. Ensuring fraud does not pollute your dashboard is of the utmost importance. The main prevention methods include:
- Active IP, user agent and device ID filtering. Algorithms actively monitor mobile ad interactions to automatically verify legitimate activity and catalog suspect or mismatched IP addresses, user agents and device IDs
- Distribution modelling. Big data models are capable of detecting anomalies such as mean-time-to-install (MTTI), geographic distribution, click volume by IP address and device ID, user agent versus IP benchmarks and more. As with any machine learning, scale of data is extremely important so the larger your provider’s scale, the more data an engine can train on to deliver effective results.
- Device ranking. Important as they are, active IP filtering and distribution modeling are usually not enough: IPs can easily be changed while distribution models are slow to adopt and can be manipulated by fraudsters to match an expected trend. That’s why a third critical layer of defense fights fraud at the source – the device level. When an anti-fraud mechanism draws its signals and learnings from a massive, cross-app database, the decision on whether to label an install/event as fraudulent is based on a far wider data set.
- Install and in-app receipt validation. By connecting to the app store’s servers to validate the legitimacy of an install or in-app purchase, illegitimate activity can be filtered out before it inflicts any damage.
Ultimately, the most effective fraud protection systems will use a variety of signals to create big data and machine-learning powered insights across publishers. As such, additional layers of protection on top of rule-based and modeling components are important to enhance effectiveness.
2) Take notice: Fraud by GEO varies significantly!
Our recent study has shown that in general fraudsters follow the money trail. As such, countries with the highest payouts are most targeted by bad actors (i.e. Germany, Australia, US, UK, and China).
3) Keep your eye on the ball!
Fraud can appear in different forms and shapes. Understanding what type of warning signs to look out for is crucial to help minimize fraud. The following examples will help you open your eyes to potential threats:
- IP-related
– Large number of clicks / installs / unique identifiers from the same IP
– Different IP locations between the ad click and the install / first launch
- Consistency/patterns
– Click / install every 20 seconds
– Players / users from a specific source always drop off at the exact same point in a game / app (e.g. before a game tutorial, before a registration)
– Large number of installs from the same device brand / model
- Device ID-related
– Different identifiers for the same device
– Multiple IDFAs for a single IDFV (identifier for a vendor)
– IDFA / Google Advertising ID are not in uppercase or lowercase, as they should be (respectively)
– Device ID numbers hold a consistent pattern
- Performance-related
– Sharp increase in install volume, a stark decline in day 1 retention
– Premium traffic performing like low quality traffic
– Suspiciously low pricing
– Extremely low conversion rates
– Extremely high uninstall rates
– Mismatches
– App versions different than versions available at the store
– Platform mismatches between ad click and install
– Geographic mismatches between ad click and install
- Other issues
– Appearance of GEOs not included in targeting criteria
– For in app events – if the value of the transaction does not exist in the app
– Device IDs increase at the same pattern
– Large volume of installs without data on carrier / city / country
For more ways to fight back against bad actors polluting mobile advertising, download our comprehensive anti-fraud guide today!
