Expert Opinion

In this competitive world, to maintain their brand image and ensure customer satisfaction, brands must comprehend the customer mindset and the most effective way to do it is through analyzing ratings and reviews. This helps the brands understand the perception of the customers, acknowledging the problems in advance and making smart choices to improve beforehand.  Why do brands need to monitor ratings and reviews?  The tracking of customer ratings and reviews is very important for Brands for many reasons.  Keyword Sentiment theme    Ratings and reviews reveal customer’s sentiments and mindset, aiding keyword sentiment theme analysis. Brands spot frequent topics and feelings in customer comments and thus get ideas and strategies to shape marketing and communication to meet customer needs.  A gap in product performance   There is often a gap between customer expectations and the actual performance of the product. These reviews, when closely monitored, can make brands aware of specific problems that customers face, for example, faulty design or quality issues as well as unmet features. By improving on these gaps in the offering, customer satisfaction and loyalty would be increased, hence creating a better product.  Share of search optimization  Ratings and reviews help the brands to remain on top in search of visibility. The chances of more consumers tracking increases with the more stars you earn. The reason behind this is that positive ratings attract more customers whereas negative reviews can damage the reputation of brands.  Sentiment analysis on customer feedback theme  Automate positive & negative detection  The computer software programs scan positive and negative reviews and stars given by customers. Sentiment analysis on customer feedback involves the use of advanced algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) techniques. This quick, easy-to-use process gives useful insights into understanding the behavioral pattern of the customer without much effort.  Trend Analysis and Brand-Wise Analysis  Sentiment analysis reveals trends and compares competitive brands over time. It helps in predicting what customers might do next, modifying their marketing plans accordingly, and staying one step ahead of competitors.  The essence of brand analysis is to allow comparison of the company’s performance with that of other firms. A company can easily identify its strengths and weaknesses by understanding how customers perceive different brands in the same industry and make strategic decisions to improve their market position.  Insights into Q&A themes  There is an element of sentiment analysis that brings out Q&A themes. This is the practice of analyzing customer reviews for frequently discussed questions and answers. Awareness of these themes will enable brands to address common customer concerns, better their offerings, and increase customer satisfaction.  Impact of Customer Feedback Analysis   Optimize product experience  The significance of customer feedback analysis in optimizing product experience is huge. Becoming sensitive to what consumers like and do not like about a given product helps brands make informed decisions about improving features, upgrading quality, and meeting customer anticipation. This leads to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, higher sales.  Insights vs competition    Customer feedback analysis provides one with an edge over the others. By comparing the competitors’ feedback with those of customers, brands can recognize where they surpass their rivals or need improvement upon. As such, these findings enable brands to take pivotal steps that set them apart from the competition.  Moreover, refining marketing and communication strategies are other ways through which organizations benefit from customers’ comments analysis. By knowing customers’ main themes of discussion and the feelings expressed by them, firms can create messages that resonate well with their target audience. Therefore, this personalization increases client involvement while it also helps build brand loyalty, eventually increasing sales.  For a brand to meet customer needs, improve its products, and maintain a positive brand image; it must be capable of monitoring and analyzing ratings as well as reviews effectively in an era where customer feedback is readily available online. Brands that want to excel in the present dynamic market cannot afford not to invest in rating and review analysis, because it is not only a strategic advantage but also a necessity.  Conclusion   Consequently, brands that hope to succeed in the present-day market competition must keep themselves ahead of customer sentiments through rating and review analysis. Ratings and reviews can provide key insight into how customers perceive a brand and identify areas in which product performance is lacking leading to data-driven decisions that could enhance their products and services.  In an era where online consumer feedback is available at the click of a button, brands that effectively oversee ratings and reviews will be better placed to understand customers’ wants, perfect their products, and maintain a good reputation. In today’s dynamic market, investment in rating and review analysis is important and a must-have for firms that want to thrive.  Get in touch to learn more about sentiment analysis.

In the US market, affiliate marketing is flourishing as businesses lean on strategies based on affiliate marketing to attract followers, and revenues by escalating their sales and creating brand awareness. But the boom in affiliate marketing also leads to complex strategies to follow and invites fake and sham activities potentials. This is the point where the need for strong affiliate monitoring procedures is required which can guarantee authenticity and adequate practices. Affiliate Marketing is expected to reach a valuation of $32.3 billion in 2024 and $48 billion by 2027.  Let’s explore how affiliate monitoring can be an effective tool for venturing into affiliate marketing and its benefits. These strategies for affiliate marketing will aid us in enhancing our sales. It also includes a relevant case study based on relevant data to support our discussions. Why do brands need Affiliate Monitoring?  Affiliate marketing is collaborating with several networks and many affiliates. Thus, the advertisers must have a system of monitoring the activities of these networks and their affiliates. It involves looking at how each affiliate promotes, raising or lowering the commission paid to an affiliate, guaranteeing brand compliance and legal conformity with large, historical data analysis/monitoring, etc. 1. Safeguarding the brand’s reputation  To establish a reputation and brand name requires a lot of hard work and time. The customers are the main contributors to this process whereas the marketing teams improve the reputation of their brand as well as aid in increasing the followers and customers to escalate sales. Some of the malicious affiliates frequently reroute users and install cookies on the computers or browsers to increase sales. 2. Complying with Government Regulations and Brand Compliance  Marketing affiliates make strategies to promote their products and services for their advertisers to use. Many countries frame policies and guidelines to protect consumers from online fraud and hackers and the brands must adhere to these regulations. 3. Preventing the Hijacking of Customers’ Journey  Once the consumer accepts the cookies while opening an app or advertisement, they provide access to malicious affiliates of their data and searches they make on their system. It allows them to use this information to divert customers to rival brands and increase their profits. In this way, they deceive both the brands and the consumers. 4. Reducing the Marketing Budget of Advertisers  Frauds involving affiliate marketing were responsible for $1.4 billion loss in ad spending.  Brands should monitor their affiliate networks to ensure that they save resources of the marketing budget on these fraudulent strategies. Rather affiliates should use it wisely to prioritize strategies to attract more traffic to their brands’ websites. Impact of Affiliate Monitoring  Fraud Prevention Affiliate monitoring plays a critical role in detecting and preventing fraud in clickbait advertising, fake leads, and unauthorized content usage for instance. Through strong monitoring systems, brands can reduce their exposure to fraudulent activities thus protecting their investments. Improved ROI  Through the data-driven insights provided by affiliate monitoring, significant improvements in ROI can be made. For example, IAB’s report indicates that e-commerce sales driven through affiliate marketing amount to 16% in the US. The brand shall also have a good opportunity of identifying effective affiliates as well as tweaking its strategy correctly depending on how it monitors the situation. Maximizing their marketing investment enables brands to focus on unique traffic sources from reliable sites that have been proven to bring results. Compliance Assurance  Apart from this, another major advantage of using an affiliate monitoring program is that it ensures compliance with industry regulations and brand guidelines. It was federal policy that ensured consumer rights were protected during the dot-com boom. For instance, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has strict rules governing advertising disclosures and consumer protection. This means all affiliates should be aware. Upgrade Your Tracking Efforts for Better Performance  The information that affiliate monitoring provides is helpful for various performance metrics. This can be seen by the available data from PMA, which shows that on average, it has a 1% conversion rate in affiliate marketing. Conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and AOV (average order values) are some of the metrics that these monitoring tools can track in real time. Such insights help brands in making data-driven decisions as well as constant optimization of their affiliate programs to enhance their performance. What brands should do to optimize Affiliate campaigns?  Affiliate marketing has gained popularity as a means for firms to advertise their products or services and make profits. However, all affiliate campaigns are not successful, and many businesses find it difficult to optimize their campaigns to maximize returns on investments. Be Clear About Your Guidelines The success of an affiliate program depends on clear and comprehensive guidelines. CJ Affiliate’s survey reveals that 73% of publishers prefer working with brands that offer guidelines that are clear and transparent. Such guidelines should tackle how ads are promoted, copyright concerns, and compliance requirements to ensure the brand’s values and goals are respected by affiliate marketers. Employ Sophisticated Monitoring Tools  Modern tracking tools are essential in automating the tracking process. Tools such as Impact, Tune, etc. have features that include fraud prevention strategies, and detailed strategies among others. It not only reduces manual work but also increases accuracy hence allowing the brands to focus on building growth strategies. Monitor Your Affiliates Regularly  Regular performance reviews help in identifying both top-performing affiliates and poor performers. According to an eMarketer report 81% of marketers believe that Affiliate marketing is a key driver of customer acquisition. Brands can provide additional incentives to their best affiliates while resolving issues and boosting underperforming ones thus increasing overall effectiveness. Keep Up with Market Dynamics  Keeping pace with emerging trends and new processes in affiliate marketing is imperative. The study done by Statista reveals that there are prospects of developing at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 10% in the industry by 2025. That shows how important it is to stay informed about industry changes so that strategies can be adapted and take note of any fresh opportunities. Conclusion  Affiliate monitoring not only

The digital ecosystem has its vulnerability and is battling with threats in a manner never seen before, particularly in the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sectors. As banking systems have moved online, so has fraud, with fraudsters developing their digital methods of stealing customers’ identities and gaining access to their accounts. There comes a need for risk monitoring mechanisms that can create a safer digital ecosystem for both banks and their customers. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reported over 13,000 bank fraud cases across India, with a total value of ₹302 billion. Risk Monitoring Challenges in the BFSI Industry Identifying Synthetic Identities: Artificially created identities pose a significant risk. Fraudsters manipulate data to create synthetic profiles, making detection challenging. Prevent Account Takeover: Unauthorized access to customer accounts threatens financial stability. Identity scan helps prevent account takeover by validating user identities during transactions. Transaction Laundering Protection: Concealing the origins of illicit funds is a persistent issue. Effective risk monitoring can flag suspicious transactions. Customer Validation: Fraudsters submit falsified documents during transactions. Identity scans verify the legitimacy of the submitted information. What can the BFSI industry do to Monitor Risk with Identity Scan? User information is mapped with the mFilterIt repository and open-web sources. This involves using a unique identifier as a mapping attribute and integrating data signals and public information (such as mobile numbers and email IDs) through APIs. The result of this data gathering and mapping process is available to the banks. It is based on risk-scoring of attributes and identities linked to the user. The bank accesses the mFilterIt database using an API. Data Enrichment for Risk Profiling With advanced AI & ML driven technology, we can run a scan across web & mF repositories to pull out data, categorize, interlink, and enrich the data based on the inputs asked. The scanning capabilities can correlate the available public information from open sources and databases to identify a genuine profile from a fraudulent one. As per the risk scores based on a pre-defined rule engine, the report is shared with the brand to decide the next action steps depending on the risk scoring. Enhance Efficiencies Opens source intelligence helps validate the authenticity of customers and automate business processes such as credit card or loan application background verification. Check your loan disbursal and credit card approval decisions, data enrichment, validate with social attributes with database linkages across platforms, gather social proofs for tracing absconding defaulters, only relevant and latest, monitor & track social engagements to ensure they get the best of bank services and do not post negative reviews. Protection from Financial Fraud With transaction laundering protection solution banks can safeguard their reputation by identifying UPI frauds, impersonations, mule accounts, and fraudsters using their services to commit tax frauds and scams. Ai-ML-driven tech and OSINT help banks identify illicit activities that damage banks’ reputations and lead to trust erosion. Benefits of Risk Monitoring with Identity Scan Risk Profiling on Social Parameters:  mFilterIt‘s Identity fraud protection solution analyses user profile attributes. It uses AI-ML-driven risk assessment and open-source intelligence (OSINT) to analyze social profiles. This aids clients in comprehending the dangers connected to users. Validate with repository, open and dark webs Scan: Using AI and ML techniques, the program searches the internet and mFilterIt large database for customer profiling. It verifies the identity of customers while adhering to privacy laws and policies. Prompt Action based on reports, alerts, and Insights: Detailed reports with risk assessments and recommendations for next steps are sent to clients. Which helps them to take further action on their end. For instance, major Indian banks improved card issuance and credit limit decisions, based on open-source intelligence. It reduced the possibilities of credit risk, up to approx. 14 %. This demonstrates how robust identity verification processes can provide effective results. The BFSI sector must counter the digital threats with profile risk assessment and proactive monitoring and understand related risks increasingly affecting the BFSI industry and tarnishing its brand reputation. Conclusion The digital payment ecosystem is plagued with financial frauds that question the integrity of the BFSI industry. The mFilterIt Identity fraud protection solution, powered with AI-ML tech, proprietary Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), data harvesters, and an extensive database repository enables brands to safeguard their brand integrity. Identity verification using social risk parameters creates a safer digital ecosystem where all stakeholders can make informed decisions based on reliable data. Get in touch to learn more about the Identity Scan in BFSI

In recent years, influencer marketing has played a vital role in enhancing brands’ marketing strategies. Social media and influencers’ widespread popularity has allowed the brands to reach a wider audience, increase brand awareness, and raise sales. Here comes the need for brands to monitor their influencers and ensure their message is being spread effectively among the targeted audience. Influencer monitoring involves ensuring that the content created by the influencers leaves a deep impact on different social media platforms, blogs, and other online channels so that the message delivered completely adheres to their brand values and mission. Moreover, it can also assist them in assessing any potential risk that may cause damage to their reputation. Why do brands need Influencer Monitoring? Brands need influencer monitoring to understand your brand’s target audience, preferences, and interests. These behavioral patterns can be used to customize marketing campaigns, develop targeted content, and improve customer service. It can also help you identify potential customers and influencers who can amplify your brand message and reach a wider audience. The influencer marketing industry in Southeast Asia has jumped from US$638 million in 2019 and is expected to reach US$2.59 billion by the end of 2024. According to a study, based on an influencer recommendation over 80% of Southeast Asians have made purchase decisions. For instance, approximately 77% of brands in Singapore deploy nano-influencers for influencer marketing campaigns. engaging communities and gaining traction in Southeast Asia. Rise of Influencers Marketing campaign  Since the last decade, there has been significant growth in influencer marketing. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn have helped the influencers grow by having large and active followers. Brands acknowledge these platforms’ capability to connect with target audiences effectively. Brands gain extra benefits like SEO and growth in sales from influencer marketing. According to a survey conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub, every dollar a brand spends on influencer marketing gains up to $18. Moreover, influencers are considered a reliable source of information. This marketing type helps build a strong bond between brands and consumers, fostering loyalty and brand advocacy. Advantages of Influencer Monitoring The increasing trend in Influencer Marketing is based on the downward efficiency of traditional marketing, the authentic bond shared between the influencers and their followers, the accurate target options of social media, and the cost-cutting strategies of the campaign. Influencer Marketing is expected to keep on playing an important role in digital marketing strategies as it depends upon the development of social media. The rise of influencer marketing campaigns has brought numerous advantages, but also challenges that require vigilant monitoring: Authenticity Verification Detecting Fraudulent Activity Ensuring Brand Safety Performance Tracking Risk Mitigation ROI Assessment Real-time Tracking Improved Influencer Relationship How brands can protect ad spending on influencer monitoring In the fast-changing digital marketing era, influencer marketing has become the most prominent key factor for a brand to gain the desired results. To accomplish this, brands need to run influencer marketing campaigns which increase their investment. So, the brands need to implement effective influencer monitoring, this helps them in gaining not only the maximum returns but also to secure their investments. Authenticate Influencer before Collaborating Influencer tracking ensures that the brand authenticates influencer activity before collaborating with them. After validating that influencer posts, image, and reach align with brand influencer monitoring goals brands can go ahead with the collaboration. In Influencer Authentication, the followers of an influencer are verified to ensure the influencer has genuine followers instead of collecting followers from fake accounts or bots. The authentic engagement between genuine followers and Bot activities is also verified. This is done based on reviewing the recent data to ensure stability in their growth and activities. Track the performance of the Influencer marketing campaign In Influencer Performance Tracking, the success of the campaign depends upon key performance indicators like reach, engagement, conversion rates, and return on investment where real-time data analytics tools are used to evaluate it. The content quality should be creative and relevant to the campaign which attracts the reach and engagement of the targeted audience. The success of the campaign also depends upon the trending content and corresponding feedback. Ensure Brand Safety and Compliance with Influencer Tracking Ensure the influencer complies with the advertising standards and brand guidelines. Influencer tracking platform help protect the brand from dealing with legal issues. It simultaneously keeps a check on the influencer’s online behavior to avoid controversial or harmful content. It performs background checks on influencers to make sure that they have a positive online presence. They also make a crisis management plan for possible issues from influencer partnerships. Conclusion Securing ad spending on influencer monitoring is very important as its success depends on it. If the Brands deploy authentic influencers who work according to performance metrics keeping in mind brand safety. Adhering to these influencer marketing practices, the campaign’s effectiveness is inflated, and the brands can confidently go through complicated social commerce. In recent times, the digital marketplace has become so competitive, where the success of a brand depends upon building meaningful connectivity with the audience. Efficient influencer marketing boosts the campaigns’ efficiency and provides security. Get in touch to learn more about influencer monitoring

The fascinating world of advertising is witnessing the rise of contextual advertising. Now, advertisers are reaching out to a more relevant audience with precise targeting and ad contextual relevancy. Relevant ad placement reaches the audience interested and views similar types of content. Let’s explore how the contextual ad landscape in the USA Contextual advertising in the USA ad Market The United States is the largest contextual advertising market worldwide. According to Statista, in 2023, contextual advertising spending was estimated at $227.38 billion on the global level. The ad spends are expected to further beyond two folds rise by 2030 approximately $562.1 billion. The use of AI and machine learning algorithms has led to wider acceptance of contextual advertising that improves targeting and upgrades ad placements. Huge amounts of data including content-based context, and user behavior are monitored to provide custom-made and relevant advertisements. Contextual advertising is witnessing a rise in demand for privacy-focused targeting solutions due to increased concerns over data privacy and regulatory scrutiny. Instead, depending on invasive data-collecting techniques, and a cookie-less ad ecosystem, advertisers are investigating alternate approaches to audience targeting. Benefits of Contextual Advertising Navigating the evolving landscape requires contextual ad targeting. Here are some perks of contextual advertising: Data Privacy Compliance Contextual ads are an alternative to behavioral ads that need to comply with laws regarding data privacy, including the CCPA and GDPR. Moreover, contextual ads don’t entirely depend on cookies or user-specific data, it is easier to deal with privacy requirements. It respects the privacy of users’ data and ensures your ad reaches a genuine and relevant audience. Targeting Desired Audience Another advantage is that it accurately targets the audience based on their interaction with the desired content. Depending on the interests and needs of the users, contextual ads help marketers by monitoring the context of a webpage, app, or other digital platforms to regulate their advertisements. Enhanced User Experiences The user experience is highly influenced by contextual advertising, rather than providing consumers with generic advertisements. They deliver ads that perfectly blend with the surrounding context, which results in a seamless experience. Impact of Contextual Advertising Contextually relevant ad placement ensures more engagement and efficient ad performance with better returns on investments. Market Expansion and Economic Effects The increasing dependency on digital content and the developments in AI and machine learning which improve the efficiency of contextual ad placements push forward the growth in the US market which has a major impact on the US. digital advertising business, which is among the biggest in the world. Improved Interaction with Customers Contextual advertising increases consumer engagement by displaying appropriate advertisements based on the content that customers are viewing. Based on the relevancy, it enables the rise in click-through and conversion rates. For instance, instead of a makeup brand ad, a protein shake advertisement on a fitness blog is more likely to attract readers’ attention and increase engagement. ROI and Cost-Efficiency In comparison to other digital advertising formats that entirely depend on user data, contextual advertising is more affordable. Advertisers can gain a higher return on investment (ROI) and accurate targeting at a much lesser cost by concentrating on context rather than custom-made user profiles. Brand safety and relevancy in Contextual advertising Contextual Brand Safety refers to strategies and technologies used to ensure that advertisements appear in appropriate and relevant content environments, thereby protecting the brand reputation. This approach focuses on analyzing the context of web pages and digital content to avoid placing ads next to harmful, controversial, or inappropriate material. Contextual Brand Relevancy enables AI-based contextual level targeting that focuses on elements, logos, faces, keywords, objects, sentiments, and more for brands to choose the right ads at the right place. We provide custom targeting and exclusion themes and accurate detection of unsafe content across a comprehensive set of brand safety categories as per the GARM guidelines. For Instance, your ad campaign is about a man’s fashion brand featuring offers, promotion, and image of celebrity actor Ranveer Singh. This sort of ad needs to feature videos that talk about fashion or feature the same celebrity. Identifying such relevant videos will help reach an audience with similar interests. By using PACE Brand Relevancy, you can identify the text, logo, element, and keyword using AI-ML tech and keyword search & analysis capabilities to fetch URLs of contextually relevant videos for ad placement. Conclusion Contextual advertising is not just a trend but a fundamental shift. It ensures that ad creative and placements align with the brand’s vision and help reach its target audiences in meaningful and effective ways. Brand relevancy solution empowered with advanced AI-based contextual level targeting identifies elements, logos, faces, keywords, objects, sentiments, and more for brands to choose the relevant content for ad placement across advertising platforms. Get in Touch with us to learn more about contextual ads.

Programmatic advertising offers unparalleled efficiency and reach. However, programmatic ad fraud is a growing problem that has dented the efficiency and return on investment (ROI). It not only leads to a massive loss in advertising Ad spend but also causes reputational damage. Programmatic ad fraud mainly includes generating fake clicks and impressions using bots and automated systems. Inflated ad spending, depleted ROI, and eroded trust caused by programmatic fraud are significant consequences. Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning-driven tech with monitoring, analysis, and real-time actionable insights is needed to optimize programmatic ad campaigns. Optimizing Programmatic ads – Ad Traffic Validation with integrated Brand safety Detection of Bot traffic is the major challenge in programmatic advertising. Automated blocking of ads such as invalid traffic in all branding campaigns across all programmatic platforms is critical for the success of the ad campaign. mFiliter enables advertisers to validate branding campaign traffic with integrated brand safety. It provides media verification across the programmatic ecosystem or any other campaigns that have CPM payouts. The integrated brand safety helps identify safe, unsafe, or irrelevant ad placement. A step that empowers advertisers beyond ad traffic validation. Optimizing Programmatic ad campaigns requires the following: Weeding out General Invalid Traffic (GIVT) and Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) Identify ad placements on Made-for-Ad Sites (MFA) Check for Frequency Cap Violations on OTT or video streaming media platforms. Ad Placements Monitoring as per the GARM safety standards and Brand Guidelines Advanced AI and ML tech capabilities and behavior analytics are used to protect programmatic advertising from ad fraud and ensure brand safety. It must cover all advertising programmatic advertising channels such as DV360, a demand-side platform (DSP) that enables the purchase of a diverse spectrum of online media programmatically, CTV streaming services, and platforms like Roku, OTT Platforms, or any other platforms that support programmatic ads. How does ad fraud affect programmatic advertising? Automated, data-driven buying and selling of digital ad inventory occurs at programmatic ad channels. Leveraging AI-ML-driven tech can help optimize ad placement and reach the desired targeted audience more efficiently. Programmatic ad campaigns can have fraud rates as high as 15-20% in the worst cases. Ad fraud prevention in programming is required to cut down wastage of ad spend and get better returns on campaign investments. In addition to financial losses, ad fraud can negatively impact brands in several other ways including: Damage Brand Reputation When ads appear on MFA sites, low-quality or inappropriate sites can harm the brand reputation, as consumers may associate the brand with these negative contexts, leading to trust erosion. Skew campaign metrics and performance Ad fraud skews analytics and data, leading to misleading campaign performance metrics. This results in ineffective marketing strategies, as decisions are based on inaccurate data. Lose customer trust Consumers’ trust in a brand gets reduced if they perceive its ads as pervasive or intrusive in case of Frequency capping violations or programmatic ads appearing in unsuitable online environments. Decreased campaign ROI The return on investment (ROI) for advertising campaigns diminishes significantly due to fraudulent activities, as a portion of the ad spend is diverted to non-genuine interactions Emerging tech to combat programmatic ad fraud Awareness is the first step! Move beyond the myths such as no Fraud on Walled Gardens, no fraud on performance-driven campaigns or publisher reports give a clear picture of where the brand has spent its marketing budgets or brand safety has nothing to do with ROI and is an unnecessary cost. In the fight against programmatic ad fraud, the journey goes well beyond simply knowing about it. The estimated average ad fraud is around 15% Fraud on OTT, 20% Fraud on CTV, and 18% Fraud on YouTube. Surprising numbers? Not really. Ignorance is not bliss in this case, Advertisers need advanced tech to combat programmatic ad fraud in real-time, ensure the safety of ad place, and safeguard brand repute. Contrary to what many believe, advertisers are not helpless against such instances of fraud and it is up to the advertisers to protect their interests. The simplest, most surefire way to protect your interests is to use ad fraud detection tools. Such a tool uses AI and ML algorithms to continually and intelligently monitor the user activity on your ad campaigns. Since the algorithms work round the clock and without the influence of human bias, you can rest assured that your campaigns are protected the way they should be. Final Thought – Optimize the efficiency of Programmatic ad campaigns Programmatic advertising is a superb way to reach your customers. The insights advertisers can draw from their programmatic campaigns can help them consistently improve the returns they make on their programmatic ad spend. With programmatic ad traffic validation, brands require full funnel coverage across various digital channels along with enhanced ad visibility pre-bid & post-bid for impressions on programmatic, OTTs, and CTV platforms. However, ad fraud stands in the way of advertisers looking to maximize their investment in programmatic advertising. This is where programmatic ad fraud protection can come in handy, helping advertisers protect their campaigns and maximize their gains. Get in touch to learn more about the programmatic ad fraud.

In a survey of marketing professionals conducted in 2022, 25% of respondents said that they leverage influencer marketing. Out of these, 89% of the respondents said they would maintain or increase their investment in influencer marketing in the coming years. By 2024 Influencers are everywhere promoting brands, endorsing products, participating in global events, and selling products via social commerce. As brands invest so much in influencer marketing, they also need Influencer monitoring to ensure their investment reaps the desired results. What is Influencer Marketing? Influencer marketing means collaborating with an influencer or group of influencers for marketing activity like product endorsement and promotion. Influencer marketing has made a big enough impact on the overall marketing landscape. Influencers are people who can ‘influence’ the purchase decisions of their audience. This is where their power lies. An influencer can be anyone with a sizable online following. The most well-known celebrities and sports personalities have also started taking up influencer deals, a large percentage of influencers are regular people that have managed to grow their digital following with the help of content creation. According to a study, 50% of millennial audiences trust product recommendations from influencers. The trust and high engagement that influencers enjoy are the reasons they are sought for brand partnerships. Brands collaborate with influencers due to their relatability with the audience. Since most influencers come from regular families and are regular people turned successful content creators, their content resonates with their audience. Moreover, since this audience is gained by consistently producing engaging content, the engagement levels are incredibly high. Identifying the Right Influencers for Your Brand Success with influencer marketing is significantly dependent on choosing the right influencers. Follow these steps to identify the right influencers for your brand. Authenticate – Research and evaluate potential influencers With your goals and audience clearly defined, it is time to start evaluating relevant influencers. Based on your audience, you can start shortlisting potential influencers whose audience displays similar qualities. Once you have a list of potential influencers that you want to partner with, it is time to start researching. This will entail going through their social media profiles to see the kind of content they produce and the kind of engagement they attract. Here are some influencer authenticity checks: Google Analytics Referral Data – For influencers with websites or blogs, analyze their website traffic using Google Analytics to identify suspicious referral sources that might be bots. Brand Alignment – An authentic influencer partners with brands and promotes products that align with their values and interests, rather than promoting anything for monetary gain. Account Activity Patterns – Bots often exhibit specific patterns, such as posting at consistent intervals or engaging only with specific types of content. Analyze the behavior of an influencer’s followers to identify any suspicious patterns. Bot Traffic Analysis – Tools that can help detect bot accounts and spam activities on social media platforms. This can analyze account behavior, activity patterns, and follower characteristics. Spike in Follower Growth – Genuine influencers may experience organic growth due to viral content or media exposure, massive and rapid follower increases are often indicative of bot activity. Engagement Rate Anomalies – Extremely high engagement rates combined with low follower counts might indicate bot activity artificially inflating engagement. Engagement to Follower Ratio – Calculating the average engagement rate (likes, comments, shares) per post relative to the number of followers can help identify if the influencer’s engagement is proportionate to their audience size. Followers Quality Analysis – Evaluate the likelihood of fake or bot accounts based on factors such as profile completion, posting activity, and follower-to-following ratio. Influencer Performance Tracking – Consider relevant metrics and factors for influencer selection With the data you get from your research and your goal in mind, it should be easy to determine the relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) on which you should evaluate potential influencers. For instance, if your goal is to improve brand recognition, you may want to focus on metrics like number of followers and engagement on posts. On the other hand, if your objective is to drive more sales, you may be interested in metrics like click-through rate and past sales driven. Here are some metrics that can be tracked with the Influencer monitoring tool: Influencer Insights:  Key insights on highest reach, most popular, most active, verified status, influencer category, account size, etc. need to be identified and monitored. Activity Monitoring:  The performance of the influencer can be tracked by identifying the reach trend likes trend, and comments trend. Audience Analysis:  Track the kind of followers the influencer has with country-wise analysis, city, age, and gender analysis. Content Analysis:  Track what kind of content the user creates and identify the content type, most liked most commented content, the highest and lowest engagement rate on the type of content, top hashtags, and languages. Sponsored Content Analysis:  Monitor influencer-sponsored activity such as sponsored audience insights, sponsored influencers insights, engagement rate, posts performance, cost efficiencies, and audience quality analysis Sentiment Analysis: Monitor positive, neutral, and negative comments on posts and the most positive & negative comments received. Brand Safety – Follow ASCI Guidelines With influencer marketing brands must also be proactive in brand safety measures. Brands often associate with micro and nano influencers which have a lesser number of followers but can help the brand reach the desired set of relevant audiences. However, these influencers are either unaware or not professional and miss out on ASCI requirements like mention of ads or collaboration in videos. Brands need an automated system to identify ASCI violations and ensure compliance with brand guidelines to avoid legal implications and brand reputation damage. Measuring and Analyzing Influencer Campaigns A major Indian conglomerate in the FMCG sector is ensuring transparency in influencer marketing campaigns through influencer monitoring. The FMCG brand detected that an Instagram influencer with 310K followers had a high engagement rate, but 39.17% of their followers were bots! Such insights help brands make informed decisions before collaborations. Most of the influencers nowadays are pumping up their number with Bots. Brands spending a massive amount of

“Let’s BlinkIt”, or “Look it up on Amazon” These phrases have become common in our everyday lives. This reflects how online shopping; and digital commerce intelligence are getting ingrained in our habits and their convenience has become an integral part of any shopper’s routine. To match the changing and ever-evolving customer behavior and needs shopping platforms are also expanding their inventory across categories covering every aspect of shopper’s needs from food and beverages, groceries, fashion & accessories, and home decor to last-minute needs with quick commerce. enhancing UI/UX to connect with the audience, penetrating beyond tier-1, and tier-2 cities. The eCommerce is expanding, enhancing customer experience, and even coming up with new exclusive niche categories. These are exciting times for brands and shoppers. However, as the eCommerce game is moving into the next level brands also need digital commerce intelligence to stay ahead of the competition. Intelligence across platforms and geographies helps effortlessly elevate business by strategically refining every touchpoint with data-driven decisions to optimize your customer journey across digital commerce marketplaces and product categories. Why Do e-commerce Brands need Digital Commerce Intelligence? For instance, with digital commerce intelligence – Availability analysis for a popular noodle brand, we discovered it has the lowest availability amongst the competitors, among quick commerce platforms on Blinkit it has the lowest availability of 25%. In Delhi, 61% of the listings are out of stock! Availability is almost 0% on the pin codes 110017, and 122001. Actionable insights such as these on various KPIs help brands identify gaps, track platforms, and geography with customized scheduled ed platform scans, monitoring on monthly, weekly, daily, and even hourly on certain KPIs such as stock availability, product page content, delivery turnaround time and keyword share, etc. can help a brand grow in fiercely competitive eCommerce and quick commerce landscape. Optimize Customer Journey with Digital Commerce Intelligence Every step on the e-commerce platform can be elevated to boost sales, get new shoppers, have more visibility on the digital shelf, and enhance customer experience. The biggest impact of eCommerce intelligence is that it helps optimize your customer journey to stay ahead of the competition. Phase 1: Generate Interest and Awareness In the first phase generating eCommerce competitive analysis helps generate awareness & Interest by optimizing discoverability, keyword share, and viewability of the own, competition, and other products in the market across multiple platforms. Lists out the keywords that the client should start bidding on and also the keywords where the client can stop their bidding by comparing the parameters like traffic, CTR, CPC, organic, and sponsored discoverability. Also covers discoverability and placement rank on category pages (commonly known as Browse Share). Enhance PDP page content (images, text), as per ASCII guidelines, platform guidelines, and best practices. Review, edit, and rebuild the content to meet the specified benchmarks to improve your content. Also, keep track of the Banner Visibility of own and competition brands. Analyses the eCommerce Ad banner position, content, and themes/ cohorts of advertising content such as offers, discounts, branding banners, etc. Phase 2: Optimize Consideration & Evaluation Process To ace the race, you need to be on the shelf! Availability and pricing are the keys to winning across the e-commerce marketplaces. Key track of your stock availability across sb-brand, categories, sub-categories, and product variants against the competitors’ own products. Analyze the market via competitive pricing analysis, tracker, and monitoring of pricing trends. Be vigilant for MAP violations norms and discount threshold violations. Keep track of delivery turnaround time on eCommerce platforms. Analyze the customer feedback, ratings, reviews, and Q&As on various parameters of the products of own and competition. Phase 3: Monitor Purchase & Sales Monitor the purchase phase with sales analysis. Comprehensive sales tracking and analysis that covers “What” the sales are, “Why” is the sale, ‘What’ it is, and “How” to improve the sale. Case Study – Digital Commerce A global leader in the beverage industry, in optimizing their performance across platforms and geographies with a digital shelf tracker to monitor their products across multiple KPIs like Availability, Keyword Share, Pricing & Promotion, Product Page Content, and Ratings & Reviews across the Middle East & North Africa region. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) region they mainly focused on enhancing its market presence by monitoring availability and optimizing content pages. Concentrating on the beverage category, this case study delves into the challenges faced by leading beverage brands in ensuring product availability across various platforms in September, October, and November. Additionally, it explores the efforts to optimize product page content on key platforms, with a spotlight on Carrefour and Nana. Stock availability gives the brand an added edge over the competition across platforms. Intelligence on stock availability helped the brand re-stock on time and identify the demand across locations. With a comprehensive global dashboard, they were able to identify and plug the availability gaps, optimize performance, and ensure that their products were consistently accessible to consumers. Brand Availability Trends Availability share versus competition City-Wise Availability Trends – monthly, weekly, daily, and hourly Platform-wise & geography-wise analysis Heat map to identify geography to be a target Track Bottlers (Sellers) performance Out-of-Stock product lists & alerts Maximize the impact of product pages to ensure that the product content resonates effectively with diverse audiences. Content analysis enabled brands to refine and tailor product descriptions, images, and other elements to align seamlessly with the unique requirements of each platform. By leveraging data-driven insights, the brand was able to identify and rectify any inconsistencies on PDP, ensuring cohesive and compelling brand content across platforms. This holistic optimization not only enhances user experience but also boosts visibility. Image analysis of product images Comprehensive Perfect Page Analysis (Title, content, and product reviews) High-traffic keyword and content theme recommendations Final Thought – Optimize Your Brand Performance Digital commerce intelligence helps brands explore new possibilities in expanding e-commerce, Quick commerce, and D2C marketplaces. It can monitor product performance across different platforms and geo-locations. It doesn’t matter if you are a small brand or multinational conglomerate, actionable insight, and analysis can catapult

Affiliate marketing presents a lucrative opportunity for brands and publishers alike. That’s perhaps why the industry has grown at such an incredible pace, being valued at $17 billion, according to an affiliate marketing survey. In a survey, 20% of marketers reported sales through their affiliate programs as their biggest source of revenue. The story of publishers and content creators is a similar one, with 31% reporting affiliate income as their biggest source of income. Considering how valuable affiliate marketing is for all involved parties, it is no surprise that the space is now infested with scammers and fraudsters. Affiliate marketing fraud is one of the most prevalent forms of ad fraud. Some experts estimate that nearly 17% of all clicks on affiliate offers are fraudulent. This number translates to billions of advertising dollars lost to affiliate marketing scams. This also means that marketers who use affiliate programs to make sales must fend for themselves and employ affiliate monitoring methods to ensure they are not losing their marketing budget to fraud. However, before you can effectively monitor affiliates and be sure that you have prevented yourself from falling victim to fraud, you must first understand affiliate fraud in depth. That’s exactly where this article will help. In the upcoming section, you will learn everything you need to, to protect yourself and your affiliate programs from fraud. Let’s start with the necessary basics. What is Affiliate Fraud? Affiliate fraud is the practice of abusing affiliate programs to earn affiliate commissions fraudulently. Fraudsters scam advertisers by generating fake leads and getting affiliate commissions for said leads. Some may even employ tactics that allow them to claim credit for sales facilitated by genuine affiliates. This form of ad fraud hurts every genuine party involved in an affiliate marketing program. Scammers make money for sales that either never happened or those that had nothing to do with them. The genuine affiliates work hard to make sales suffer because their commissions are stolen by the scammers. Brands also suffer because they end up paying for sales that never take place. Brands also suffer when they pay the scammer instead of a genuine affiliate. The genuine content creator, who may have the potential to drive thousands of dollars in sales, may opt out of working with a brand thinking they have been subjected to unfair behavior. In such cases, the brand’s image may also suffer, especially if the content creator calls the company out in front of their followers. The most common reason behind the occurrence of such fraud (besides the greed of fraudsters) is a lenient evaluation process for affiliates. From the point of view of growing an affiliate program, this is a great move. However, a lenient evaluation process also unfortunately presents a great opportunity for fraudsters to sign up as an affiliate and defraud the brand. A strict evaluation process should be a part of your brand safety advertising process. It may slow down the growth of your affiliate program, but it will go a long way in ensuring your advertising budgets are safe from fraudsters. Despite that, you cannot expect complete protection from affiliate program fraud by simply having a stringent evaluation process. This is true for two reasons. One, a strict evaluation process does not guarantee that any fraudsters will not be able to clear it. Secondly, upgrading your evaluation process does nothing about the fraudsters who may already be siphoning off funds from your affiliate program. What can you do about them? Let us find out. Signs to Identify Affiliate Fraud Fraudulent affiliates work hard to cover their tracks. They employ proxies, resort to hijacking devices of genuine users, and use IP addresses to mask their locations. It is thanks to these measures that detecting fraudulent activity in your affiliate dashboard is next to impossible. Fret not, you are not powerless against fraudulent affiliates. Look for these signs to detect fraudulent activity in your affiliate programs: Usage Patterns Associated with In-App Activity One of the best ways to detect fraudulent activity associated with affiliates is to check the in-app activity of their referrals. Consider it a red flag if there are set usage patterns that can be commonly observed among several users. For instance, if all the users associated with an affiliated stop using your app after a set amount of time, then there’s a good chance that these ‘users’ may be bots programmed to behave in a specific way. Suspiciously Stellar Performance If an affiliate consistently and continuously outperforms everyone else in your program, there’s a good chance that they are not authentic. If, for instance, your affiliates’ average conversion rate is 15%, and an affiliate consistently delivers 50%-60% conversions, they deserve to be investigated. Disconnect Between Traffic and Purchase Numbers This one is a no-brainer. If an affiliate is consistently sending you traffic but the traffic itself is not converting, consider it a red flag and conduct a deeper investigation. Metrics like clicks and installs can be easily faked using Bots but these bots cannot purchase anything. Unresponsive Leads If your affiliate campaigns are generating a high number of leads but these leads seem to be unaware of your company when you contact them, something is wrong. It is easy for fraudsters to fill out lead forms with fake or stolen contact details and get commissions. Unusual Number of Chargebacks Some fraudsters may even make purchases on your website using stolen card details, just to get the commissions for these sales. Once the commission has been paid, however, you may receive a chargeback request from the credit card company, since the credit card used for the transaction may have been stolen. All Campaign Goals Are Met (Regardless of What They Are) Fraudulent affiliates, as mentioned earlier, usually outperform genuine affiliates. This becomes clearly evident when you choose a very niche audience and repeatedly change your campaign objectives. If you do this and notice that certain affiliates are meeting all the different objectives you set, you will be right to be suspicious