Mobile Ad Fraud || 2022 Predictions

Like 2020, 2021 has passed, everchanging our digital marketing habits, expectations, and income approaches. With COVID forcing us to empty streets and offices made us see the “home dimension” in a different way with the upcoming “metaverse” via Meta and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy policy, raising the “privacy” topic to the most important, the year 2021 had a lot of surprises in its sleeve.

These sudden alterations in the digital marketing path undoubtedly left the advertisers stumped due to uncertainties in their investment budget. As new as these mediums or “centers” for advertisements be, advertisers are having second thoughts by the mobile ad fraud threat finding new and swift ways to intercept the sector.

-Key Statistics and 2022 Forecasts

Researches reported that the total cost of ad fraud in 2020 was $34 billion, and it is predicted that it will get up to $87 billion by 2022. This considerable increase would likely happen by advertisers jumping into newly emerging marketplaces without knowing the fraud probability.

The tightening laws and privacy implementations make this topic a pressing issue for big marketplaces like Facebook or Instagram or big

companies like Apple and Samsung. Unsurprisingly, the data we get from the target audience for marketing will also become more ambiguous; thus, it will be hard at first to recognize whether the user is a machine or a human.

The continuous increase in the market share of social media platforms considering all advertising mediums will make the social media platforms a much-preferred target for fraudsters in the form of mobile ad fraud. This thought can also be backed up by Zuckerberg himself saying that he is aiming to build a full-featured commerce platform across services after Facebook Marketplaces has passed its 1 Billion users count last year. So, it could be said that the marketing strategies will turn from Walled Gardens to Content Fortresses (Source: gadgets.ndtv.com)

-Ad Fraud is Here to Stay in 2022

Ad fraud has always been materialized as a thorn in the side of the mobile app market way before a new advertisement solution is created. That will presumable make ad fraud the biggest market for organized crime by 2025, reaching these jaw-dropping numbers according to the World Federation of Advertisers. (source: wfanet.org). This would make advertisers put their advertisement budget at risk when investing in new

opportunities 2022 will give us. We might say that the market will face a more careful approach, but the “jumping first to claim all” approach will be a hit.

-How to Prevent Mobile Ad Fraud in 2022

So, how do these new marketing mediums be protected from being ridden with fraud? The answer is by fighting it. The general rules of avoiding mobile ad fraud apply as always:

• Be mindful of the secureness and trustfulness of the ad marketer.
• Ask for more info and seek any discrepancies in the given data.
• Don’t cease to act even after you find fraud going on on your ad budget.

Seeking professional help would also save you time getting accustomed to new trends if things get suspicious but too complicated.

-The Bright Side

These new advertisement spaces will naturally have fraudsters inside, but they are also new in those games. This means they did not have enough to perfect their fraudulent activity. With sure footing and treading these waters carefully, it is possible to avoid being a victim of mobile ad fraud. The importance of A.I. in marketing was there but has always been overshadowed by dominant trends such as NFTs and metaverses or privacy considerations this year. However, that helped businesses recognize A.I. not as a leading tech but as an auxiliary to current tech.

-Final Thoughts on Mobile Ad Fraud in 2022

The approaches and mediums are underlining the “all-in-one” trend from Walled Gardens to Content Fortresses and super apps to mega-apps. The methods and mediums highlight the “all-in-one” trend. Privacy adds to the effect of “why buy the customer data when you can collect it.” But this also means less data returning to advertisers, and more shady work might emerge. Also, audio/visual marketing, including the current influencer marketing strategies, is also on the rise and will be backed up by the capabilities of AR/VR technologies. On top of all these, the focal point of this year was A.I.’s role in-app marketing. Automation such as perfect target recognition will come slow and might also benefit the fraudsters, but the future will not be without it for sure.

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