Online advertising is a multi-billion-dollar industry. It is estimated that digital ads will be responsible for more than half—52%—of global ad spend in 2021, according to a new forecast from analytics firm, Zenith. That’s up from 47% this year and 44% in 2018. We estimate that 31% of all ad traffic for the E-commerce category is fraudulent (2019 Q1 Mobile Ad Fraud Report). Thus, E-Commerce is now the category estimated to waste the most amount of money on ad fraud. This is up from shopping’s second-ranked position in 2018 (please see report). What does this mean for E-commerce? Firstly, let’s understand this fraudulent activity that may threaten your advertising ROAS.
What Is Mobile Ad Fraud?
Quite simply, mobile ad fraud is disingenuous ad traffic or installs. Traffic that often goes unnoticed and consumes ad budget. Whether it be through fraudulent clicks, installs or even in-app-activity – fraudulent mobile traffic is fake traffic. With numerous online advertising platforms and few businesses and tools focusing on detecting and blocking fraudulent ad traffic, sophisticated (and not sophisticated) fraudulent operations have easily taken advantage of this billion-dollar industry.
How Does This Affect E-commerce?
Fraudulent ad traffic affects all categories. However, e-commerce was identified as the category most fraudulent-vulnerable. Such e-commerce apps on Google Play include Amazon, eBay, Wish, AliExpress, Etsy, Gumtree and Boohoo.com to name a few, in this mammoth category. Our reports estimate that an average of 31.5% of all ad traffic in the shopping or e-commerce category is fraudulent.
Most Common Types of Ad Fraud
Although all fraudulent mobile traffic is simply disingenuous and fake activity – there are however, numerous forms and methods. Fraudulent ad traffic is becoming increasingly sophisticated, therefore, more difficult to detect. Thus, understanding the different potential forms is vital to detection and elimination. The most common forms of fraudulent ad traffic have been identified by The Interceptd study: 2019 Q1 Mobile Ad Fraud Report, and are device farms (24%), click spamming (21%) and click injection (17%).
Reports from Interceptd’s “2019 Q1 Mobile Ad Fraud Report” shows that shopping or “E-commerce” is now the sector which is the most vulnerable to ad fraud, with 31% of ad traffic being fraudulent.
Quality Shoppers IN, Fake Shoppers OUT
If you’re wondering, how you are unaware of this common illegal practice – you are not alone! Awareness of ad fraud is alarmingly low. However, Interceptd is armed with knowledge and experience. Through Interceptd’s proprietary technology, you can be confident that fraudulent installs are out and high-quality users are in. This means you can be confident that your e-commerce ad spend will be put towards acquiring the installs, clicks, and customers you pay for, and not fraudulent ones, you didn’t know existed.
Would you like to see how simple it is to prevent fraud and protect your company ROAS and ROIs? Get started by clicking here.
