Digital ad fraud is no new thing; however, these days, it has become a larger issue. You might think that any digital ad hasn’t impacted you directly, or if it did, it has been a tad fraction of your ad expenses. Believe it or not, this rampant issue has affected every one of us, especially advertisers and publishers. However, things are changing, and people are paying attention to these frauds and considering ways to prevent falling into such traps.

Here, we shall walk you through the concept of digital advertisement fraud, how it is detected, and ways to respond to it while preventing it from affecting your online or digital marketing campaigns. Let’s go through it all. Read on!

Detecting Ad Fraud

While you review the performance of your digital marketing campaign, ensure that you watch for these common signs as these symptoms indicate that some form of ad fraud is happening.

1. No conversions:

Zero or poor engagement activity is a sign of fraud.

2. Immensely poor user engagement:

Unusually high bounce rates, few pages per visit, short session lengths, etc., indicate that some kind of fraud is happening. So, you better watch out for that!

3. The dubious site lists:

In case you see a massive list of suspicious sites in your reports with different domains and pages recorded, check those URLs to navigate those URLs to know if any of them are just used as fronts for fraudsters or don’t exist.

4. High CTRs:

If you get a CTR beyond the usual or expected rate anytime, you must see it is an indicator of some sort of fraudulent activity happening to devastate your digital marketing campaign.

5. IP Addresses from Data Centers:

In case you are discovering visitors coming from hosted servers, it might be probable that a traffic fraud campaign is being implemented against your digital marketing campaigns. Here, scammers mimic visitors to raise your numbers.

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Preventing ad fraud

There are many ways to secure your marketing budget from advertisement fraud. Yes, they do add complexity and cost to the campaigns, but you will know it’s worth it! Each technique here serves a unique purpose, and selecting only one or the other strategy may not work for you when it comes to protection.

1. Instead of clicks, emphasize conversions:

By concentrating on reporting and gauging clicks, you will more easily fall prey to fraudsters and frauds. That’s because clicks are easier to fake compared to conversions. So, focus on conversions specifically.

2. Prefer working with trusted DSPs only:

Selecting reliable, reputable, and completely vetted DSPs is one of the remarkable ways to protect your campaign against scams. That’s because these platforms are far less likely to be compromised by deceptive behavior or engagement. While choosing a DSP, look for one that promises to offer protection against fraud. Certain DSPs even provide refunds for fraudulent activities.

3. Conduct manual reviews:

It’s always a cool and appropriate idea to utilize automated software solutions to backtrack and prevent fraud; however, relying on these tools completely may put you at risk of being negatively affected by fraudulent behavior.

4. License anti-click-fraud software:

Anti-click-fraud software is usually integrated into different PPC accounts and Google Ads by including tracking codes to landing pages in the SEM setups, thus, enabling you to spontaneously spot:

1. Bots
2. Competitors clicking ads
3. Scripts
4. Manual click fraud

Various systems deliver varying functionalities and extent of support, so you simply need to assess the tool’s features to see what works best for you.

5. Capitalize on big data to navigate outliers:

Inspection the performance of a campaign manually is one of the ideal ways to recognize the potential outliers that indicate that you have fallen into a scam. You may also use an automated data analysis setup to flag outliers and watch for things like:

1. Unusually low engagement
2. Quirky patterns in data
3. Immensely high CTRs
4. Substantial traffic spikes

If you see any substantial outliers in the data, then know that the time has come to perform a manual assessment and investigate what triggered it.

6. Need Ads.txt:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau created ads.txt to aid in enhancing transparency for programmatic advertising. This file entails information about ADS (authorized digital sellers) who is permitted to handle advertisement inventory for the website. Thus, it renders it more difficult to commit fraud on these sites. Using ads.txt helps figure out who you need to touch base with when wanting to buy inventory on the site. This will prevent you from getting fleeced.

7. Finally, hire third-party ad management or ad verification company:

Advertisement fraud has become such rife in digital advertising that an industry has sprung up to manage and protect campaigns from their influence. They rely on a series of platforms, software, tools, and technologies to help prevent abuse of your marketing campaign. You can choose to get these services to completely protect your digital ad efforts.

So, in a nutshell,

You have got to spend money to make more money; this adage holds here as well. To protect the campaigns you created to rake up your revenue; you need to secure them from digital ad frauds. And there are various ways to do that, which we discussed above. Play safe and grow high!

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