With mobile expected to account for 50% of global internet ad spending by 2021, Adjust, the leader in mobile measurement, fraud prevention and cybersecurity, built up capabilities in 2019 to simplify marketing and battle ad fraud, helping mobile advertisers protect their budgets and maximize ROI.

Sustainable growth and global expansion

Adjust has seen substantial growth in 2019. Profitable since 2015, the company raised nearly $230 million — one of Europe’s largest funding rounds this year — to fuel its expansion in Southeast Asia, Japan, Israel and the Middle East. This includes the recent opening of offices in Tel Aviv and Bengaluru.

Adjust will also use the capital to develop its product suite, with the ultimate goal of providing marketers with a single platform for all their needs.

“Increasingly, brands are taking a mobile-centric strategy — defined by data, delivered by apps and enabled by multiple touchpoints,” said Christian Henschel, co-founder and CEO at Adjust. “It’s an exciting dynamic that we are directing as we pursue our ambition of becoming the industry’s definitive growth engine.”

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In 2019, Adjust made significant progress to make marketing simpler, smarter and more secure, including:

• Reducing repetitive workflows through automation: As a further step in its strategy to simplify multi-channel campaign management, Adjust completed the acquisition of data aggregation platform Acquired.io.
• Taking action to combat in-app bot attacks: Bots are programmed to carry out in-app events, and because they mimic human behavior, this type of fraud has become one of the hardest to fight. In January, Adjust acquired award-winning cybersecurity start-up Unbotify, which uses machine learning to detect bots in real-time.
• Cementing its investment in Japan: Japan consistently ranks as one of the big spenders of the app economy, and accounted for 26% of APAC’s mobile revenues in 2018. Adjust cemented its investment in Japan by forming strategic partnerships with Japanese marketing agencies CyberZ and Adways in 2019, acquiring their respective attribution tools: Force Operation X (F.O.X) and PartyTrack.

The company also boosted headcount to 400 globally, hiring over 170 employees in the last year. Additionally, Adjust tracked 12,000 new apps, including Fandango, TomTom, Voi, Standard Chartered and Weight Watchers.

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Ad fraud remains an ever-present threat on the mobile industry

Undermining the mobile industry’s growth is the ever-present threat of ad fraud. With fraud set to claim an estimated $42 billion of ad dollars in 2019, tackling the issue has been a key priority for Adjust since it launched the first mobile fraud prevention tools in the market in 2016.

This year, the global tech company rejected nearly 200 million fraudulent app installs, saving its clients a total of $450 million in ad spend and allowing them to reinvest it in channels that deliver real value. By continuing to adapt its product to fight the latest types of mobile ad fraud, Adjust helps marketers keep their data clean.

“Fraud prevention is a critical challenge that is growing in importance for many of the 30,000 apps we work with around the world,” said Paul H. Müller, co-founder and CTO of Adjust. “Going into 2020, our mission remains the same: to help keep the ecosystem honest and open through education and collaboration.”

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