Expert Opinion - mfilterit

Are Your Digital Ad Campaigns Safe from Sophisticated Bots?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics / Expert Opinion

The digital world is evolving rapidly, and marketers are moving from traditional platforms to digital platforms. But in this growing digital ecosystem, someone is hiding behind the screens to disrupt your growth. Behind all the pros of digital advertising, a manipulated truth is that marketers are unaware of who is coming to see their ad campaigns. To throw light on this, ad fraud solution providers have come into the limelight to validate how much invalid traffic is coming to the ad campaigns. However, just when the marketers were ready to combat ad fraud, cybercriminals expanded their fraud zone with sophisticated bots. Unlike the general bots, the sophisticated bots can replicate human behavior and hide easily behind the cloak of genuine traffic resulting in manipulated data. This again makes the marketer’s ad campaigns vulnerable to ad fraud. What is the solution? Advanced Problems Need Advanced Solutions Once a sophisticated bot penetrates your digital ad campaign, it will not just impact one KPI but also manipulate your entire sales funnel and manipulate the data. For example, if you’re running an impressions campaign then first it will inflate the number of impressions with bot traffic. And once that is done, they will impact your hard KPIs like lead, conversion, or install. The result is that you not only waste your ad spend on invalid traffic but also open the gateway to your brand assets for the sophisticated bot army to attack and destroy. Thus, it is important to get a full-funnel ad fraud detection tool instead of a solution that covers just one KPI. Know in detail about the different types of sophisticated bots that are hard to detect on the web and app. And for the advanced solution, stick with us till the end of this blog. Sophisticated Web Fraud Techniques That Are Hard to Detect Imperceptible Window To improve the CTR of the site, the fraudsters open the advertiser’s landing page to a zero-sized pixel. However, the end-user is unaware of this and when they visit the website it is registered as a click in google ads platform. The advertiser ends up paying for these clicks/visits which were not even seen by the user. Example of Page View Fraud In the above case, the user didn’t click on the advertisement, but a click has been registered. As the window size is imperceptible for the user, they are unaware of this case. Generally, it is difficult to detect these anomalies without the help of advanced data analytics capabilities. Cookie Stuffing Cookie stuffing is organic theft where a website drops one or more third-party cookies onto a user’s web browser. An Iframe of ‘0x0’ pixel is used to dropping a cookie to hijack the organic user. These malicious cookies thus incorrectly attribute the organic traffic to the fraudulent affiliate. In the above example, we have incorporated a mFilterIt pixel which drops a randomly generated cookie whenever a user visits the advertiser’s website for the first time. Upon the return of that user, the same cookie value indicates the return of the same user. We also observed that despite faking or rotating the IP, the bot device is returning the same cookie within a gap of a few minutes. Bot User Fake users or Bot emulated users usually don’t have any mouse movement or touch interactions. They are also programmed in a way where they don’t react to the advertiser’s landing page. In this case, where there is no user interaction, we use the capabilities of Machine learning algorithms combined with captured values like configurations, plugins, device settings, canvas fingerprinting, etc. This helps to analyze the bot patterns and cases where the clicks bots are happening at a high probability. With the help of AI, ML, and data science, we detected approximately 32k such cases just in the pilot phase. Sophisticated App Fraud Techniques That Are Hard to Detect Click Spam Click spamming starts when a user downloads an infected app on their device – or visits an infected mobile website. These infected apps are usually downloaded outside the walled gardens of the Play Store and IOS app store. The infected app has built-in code which is programmed to create clicks on ads or allow external devices to click within the app. The app works normally on the user’s device, except for the tiny code running click-spam activities in the background. This fraud technique generates click spamming from the user’s device without their knowledge. And the advertisers are under an impression that the clicks are generated by real users. Example of Click Spam In this case, clicks and installs are high whereas the conversion rate is as low as 0.01%. This is a clear case of click spamming. These clicks were generated in a time period of 9 days from Thailand. Surprisingly, the total clicks are equivalent to the population of the country. This kind of CTIT curve is often overlooked by the attribution platforms due to the clicks being refreshed in the background. At mFilterIt, we track the click patterns in case of click generating from the same device ID. Event Spoofing Event spoofing is one of the advanced fraud techniques used by fraudsters to manipulate the install data of advertisers. In this case, the fraudsters programmed bots that can fire fake clicks in the background to capture the events. This eventually leads to an event being spoofed and attributed without a legitimate install. This results in the advertiser believing that a legitimate install happened. However, in reality, no event has occurred. The events like bookings, purchases, signup, registration, etc. are required to be analyzed thoroughly to identify in-app fraud. Example of Event Spoofing In this case, the CTIT is distributed within a few minutes, which is unusual. The normal traffic pattern is spread over as the conversion time is usually not in the control of the publisher. mFilterIt’s Full-Funnel Model – Our Advanced Solution How We Protected a Global Pharma Player Across the Funnel A premium pharma company noticed that their impressions were high, but the number

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Amazon Best Seller: What it Takes to Get This Badge?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics / Expert Opinion

Most online shoppers searching for a product on Amazon consider the best seller as the most reliable product in terms of quality and usage. The shopper believes such products would have the highest positive reviews and ratings and would match the expectations mentioned on the product page. The best seller badge on Amazon is given to a product with the highest sales volume in a certain time period. The badge is often given to new products every hour. The best seller badge further helps to achieve higher sales more easily. In addition, the product appears in the top ten search results and, therefore, acquires higher visibility than its competitors. Getting the best seller badge would require increasing the visibility of products so that more customers can find and purchase the product. The product discoverability and position on the search rank can get enhanced by optimizing the page title, images, and description. They play a crucial role in convincing the shopper that the product is worth it’s price. The story doesn’t finish here. Amazon also has a Best Seller page, wherein the top selling products under a category are shown along with their ranking. The product with the highest rank often appears more times than others on the organic and sponsored search results of Amazon. Sometimes, the products from this list also become visible on unrelated keyword search results as well. Therefore, achieving the best seller badge is often a priority of ecommerce managers and retailers, as it helps to boost sales. How to Get the Amazon Best Seller Badge? Rank Higher on Organic Search and Sponsored Keywords Product visibility on ecommerce marketplaces influences buying decisions. The product with the highest search rank on organic and sponsored keyword search results would appear before its competitors. Most customers often go for a product appearing in the top ten results. Achieving a position in the top search results would require keyword optimization, title enrichment, and more. Measuring your product’s performance against the top competitors in the ecommerce marketplace helps to find new areas of improvement and, ultimately, achieve the goal. For example, if you measure the performance of a product’s title with its top competitors and find that their title performance is higher than yours. Now, your ecommerce brand marketers could look at the competitors’ page titles and find factors influencing the performance. Our ecommerce competitive analysis, helps brands to find areas for improvement. Brand marketers use the insights to enrich the product page title and increase the search rank on keyword search results. Find the Category in Which Your Product Can Give Tough Competition A product on Amazon can be a part of multiple categories and choosing the best one makes all the difference in the world. At times, you might be tempted to enlist the product under an irrelevant category because they offer the lowest competition. Enlisting a product in such a manner can signal wrong message to the online shopper and make them disinterested in it. As such, the best way to get the best seller badge is to find a relevant sub-category or niche offering the lowest competition. Your sales might slightly get affected, but the chances of shoppers bouncing off your product page would significantly decrease. Moreover, you could keep the best seller badge for a longer duration under the chosen category. But seasonal products like gift items, come under an exception to this guideline, as their sales don’t depend on category. Sometimes, sellers can achieve high sales and the best seller badge by placing seasonal products under an irrelevant category. Set up Promotions for the Product that You Want to Sell the Most Deciding the product that you want to sell the most on Amazon is not an easy choice for eCommerce managers. However, once the decision is made, the next step is to set up promotional campaigns such as ads, discounts, deals, etc., to boost sales. Display ads on eCommerce marketplaces grab the attention of even the browsers and turn a few of them into customers. Similarly, discounts or limited-time deals entice online shoppers to buy the product. Eventually, the increase in sales through the promotions helps the product get the best seller badge. We would also suggest you run promotions under categories wherein Amazon’s private label brand has the least competition, as they undoubtedly have the upper hand otherwise. Getting the best seller badge would become much easier under such categories. Our solution, mScanIt, also enables global brands to achieve real-time actionable insights on product promotions at category, platform, and other levels. Finding the ongoing product promotions of the competition becomes much simpler with our solution. Implementing mScanIt’s actionable insights into the campaigns has also enabled brands to achieve higher sales. Conclusion It’s easy to say that all it takes to achieve the best seller badge is high sales volume, but attaining higher sales requires a lot of effort. Keyword optimization on product pages and finding the correct category are just a few methods for increasing visibility and sales volume. As the best seller badge is given to new products every hour, it has become essential to have a solution that can find tracks metrics affecting eCommerce marketplaces. mScanIt, powered by mFilterIt, is a new-age technology that helps brands to track product prices, product page scores, etc. Evaluating the results of own brand’s products versus the top competitor’s listings helps brand marketers take measures that can enhance the search rank and visibility, directly impacting sales. Get in touch with us to know more about the advantages of mScanIt for your brand.

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Out-of-Stock: Just Lost Sales or More?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics / Expert Opinion

The number of shoppers on established ecommerce marketplaces like Amazon or Walmart is in billions. And thus, the movement of products in terms of sales is at large scale compared to any mom n pop shop. This large movement of products often lead to problem of out of stock (OOS) which can happen due to negligence at multiple steps of the value chain. Brand stakeholders and ecommerce retailers understand that the OOS is going to remain an ongoing problem. The increasing number of visitors to online shopping stores often impacts product demand. eCommerce managers use the best measures to forecast their product demand percentages before informing their authorized sellers of the inventory. Unfortunately, determining the exact product demand is a slippery slope for eCom managers, as the customers’ needs continuously change. The inaccurate forecast of product demand is also linked to other reasons. For example, if your brand is running an online campaign for a specific product and delay in informing the authorized retailers about increasing the inventory of the product. Under such circumstances, the retailers would update the stocks per the previously stated demand. A similar situation could arise if the brand stakeholders delay informing the retailers about updating the stocks of specific products. The unavailability of products on an ecommerce marketplace could also be linked to technical issues, non-compliance with a product page guideline, and other reasons. Although the stockouts reasons are concerning enough for a brand’s stakeholders, the repercussions are equally damaging and sometimes irreversible. OOS not only causes lost sales but also leads to lost customer loyalty and lower visibility on ecommerce marketplaces, to name a few. 3 Biggest Repercussions of Stockouts on Ecommerce Marketplaces Customers opt for an Alternative Product Shopping became easier with the introduction of the ecommerce marketplace. With the launch of quick commerce platforms like BlinkIt, Dunzo, and Zepto, even delivery has become faster. The ecommerce stakeholders continuously work on identifying and resolving the customer’s problem; however, OOS is an ongoing problem. Online shoppers have limited reactions whenever a product becomes out-of-stock. The online shopper may click the ‘notify me when available’ button or buy a substitute. As far as I know, the probability of waiting for a product, especially if it is grocery, is far less than most of the other categories. For example, the likelihood that a customer waits to buy brown bread of a particular brand when it is available is meager. The scenario is more common in quick commerce apps, especially when offering instant home delivery. Under this scenario, the brand has lost sale to competitors and will experience the same until the product become available. Brands Witness a Shift in Loyalty Once an online shopper buys a product and becomes exceptionally satisfied with it, the inclination to buy it repeatedly increases. Such buyers are often referred to as loyalists. But, when the product becomes unavailable on the ecommerce marketplace, one of the subsequent choices of the loyalist is to find a substitute. After using a competitor’s product, the loyalist may change their opinion about the previously bought item and compare its qualities with the new one. As a result, the brand’s loyal customer base shifts to competitors if the product is OOS. Brand stakeholders must expect a higher shift of loyalists towards their competitors if the product remains OOS most of the time. Hampers Search Ranks Significantly Products that become out-of-stock are removed from the search results of ecommerce marketplaces because they spoil customer experience and hamper sales. Instead, new products acquire their search rank and increase their visibility. On Amazon, even if an ecommerce manager updates the inventory, it takes 24-48 hours to review the changes and make the product listing visible to buyers. Re-acquiring the top search rank for the product listing becomes challenging, as the customer’s loyalty has shifted to a competitive product and the consumer’s interest in buying the new & regularly available product has increased. The search rank on ecommerce marketplaces depends on product purchases, best seller, SEO, and other factors. The search results algorithm of the ecommerce marketplaces recognizes the new products attracting the customer’s attention and its visibility as well as search rank improves significantly. Moreover, customers that had the product in their cart but faced stockouts during the final step of the purchase journey often leave negative reviews and ratings. Such feedback further hampers the search rank of the product listings and makes acquiring a high position on keyword search results more challenging. Conclusion We agree that the biggest issue of stockouts is loss of sale, but it also has many other repercussions. It shifts the customer’s loyalty to the competitive brand and hampers the search rank. Inaccurate demand forecasts, sudden demand surge and delayed reporting by inventory managers are the most prominent factors leading to OOS. Ensuring the correct availability of products with authorized online retailers requires diving deep into the stockout vs. stock availability percentages of your brand. It requires identifying the change in these percentages at SKU, platform, variant, and other levels every month . Such in-depth analysis enables brands to diminish their stockout percentage and enhance customer experience. Connect with us to learn the advantages of using our e-commerce competitive analytics solution, mScanIt Ecommerce Analytics Solution, for predicting your product availability at minuscule levels.

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How to Keep Your Brands Safe Online: Problems and Solutions

Leave a Comment / Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / Expert Opinion

What are the threats to your brand online? In what ways can image security and ad safety be incorporated into your brand protection strategy? Over time, your new business will develop a reputation. Sadly, one of the risks of business success is the possibility of plagiarism, hacking, and data loss. Once you become a household name, consumers are more likely to purchase your well-established brand. With fame comes responsibility such as fending off counterfeit criminals who seek to capitalize on your brand name. This article discusses how digital images and digital advertising can hurt the reputation of your brand. Furthermore, we demonstrate how a combination of security against image theft and contextual targeting can provide robust security. What is brand protection? Brand protection is a security measure to guard against pirates, counterfeiters, and intellectual property infringers. You can use it to protect your company’s image, reputation, and revenue. Intellectual property (IP) includes creations of the mind, such as inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, as well as symbols, names, and images used in commerce. Brand infringement or brand abuse results from this unauthorized use. It can take various forms, ranging from counterfeiting to copyright infringement to brand impersonation. These tactics are designed to accomplish the same goal, which is allowing bad actors to exploit your brand’s reputation for their own benefit. The obvious consequence of this is the loss of revenue. What is arguably more important is that it can lead to trust erosion in your brand – and this can be devastating and lost lasting. Why protecting your brand online should be a matter of concern for you? Despite its widespread nature, brand abuse is well-established due to the rise of the internet. According to recent statistics, the global counterfeit goods market is estimated to grow to 2.8 trillion dollars by 2022. Through online shopping and auction fraud, UK residents alone lost £69 million last year. Because of the impersonal nature of online shopping and the internet’s global reach, fraudsters have been able to reach millions. Buying a product or service before e-commerce usually meant inspecting the product or speaking to a professional in person. It’s clear, though, that in modern times, we feel far more comfortable basing our buying decisions on what we see on screens with global retail e-commerce sales going from $1.34 trillion to $4.28 trillion by 2020. Can we really blame a less risk-aware shopper for clicking on the ‘buy’ button if the listing on a well-established e-commerce platform shows the correct logos, colors, designs, and sizes of a well-known brand? Digital images are used to abuse brands In order to convince online shoppers that a product is authentic, digital images are crucial. In a study, for example, 90% of shoppers rated the quality of photos as extremely or very important in their buying decisions. Figures like these highlight the importance of professionally taken images when it comes to building trust. Moreover, the threat goes beyond e-commerce listings. A fraudster could easily create a fake social media account, or even an entire imitation website, with high-quality, official brand photography freely available online. There are 137 million fake Facebook profiles, 5% of all Facebook profiles, and three billion phishing emails that typically send users to scam websites every day, which shows the scope of the problem. Damage to digital advertising Digital advertising is also a potential threat to your brand’s reputation – as reported by 99% of advertisers. Programmatic advertising has nearly eliminated human intervention in the ad-selection process. This complete automation has, on the one hand, improved efficiency for advertisers. On the other hand, it has resulted in a reduction in quality control, leading to big problems for both advertisers and publishers. Poor placement of ads Badly placed ads have become a common occurrence due to the ever-increasing complexity of online advertising. Only 2.8% of participants felt the last digital ad they saw was relevant, according to a study. It usually involves an ad showing up next to inappropriate content, and while it’s possible to find humour in unfair placements, there’s also a much more serious side. In a study, 70% of UK and 62% of US consumers said they would stop using a brand’s goods if its ads were near unsafe material. Ad placement, therefore, plays a critical role in the success of your advertising and, in turn, the protection of your brand. Errors in retargeting In retargeting, cookies are used to target users who have left a website without converting. You may have noticed that you were being retargeted online after searching for something one day and afterward seeing it everywhere. In some cases, digital advertising can be extremely effective, but it has some flaws. As an example, you may have rethought your decision since you visited the website, or you may have already bought the product in a store. It could even refer to a personal or sensitive product that you would prefer not to be reminded of. In either case, the outcome results in a disgruntled user, which is bad for advertisers and publishers alike. Bad ads Although bad content can have a detrimental effect on a brand’s digital ads, it can also work in the opposite direction. Ads with poor quality can be equally damaging to carefully curated content. In the digital world, the term ‘bad ads’ refers to digital ads that create a bad user experience. They may contain offensive or inappropriate content, advertise fraudulent products or services, or spread malware through a practice known as malvertising. Ads that do not work are problematic. Google alone removed and blocked 3.4 billion bad ads in 2021. Such an issue presents a real threat. Programmatic advertising’s anonymity allows bad actors to distribute this type of ad without being detected, so it’s imperative that you take the necessary security measures to protect your brand. Secure images to prevent brand abuse Securing all imagery associated with your product or service is an essential component of any brand protection strategy. The right protection prevents

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Are You Being Impersonated on Social Media? You’ll Need to Know This!

Leave a Comment / Blog, Brand Safety & Protection / Expert Opinion

The security of your customers is of the utmost importance to you and your organization. Consequently, cyber scams like brand impersonation and social frauds can and do harm businesses of all sizes. Approximately $5.3 billion has been lost worldwide as a result of impersonation attacks, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). If you steal sensitive information and money from your clients, this can erode their confidence in your organization and ultimately impact their trust in you. Here, we’ll examine the different types of impersonation and how brands can combat them. How does social media impersonation work? Impersonation or identity theft occurs when a person, company, or organization’s name, image, or other identifying information is used to commit fraud. In general, it refers to the act of pretending to be someone else on social media platforms. The practice of impersonating a brand or person on social media differs from other legitimate uses, including fan accounts, parodies, and information pages. Types of impersonation There are many forms of impersonation, from phishing scams to full-blown online fraud where you buy products from illegitimate sellers. Scammers often impersonate brands in these ways: Phishing: It is common for scammers to impersonate brands (or their employees) in order to obtain sensitive customer information, such as social security numbers, passwords, or bank account information. Among the industries most affected by these practices are the financial sector (particularly FinTech companies that tend to interact with their users on social networks). Counterfeiting: Brands’ fake pages are intended to deceive their consumers by selling inauthentic products. They often operate through aggressive advertising campaigns directed at brand consumers, redirecting them to a website outside the social network where the transaction occurs. Despite its relevance in a multitude of industries, this practice is particularly prevalent in the luxury and fashion sectors. Fake news: Accounts impersonating politicians, celebrities, public institutions, advertising agencies, and others, are used to spread false news and information. Scams: A lot of frauds on the Internet (coupons, romance fraud, 491 scams, account takeover, etc.) originate from identity theft through social networks. How do impersonators operate? Impersonators operate in different ways depending on their social network, their objectives, and their sophistication. It has been observed that different impersonation attacks exhibit some common behaviors: The number of impersonations a brand suffers and its social media presence are usually correlated. In one sense, brands without official accounts are often easy targets for fraudsters, who will attempt to exploit this gap to deceive their followers. Conversely, brands with more presence (followers, posts, campaigns, etc.) are also prime targets for impersonators, as they know there is a large base of customers to rip off. The impersonators often use the same photos, names, descriptions, posts, hashtags, etc. As the official accounts. Other common tactics include impersonating “support” or “customer service” pages, as well as running raffles and promotions. A few posts do not guarantee that a given account is risk-free: it could be sending private messages or running aggressive ad campaigns on the social network and redirecting those affected to external web pages. In some social networks, it takes several days for newly created accounts to appear in search results. During these periods, the most sophisticated impersonators launch very aggressive attacks, often through ad campaigns targeted directly at consumers of the brand. The type of social network strongly determines the type of impersonation. The likelihood of impersonating brand executives or employees is higher on social networks such as LinkedIn. The majority of impersonations on social networks such as Facebook occur through “Pages”, although sometimes they occur through “Profiles”, “Groups” or “Events”. In order to correctly identify the different types of impersonation, it is important to understand how each platform works and its audience. Is there a way to stop social media impersonation? The majority of platforms offer reporting tools for those affected, but they usually leave it up to brands to identify and report any impersonation. It is clear that the first piece of advice is to be proactive since no one will solve your problem for you. When dealing with social impersonation, the following considerations should be kept in mind: Automation: It is imperative that technology is used for daily tracking and reporting of violations in very serious cases. The key to detecting and reporting these accounts is consistency and speed. This prevents them from growing their follower base and causing damage. Broad Keywords: Additionally, searches should be conducted for all variations of the brand name (misspellings, separations, alphanumeric combinations, etc.). Observe hashtags and keywords frequently used by the brand. Logo recognition: The use of image and logo recognition models can help to identify the presence of logos and other distinctive brand signs in profile pictures, thereby eliminating false positives and determining criticality. Risk & Similarity scores: When prioritizing and choosing the best enforcement strategy, algorithms can help identify the importance of an account and the risk of confusion with an official account based on its parameters (name, description, photos, followers and followers, posts, opening date, etc.). As part of a comprehensive brand protection strategy, websites, domain names and app stores should be monitored in addition to social media. Conclusion Social media impersonation is a growing problem that affects thousands of brands and individuals across most platforms. There are risks involved, including loss of revenue and traffic, as well as reputational issues and loss of consumer trust. In order to identify and remove such infringements as quickly as possible, brands must take a proactive approach to the problem. Technology and expertise in intellectual property enforcement are key elements to ensure this strategy’s success. Your customers and reputation can be protected with mFilterIt’s Impersonation Removal solution, which uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify and remove fake websites, apps, and domains.

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How To Combat Bot Traffic with Google Analytics?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog / Expert Opinion

The word ‘Bot’ can be both good and bad in the digital marketing ecosystem. There are good bots like the search engine crawlers which help to improve your website performance. On the other hand, there are bad bots that are used by cybercriminals to commit unethical activities like ad fraud and stealing advertisers’ ad spends. Half of the internet’s traffic consists of bots, of which 65% are bad bots. In recent events, bad bots have costed brands more than just money. The latest news of Elon Musk dropping out of a $44 bn deal with Twitter due to fake accounts is a sign of how deep-rooted the issue is. As a marketer, you need to be aware of who is visiting your website. When analyzing data, it is important to ensure that your data doesn’t consist of bot traffic. With the help of Google Analytics, you can detect and filter the bot traffic to see cleaner data points. Thinking about how to detect bot traffic on Google Analytics? We have included the most common tell-tale signs to detect bot traffic on your Google Analytics. 4 Signs to detect Bot Traffic on Google Analytics 1. Unusual Traffic If your website visit increases from an average number of 1,000 to 20,000 or you see a similar spike in a short interval of time without any marketing efforts or unknown reasons, it is not good news. Your website traffic is polluted with bots if you see a sudden spike in your website traffic, and there are certain things you might notice: Page views less than 1 second on single pages No location or location set of a botnet Keyword searched or domain name with the word “Bot” 2. Unknown Referral Traffic Referral traffic refers to the traffic that comes to the site by clicking on a link in another domain or platform. It is also used as a medium for bot traffic. These sources can be detected manually on Google Analytics. Some of the common signs of bot-generated referral traffic are: Sites with spammy-looking domains Referral sites with unusually high visits 3. Unusually Low Page-Time Unlike the human way of browsing, the bots are programmed in a way that they behave in the same pattern. When looking at the Google analytics data, check for sources that have a page visit time of less than a minute. Bots are programmed to just add a visit to the page which is usually 1 or 2 seconds maximum. It is obvious that a human will not come and stay on a page for less than 1 second, and hence you can detect the traffic generated by bots. 4. Strange Metrics The classic sign of bot activity on your site is if you see something at an extreme or unusually low. For instance, if you see bounce rates of sources at 0% or 100% then there is a high chance this visit is from a fraudulent source. Is detecting bot traffic on Google Analytics enough? Google Analytics allows you to exclude bot traffic to see a clear picture of your data without fraud traffic. With the help of Google Analytics, you can get a better insight into how much website traffic is genuine to make a better business decision. This can help you exclude the bot traffic showing on your analytics data, but the real impact of bot traffic will still exist. Thus, just the bot traffic detection on Google Analytics is not enough. To protect your websites and ad campaigns from the impact of bot traffic, you need an advanced ad traffic validation suite. This can prevent bots from draining your ad budget on invalid traffic and skewing your data. Advanced Problems Need Advanced Solutions The general bots are easy to detect by analyzing the unusual bot patterns. However, the sophisticated bots are programmed in a way that they can easily replicate human behavior. And thus, an advanced ad fraud detection tool becomes necessary to combat this problem. mFilterIt’s ad traffic validation suite detects bot traffic in real-time and eliminates them to prevent further wastage of ad spends. With the capabilities of AI, ML, and data science, the solution detects and analyses the bot patterns based on various parameters and blacklists them. Takeaways There is no one way to fight ad fraud and win against the fraudsters. With the help of analytics, you can take better business decisions by excluding the bot traffic sources from your data points. With the right mix of both analytics and ad fraud detection, you can combat ad fraud attacks and ensure that only real humans are viewing and clicking your ads and visiting your website.

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Price Not Visible on Keyword Search Results: How it Happens and What Can You Do About It?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics / Expert Opinion

Have you ever come across products without price tags on e-commerce platforms? Well, it happens a lot and causes a lot of distress. Price tags on online shopping stores hold the capacity to captivate the attention of millions of potential buyers and increase online sales/revenue. When the price of a product is not shown, the consumer might choose other options or platforms, as the buying intention remains consistent. Moreover, listings without prices may diminish the search rank on the keyword search results of an e-commerce platform. Most online shopping stores offer products in stock, with prices and titles to entice buyers. The collaborative effort of the brand and the e-commerce marketplace enables higher revenue for both. The price of a product is not shown if some other seller has won the buy box, the product is out-of-stock, or the seller is facing disputes in the e-commerce marketplace. It could also happen due to a technical issue or enlisting a wrong option/variant of a product listing. Neither of these scenarios is good for a brand. What’s more? Products without price tags that rank high on keyword search results are wasting your marketing efforts, as they are stealing the position of your product variants that have price tags. Sure, they are generating brand awareness but they are diminishing the impact of potential revenue or sales from an e-commerce platform. Moreover, products without price tags on keyword searches of an online shopping store give an edge to your competition, as they have price tags and become more enticing for a consumer before making a final buying decision. So, what can you do about it? 3 Ways to Avoid Invisibility of Price Tags on E-Commerce Platforms The global e-commerce retail sales figure is bound to reach $7.4 trillion by 2025. Imagine the loss your business can face by not paying attention to products without price tags on e-commerce platforms. How to resolve this problem? Here are three ways: – Manage Stock Availability Did you know that 39% of U.S. retailers are very concerned about stockouts during the holiday season? The impact of out-of-stock is directly linked to global supply chain disruptions. In the past few years, our clients have discovered that stockouts also happen during the rest of the year. One of our FMCG customers was facing 65% unavailability of products until it started reviewing and analyzing availability at pin code, SKU, platform, category, and other levels. Post-analysis, the brand took measures to resolve the problem by informing the respective Key Account Managers and Category Managers of their e-commerce marketplaces. Their actions resulted in the higher engagement of product listings with the target audience and conversions/revenue. The stock unavailability diminished to less than 30% in nearly three months after taking action. However, the availability of products also resulted in the visibility of the price tags. So, whenever consumers look for specific items under multiple categories or sub-categories of the e-commerce marketplace, they can compare the brand product price to the competitors before making a final purchasing decision. – Optimize the Product Pages Most people will ignore products without price tags on keyword search results. Therefore, you should also ensure that search results of the digital shelf always have variants. How can you manage this? Is it impossible? Well, No! You could probably check the keywords working for your product listings and rank new product variants at the top of the digital shelf results by using them. However, it will take time to rank and will depend on the product page optimization results too. Use the top-performing keywords in the product listings currently in stock across multiple geo-locations. Our solution, e-commerce analytics tool, mScanIt, monitors the Share-of-Shelf of your brand vis-a-vis the competition. You can check the average page position of your listings using a keyword sub-type under the SOS dashboard. By doing so, you can achieve your goal of boosting the digital shelf rank of your e-commerce product listings on brand, competition, and generic keyword search results. The solution also defines your product page scores. So, you can easily monitor the score of the competitors and check the product page content working for them. Doing so would help to build strategies to optimize the product pages further. – Win the Buy Box – Strategically The buy box is the column that consists of the add-to-cart and buy-action buttons. It has become popular among the e-commerce marketplace sellers, as they are assigned based on the marketplace algorithms. However, winning the buy box is also dependent on stock availability. We believe that brands that have associations with the best marketplace sellers have a higher tendency to win the buy box. Simultaneously, keeping the brand reputation intact through seller-wise analysis and reporting unauthorized third-party sellers can become a stepping stone. Moreover, brands can divert the buyer’s attention to their authorized sellers and increase their market share. Isn’t this mind-boggling? Well, it isn’t. There is a whole market of counterfeit sellers on e-commerce platforms. According to a report, 74.8% of people around the globe became victims of online shopping scams through e-commerce marketplaces. Brands lost revenue, but their biggest concern is damage to brand reputation. So, stopping unauthorized 3P sellers can help avoid such repercussions and increase the chance of winning the buy box. Bottom Line Products without price tags on e-commerce search results can damage brands in multiple ways. On the other hand, ensuring price tag visibility can increase visibility, brand awareness, product discoverability, and conversions/sales. The best method for ensuring this is by avoiding stockouts, diminishing counterfeit seller activities on online shopping platforms, optimizing the product pages, and strategically winning the buy box. Connect with us to learn how monitoring products through mScanIt can help to achieve these goals. Get in touch to learn more about keyword search results.

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Fraud in Affiliate Programs. What Can Marketers Do?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog / Expert Opinion

Affiliate marketing is going to stay in online marketing for a long time. But, along with its popularity in the digital marketing space, it has also been impacted by fraudulent affiliates who are willing to dig out money from advertisers. Fraud in affiliate marketing is evolving with time, and fraudsters are finding different ways to scam the merchants. But before we dive into the types of affiliate fraud, let’s start from the basics and understand all about the affiliate program and how it works. What is an Affiliate Program? In an affiliate program, there is an agreement between a business and an affiliate (business or influencer). An affiliate gets paid by the merchant when a visitor redirected from the affiliate link performs a certain action like visits, purchase, or to fill a form. This is usually done through web content, product integration, or social media. Benefits of an Affiliate Program One of the biggest benefits of the Affiliate Program is that it is a low-risk way to promote products. Apart from this, some other benefits of an affiliate program are: It is performance-based It helps to broaden the audience It boosts the reputation of the brand It is cost-effective It helps to rapidly scale the traffic How does an affiliate program work? In an affiliate program, there are three parties involved in the arrangement: The customer The affiliate site The advertiser site The affiliate program process starts with a contract between the online advertiser website and the affiliate website. According to this, the merchant will pay a commission to the affiliate for sending traffic to their website. Moreover, the agreement also includes the information related to the number of people the affiliate sends to the merchant site or the number of people performing some action like purchasing or filling a form. Affiliate marketing is an easy and effective way to sell products online and helps marketers to spread the word about their business or website. How is it different from an affiliate network? An affiliate network is a well-established platform that has access to a database of members. It enables the marketers and the companies to connect with influencers directly for promoting their products. Whereas an affiliate program is a platform where a marketer has complete control over the entire process. They can set up the rules and the commissions they are willing to pay the affiliates. Things to remember before working with affiliates Ensure to pick affiliates wisely: When choosing your affiliate partner, ensure to inquire and ask for important information. Some of the essential things to focus on are the industry they are part of, traffic estimates, and website URLs. Also, before going forward, ensure to explain the terms and conditions. Set your brand standards right: Ensure to provide the guidelines to the affiliates for representing your brand. Along with this, provide an overview of the brand’s demographics, ideal target audience, and shopping habits. Monitor the affiliate campaigns: Although it seems that the affiliates are trustworthy, it is important to keep a track of the promotions. The marketer must use tech tools to analyse the performance of the affiliate campaigns and promotions run by the affiliates. Keep a context check: Ensure to keep a check on where your ad is appearing. If your ad is appearing on controversial or offending content, it can directly impact the reputation of your brand. Check how you’re promoted: In addition to keeping a check on the placement of the ads, it is also important to check the context of the affiliate’s website content. Appearing on a website with poor and misleading content or a bad design can lead to further damage to the brand’s reputation. Beware of ad fraud: Ad fraud not only drains the advertising budget but also impacts the brand reputation. Due to various techniques of ad fraud, the ads may appear on shady and low-quality websites. It is essential to keep a check on unusual activities and take necessary actions. Fraud on Affiliate Bypassing Strict Checks The fraudsters have various techniques to take out money from the marketers. In affiliate marketing, cybercriminals bypass strict checks provided by the merchant site. One of the common ways to manipulate a marketer is through domain spoofing. The fraudsters replicate a URL of a legitimate publisher and gain the trust of the marketer. Some other methods of ad fraud in affiliates are cookie stuffing and account takeover. In some cases, the fraudsters also plant bots to generate fake clicks, conversions, and transactions. Keyword Bidding Another common way to dig out money from advertisers is by misusing the technique of keyword bidding. In performance marketing, anyone can bid on brand keywords. To flush out money from advertisers, affiliates bid on brand keywords and take back the user to the website. But instead of it being an organic user, it will be an inorganic user and the affiliate partner will be considered as the last attribution source. In addition to this, the advertiser will now pay more to the search engines to bid on their brand keywords as the demand for the keyword increases. In this way, the advertiser eventually has to pay a commission to the affiliate for an organic user that eventually would have reached the website and more money to the search engines for their brand keyword. Fake Social media groups Some fraudsters also use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to trick people into clicking on affiliate links by offering shiny offers and discounts. When the users click on that link, they are taken to a malware-affected website that can hack their system to extract personal information. In another case, the user might purchase from that fraudulent link and never receive the product. In both cases, the advertiser is directly impacted by the fraudsters. In the first case, they are losing potential customers and in the second case, the users lose trust in the brand which further impacts its brand reputation. Incorrect messaging to fool customers There are some cases where we have seen ads promoting

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Why is Clickjacking a Concern for Mobile Network Operators?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Direct Carrier Billing / Expert Opinion

Carrier billing is one of the most preferred mediums of transactions for users looking for convenience in their online subscriptions. The Mobile Network Operator (MNO) directly adds the bill for subscription services to the monthly mobile bill. According to a source, mobile internet users would exceed 1.4 billion by 2025 with an expected growth of five times the current number of mobile data users. The DCB subscriptions would become three-fold the existing number of users by the end of this year. Unfortunately, fraudsters have found ways to make fraudulent subscriptions on the behalf of users. In case of DCB fraud, the cybercriminal makes commissions from advertisers by secretly subscribing to the services on behalf of the users. Clickjacking and masking iframes are the two major type of frauds that directly impact merchants, telcos, and customers. Clickjacking involves deliberately making users click a visible webpage with an invisible element in an iframe (hidden in the background). The user unknowingly subscribes to a service by clicking on the consent lodged in the background. Unfortunately, fraudsters constantly detect similar vulnerabilities of the carrier billing systems of the telcos and overpower consumers’ security. Combating fraud through iframe masking and click jacking requires a solution to identify every step of the DCB VAS architecture. It would require to integrate appropriate measures to ensure that the Value Added Service (VAS) subscription, don’t happen without informing the user. Carrier Billing Solution to Combat iframe Masking and Clickjacking Fraud mFilterIt’s ad fraud detection for DCB provider’s incorporates deterministic, heuristic, and probabilistic layers, which helps to combat iframe, clickjacking, and other frauds. The deterministic flow also involves detecting network fraud, source fraud, invalid user agent, etc. The solution also includes identification of behavior parameters like user agent spoofing, HTML API bypass, bots, etc. The solution keeps an eye on suspicious activities and safeguards users against unsolicited subscription frauds. Normally, users engaged in apps offering subscription services and payment methods, including DCB, include static pages, which become easy for hackers to bypass through a device-installed bot or malware. So the method against fraudulent DCB payments made by undetectable methods gets revoked by offering simple adaptive enforcements that don’t damage the customer experience. Moreover, our filters include methods to determine the type of risk faced by the user. It also offers multiple mechanisms for preventing unconsented subscription transactions through DCB. It also resolves OTP, USSD, and Captcha bypassing issues through a three-level approach to combat subscription fraud. Furthermore, our solution is customizable and complies with the government guidelines. It helps operators to revoke regulatory repercussions on the network through DCB transactions. Preventing unwanted charges in carrier bills is the telco’s responsibility and could impact the relationship between the MNO and its customer. So, telco brands need to take active measures to prevent fraudulent subscriptions. Conclusion One of the best methods to combat iframe masking and clickjacking fraud is mFilterIt’s anti-fraud solution for Direct Carrier Billing. The solution safeguards the user’s engagement with the telcos and keeps the faith between MNOs & consumers intact. The solution is being used by telcos globally to safeguard the interests of their merchants & customers. So that it fosters long-term relationships with their customers. The solution curtails fraudulent attempts through sophisticated methods. Schedule a demo to learn the impact and advantages of implementing an anti-fraud solution for DCB.

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Travel Meta Search Engines – How Fraudsters Are Ruining It?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog / Expert Opinion

The global travel industry is experiencing sustained growth. Amid this, travel metasearch engines have emerged as a critical touchpoint for millions of travelers looking to compare prices, discover deals, and book smarter. These platforms aggregating hotel and flight listings across OTAs and direct suppliers are no longer just price-comparison tools. They’ve evolved into performance-driven ad marketplaces for travel brands, offering reach, visibility, and high-intent traffic. However, with opportunity comes risks – cyber traps set by fraudsters. Here’s what you need to know about travel metasearch engines and how fraud is exploiting these platforms. What are travel metasearch engines? A travel metasearch engine is a platform that serves as a price comparison website. The customers can compare hotel and flight prices in real-time. These platforms work like an aggregator, taking data from different sources across the internet, like the OTAs (online travel agents) or directly from the hotels. However, the travel metasearch platforms are not booking channels. They just serve as a search engine platform for various travel booking channels. What is their revenue model? The revenue model of travel metasearch engines is the same as the digital advertising platforms. Their revenue comes from metrics like CPC (Cost per click), CPI (cost per impression), CPA (cost per acquisition), and hybrid ads (a combination of CPA and CPC). Is Meta Search a passing trend or the future of travel? The pandemic has brought a massive change in the behavior’s of the travelers. Along with the safety and hygiene, they are looking for more flexible deals and transparency in the price when planning a vacation. To address these changes, the metasearch platforms have become more relevant in the current times. Apart from being a one-stop platform to show the best and budget-friendly deals, it is helpful across travel means and hotels. The metasearch platforms address the core problems of travel portals. After the break of 2 years, the hotels and OTA’s want to be discovered and visible to potential travelers. To fulfill this gap, metasearch offers both discoverability and visibility on its platforms. They also add important information like ratings and reviews for the travelers to make an informed decision. And with travelers taking more informed decisions and newer hotels & OTAs emerging, these metasearch platforms are here to stay for a long time. However, there is a catch. The meta-search platforms also come under the radar of cybercriminals. Fraud in Metasearch Platforms The metasearch platforms charge a cost per click or a commission from the advertisers. This offers a golden opportunity for fraudsters to exploit the system, leading to the wastage of advertisers’ ad budgets and the manipulation of their data. How Does Fraud Happen in Travel Metasearch Platforms? Bot Traffic: The fraudsters program bots to engage with the links of the advertisers on the meta-search platforms. These bots generate fake clicks and inflate the click rate on the advertiser’s website. On one hand, the advertiser receives a high number of clicks, but the conversion numbers remain low. In addition to this, the advertiser has to pay for every click to the metasearch platforms. VPN Proxy: Apart from generating bot traffic, the fraudsters also use VPNs to fake locations and IP addresses. This technique makes it difficult for the advertiser to differentiate between a genuine click and a bot-generated click, and they end up with manipulated data. Competitor Clicks:  In some cases, some travel websites also send bot traffic to their competitors’ listings to manipulate their data. They program the bots to generate fake clicks for the website and keep them under the impression that they are getting genuine traffic. Impact of Fraud Compromised Data: Fraudsters program bots to engage with the links listed on the metasearch engines. These bots generate fake clicks, which makes the advertiser believe that they are getting traffic. However, despite the high number of clicks, the travel platforms do not see any improvement in conversions. Influx in CTR: Due to the impression generated by bots, the CTR is impacted directly and misleads the advertiser. They are under the impression that they are getting genuine traffic. Whereas the reality is that they are only getting invalid traffic. How can we make a difference? We use the capabilities of AI, ML, and data science to detect bot patterns in the traffic coming from the meta-search platforms. With a deep analysis of the data, we identify the fraudulent IP addresses and blacklist them. This ensures that they will not impact the traffic of the advertiser in the future. Final Words Travel is all set to see massive growth after a halt of two years. And while it is an opportunity for hotels and OTAs to gear up and bring more traffic to their website, someone is watching their every move. Fraudsters are not just stealing money from ads, but they are also on a spree to manipulate the growth of advertisers listing themselves on metasearch platforms. To ensure that your money is not wasted on invalid and non-converting traffic, get in touch with an ad fraud detection & prevention solution provider like mFilterIt and weed out fraud from your campaign data. Get in touch with our experts today!

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