What is Ad Fraud?

Ad Fraud is the practice of deceiving advertisers through fake impressions, clicks, installs, or other forms of digital manipulation in order to generate revenue for the perpetrator.  There are many types and methods of advertising fraud and newer, more sophisticated techniques are being invented and implemented every year.  In recent years, it has become a sort of game of cat-and-mouse between fraudsters and ad-fraud detection companies.  The latest report by Juniper Research says that advertisers will lose an estimated value of $42 billion of ad spend due to ad fraud, therefore it has become more and more tantamount that advertisers stay ahead and arm themselves against ad fraudsters.

Most Common Types of Ad Fraud:

Click fraud happens when a user or automated script/program clicks on ads that pay on number of clicks without any interest in the actual ad.  Through click fraud, even though an ad may receive a high number of clicks, none of the clicks will lead to a sale.

Ad Stacking is when multiple ads are shown all at once, one on top of another.  This lets the perpetrator say they showed an ad to the advertiser and should be paid for the impression when, in fact, the ad was never shown.

Fake users / installs are when fraudsters use a combination of methods such as bots, malware, or click/install farms to generate a large fake audience of users to trick advertisers.   These fake users will then perform fake in-app actions such as clicks and installs.