Diagnose ad fraud under the hood with a free Attribution Fraud Assessment tool brought to you by the MMA and powered by Kochava.
The many faces of ad fraud have wreaked havoc on the digital marketing industry with bad actors stealing ad spend wherever possible. Industry experts believe that as much as 50% of the signal for purposes of attribution is fraudulent in some way or another. To combat this, Kochava has partnered with MMA Global to offer a free attribution fraud assessment tool highlighting the primary forms of fraud in a marketer’s ad campaigns.
Fraudulent activity frequently hides in plain sight behind seemingly successful campaign outcomes. Fraudsters have become adept at manufacturing the data that marketers want to see, making it difficult to discern from what is real. Within Kochava alone, we still see approximately 8% fraudulent installs across the traffic we process even after a litany of anti-fraud filters. Without any in place, nearly 50% of traffic would be fraudulent (Source: Flattening the Fraud Curve livestream).
Ad fraud prevention made simple
The industry’s reliance on last-click attribution, focus on low cost per install and/or cost per action, and quest for a broad user base have made itself vulnerable to opportunists. That said, exposing fraud not only protects ad spend, it’s an essential part of running efficient and transparent campaigns.
As complicated as the tactics may get, preventive measures often boil down to common sense. If, for example, your paid media yields the same or better-quality installs than your organic ones, something is likely amiss. Other red flags include having a disproportionate clicks-to-install ratio (eg, 10,000:1), not reporting impressions or reporting them as clicks, and low-quality installs.
So, what do you do? In spite of the fraud mitigation tools on the market, not all are created equal. For instance, a demand-side publisher (DSP) working with Kochava suspected fraud from several publishers after seeing high click-to-install ratios and abnormal time-to-install outliers on certain sites. However, the DSP could not prove any wrongdoing with the client’s other mobile measurement provider. This led them to request a fraud audit from Kochava which showed several of the client’s ad partners were stealing conversions. The DSP used the audit as evidence to receive make-goods and re-evaluate their ad partners.
So, what’s your ad fraud score?
Don’t assume that all campaign data is valid—you need sophisticated anti-fraud tools in place to mitigate fraud as much as possible. Use the attribution fraud assessment tool to see what areas need improvement so you have the most accurate data. With it, you’ll get an initial estimate of the amount of attribution fraud based on an aggregated make-up of your advertising. It’s a start in enabling you to take action in decreasing fraud and getting a better return on your marketing spend.
To learn more about how Kochava tackles fraud, or for more information about the free attribution fraud assessment tool, click here, and see how we can help.
