With the growing trends of mobile advertising, fraudsters are finding new ways to sneak into the digital ad ecosystem and loot the advertiser’s money. One of the known frauds in the mobile advertising segment is Click Injection. According to Statista, followed by SDK spoofing, the click injection cases have increased up to 27% worldwide in 2018.
And with the increasing cases, fraudsters are making money while the advertisers are losing their ad spending on ineffective campaigns. Apart from the revenue loss, the click injection fraud also leaves a big impact on the brand in terms of credibility.
But before we move forward, the foremost thing is to understand the meaning of click injection.
What is Click Injection?
This is a sophisticated form of click-spamming that is majorly related to Android devices. According to Statista, in 2021 the install fraud rate was found up to 12% in Android devices whereas in Apple IOS it was 7%.
Click injection is like a hidden spy camera installed by fraudsters. When a user downloads an app that is affected by the “install broadcasts”, fraudsters can detect when any other app is downloaded. Further, it triggers a click before the installation process completes. As a result, the fraudster receives the credit for the completed app installs. Along with this, the act also results in poaching of organic installs that were driven by genuine advertising.
This fraud impacts both the revenue and efficiency of the campaign run by the advertiser. Here are a few instances of how click injection impacts a brand.
Impact of Click Injection on Brands
Draining Advertising Budget
Though the ad engagement is fake, the advertiser remains under the impression that the received “ad click” is genuine and eventually leads to the payout at CPI to the affiliate network or the publisher. This leads to a loss in the advertising budget which can be instead used to reach genuine users.
Stealing Real Conversions
Beyond the loss of the advertising budget, the click injection also costs the advertiser the conversions expected from the campaign. When a user clicks on an injected ad, the fake action on the ad will be attributed. This further leads to poaching of organic conversion and unknowingly the advertisers continue to invest in an ineffective campaign.
Manipulated Analytics
If we look at the bigger picture, apart from the revenue loss, the brand has compromised data due to click-injection fraud. For instance, when an advertiser sees that their paid campaign is attracting traffic, they will most likely spend more to optimize the ROI. However, due to the manipulated results, the damage becomes two-fold. First, the advertiser is investing more in ads, and secondly, they are ignoring the possible channels which will bring real traffic.
How To Protect Your Brand from Click Injection Fraud
Data Analysis
The Average Click Install Time (CTIT) is an important factor to understand and detect click injection fraud in ad campaigns. If the installs are fraud-proof, then the data will be most likely be in the range of an average CTIT. On the other hand, if the installs are fraudulent then there will be a visible peak in the number of installations during the time range of CTIT.
However, there is a loophole in this process. Some of the apps are also capable to manipulate the data pattern by setting a time range after which the app opens.
Choose A Reliable Marketing Partner
When choosing a marketing partner ensure to do a deep analysis of their previous work and expertise. If anyone claims to provide an ‘n’ number of app installs at a surprisingly low price, then it is highly likely to be fraudulent installs. Even though the rates may differ for different industries, the delivery of genuine installs by ethical methods comes at a high price.
Fraud Detection Solution
Instead of beating around the bush, it is better to focus and eliminate the bug first. In this case, despite taking all the precautions it is hard to say that your campaign will be protected from click injection ad fraud. Thus, it is better to switch to a holistic ad-fraud elimination solution like mFilterIt.
Our ad-fraud elimination suite helps advertisers run digital campaigns and avoid becoming a victim of app fraud. With the advanced solutions provided throughout the customer journey, the advertisers can rest be assured to get engagement from real humans and eliminate bots from their ad campaigns. With the help of high-tech and future-driven AI and ML techniques, we ensure to provide the best solutions for the fraud-free growth of your business.
Conclusion
Even though the click injection fraud generates manipulated install numbers, the CPI and other associated events are real. This makes it very hard for the advertiser to differentiate between a real and fraudulent lead. The earlier the advertiser decides to take the right action to prevent and eliminate ad fraud from their campaigns, the sooner they will be able to divert their revenue spend on effective campaigns.
And to take quick action, the mFilterIt ad traffic validation solution will be your helping hand to eliminate click injection fraud from your mobile advertising campaigns.
