Ad fraud – just the sound of this super sexy term* has probably already brought goosebumps to your skin. As much as ad fraud is a provactive term, I’m going to distill the reasons why I think ad fraud protection is … well, fun! Heck, even addictive.
*Please note, as it is very difficult to discern tone from an article, I am compelled to mention, any mentions to ad fraud being an arousing term are not only sarcastic but also not the view of Interceptd.
So Bad, Yet So Good
Who knew watching something so bad, being stopped IRL could feel so good. There is something so gratifying about seeing the hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, and eventually, the millions of fraudulent clicks and installs being blocked. When I see that tiny little number on my dashboard rising, I think about all of those rich bastards profiting from the marketing industry. I imagine them sipping some kind of premium liquor from one of those fancy crystal glasses, bring it up to their lips and taking a loud sippy-slurp. The ice-cubes clash against their lips and glass. They swallow against the backdrop of their ‘grass-is-greener’ lawn, that curves around their swimming pool. I have yet to see the inside of an ad fraudster’s house or their daily lives, however, this is what I imagine.
And when that ticker goes up, showing the number of fraudulent installs that were stopped, I imagine that person’s drink turning to pure sour lemon, and them promptly spitting the sour juice out in surprise. Too far?
As our VP of Sales, Jennifer Burrington said, at her presentation at App Growth Summit in London, 2019, “The truth is I’m incredibly passionate about finding a way to mitigate ad fraud because I don’t like it when bad-guys win. And right now the bad guys are making a lot of money. I would rather that money be pumped back into this industry so that we all can benefit from it and find really good, high-quality users” I understand it is a really radical idea, to want to stop many people siphoning millions of dollars from you, your manager, your company and your investor’s ad spend. However, call me crazy, but I’m pretty ardent on stopping this wasted spend too, and with every single install, sub-publisher click and event that was blocked, flagged or blacklisted, a little piece of me smiles on the inside!
Money Money Money, Money!
This is an example of the kind of addictive stats you can see, in real-time. Just imagine all the clicks and refreshes!
As a child of a single-parent, and somebody who grew up with numerous ‘tight-ass’ friends, I cannot understand how other’s heart does not skip a beat at the chance of saving a few bucks. Heck, I still remember the day my friend and I found $20 on the ground – and she kept it! (meaning, even though I did not keep the money, the reward of finding $20 innocently on the ground was momentous enough that I remember it to this day). Thus, I propose to you, that being able to watch in real-time, the dollars and cents increase, as a part of our estimates savings feature, is … exciting!
I personally feel empowered, to be able to use a tool, and immediately get an ROI of that service. You can walk into that monthly or weekly round-up with confidence, that your ROI on our ad fraud protection service, is merely a click away, and updates in real-time.
So Addictive
Now, the technical definition of addiction is the tendency or compulsion towards a particular thing(s) or behavior (s) that causes negative impacts on one’s life. With this definition, it is easy to see how many essential and parts of modern life, can potentially be viewed as an ‘addiction’ *cough, mobile phone use!* In fact, seemingly ‘innocent’ substances, such as caffeine, have been added into the DSM manual V (the official guide used globally by health practitioners), in the form of ‘caffeine withdrawal’
With this definition, it is impossible to claim that our dashboard is ‘addictive’, as the effects are only positive, however, I am merely referencing the feeling of compulsion and attraction that is synonymous with a non-serious idea and playful idea addition. In fact, I am suggesting there is something tantalizingly tempting about watching stats climb IRL. Whether it be your estimated saving, the number of clean installs, the number of blocked clicks, or your number of flagged events, it is all so … fun to watch. I know I have this same inclination, to watch the stats on Google Analytics, hoping for an increase in referral traffic after a content collaboration, or hitting refresh on my emails, waiting for that all-important reply. Whatever the vice, it is there, and it feels good to indulge it (in healthy amounts, of course).
Contemplations on Addiction and Ad Fraud
The inspiration for this article came from a well-put-together YouTube video, ‘How Fortnite TRICKS Your Brain|The SCIENCE of … Fortnight Battle Royal’. This video dug-deep on the genius game design of Fortnite, and how Epic Games perfectly leverage existing pathways and dispositions of their gamers. Whilst we certainly have not designed our ad fraud protection tool to be addictive, we have designed it to perfectly fit in the pocket of marketers, advertiser’s and manager’s lives. We want ad fraud protection to be a seamless integration in their day-to-day duties. Thus, it is no surprise that the end result is somewhat fun and compelling user-experience. Here are specifically the features, we think will get the dopamine receptors in your brain to light up:
Effective ROAS, and campaign summary reports. There is something thrilling about knowing you’re one of the few competitors in the market that has access to clean, non-corrupted data. With our Effective ROAS and campaign summary reports, you get data on your actual downloads, clicks and events. Your true conversion metrics, and also, your organic installs will not be mistakingly attributed to paid installs, thus potentially decreasing your CPI.
Estimates Savings is updated in real-time. This means, anytime at any day, you can see exactly how much money Interceptd has saved you and your company.
Ad fraud protection live. Watch live, the number of installs, clicks and events that are clean, flagged and blocked with our real-time protection. No need to wait to the end of the month, or week for these stats.
The Interceptd dashboard is your hub for ad fraud protection and CPA, CPM and CPI campaign tracking. As such, we have a lot of excellent features to help marketers, advertisers and managers perform their best. However, the ones listed above are simply my top picks, the for features I think, you’re going to love!
