You have noticed a gap in the market, developed an app for that gap and provided the users a solution, when everything was ready you launched the app and started advertising. Everything is going smoothly right, the numbers are great. But wait, the results you see in ad analytics don’t seem right. This might be the result of mobile ad fraud.
Mobile ad fraud can be in the form of click spamming, clck injection, SDK spoofing, invalid traffic and so much more. These types of mobile ad frauds have one thing in common they are tools to overcharge your advertising activity to increase your costs. And since the data they provide is not coming from real users, they distort your findings and may cause incorrect analysis.
Don’t worry, mobile ad fraud detection is not hard anymore. You just have to knıw what you’re up against and be ready to face special challenges. Here are ways to detect and prevent mobile ad fraud.
Check the relevant metrics. Some metrics help you identify mobile ad fraud, one of them is time to install. Even though the app’s size and internet speed is important, usually an app’s download time is around 30 seconds. If download time is 10 seconds or less, it can be shown as an indicator of mobile ad fraud. Clicks to install time is another metric you can monitor. This shows the time between the first click to the first time the app opened. If the number is too low, it can be an indication of SDK spoofing, if it’s too high it can be the reault of click spamming.
Once you detect the fraud, blacklist the IP or publisher. After you identify the fraudster, add them to your backlist to avoid falling for that again. Also, provide this information to the source, the ad network you used so that they can do something to prevent it too. Some of the times the networks don’t know they’re being used.
Develop an industry-wide publisher blacklist. If you alone can identify fraudsters, think about what you can do with a whole group. If you can create a blacklist everyone can access and contribute, the joint forces will help you achieve more honest results. Of course maintaining the list’s integrity is another challenge.
Learn the fraud types. This should be a must for detecting and fighting the mobile ad fraud. If you don’t know the enemy how can you fight with it? So, learn the types of mobile ad fraud. After that, it will be easier to find discrepancies in the analytics.