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Decoding complex digital challenges like ad fraud, brand safety, brand protection, and ecommerce intelligence for brands to help them advertise fearlessly.

install fraud

What is Install Fraud? How to Solve Install Fraud?

Blog, Mobile Ad Fraud /

Advertising platforms optimize for signals—not intent.   In mobile marketing, the most important signal is the install. More installs usually mean a campaign is working. Platforms see this, assume success, and push more budget in the same direction.   This is where install fraud begins.   Fake installs are easier and cheaper to generate than real users. Fraudsters use bots, device farms, or incentivized tactics to create large volumes of installs that look genuine on the surface. Since the numbers look good, platforms assume the campaign is performing well. Budgets increase. The same sources get more spend.   But the users aren’t real.   At first, nothing feels wrong. Cost per install may even go down. Install numbers keep growing. The problem only becomes visible later, when users don’t open the app, don’t register, and don’treturn. What looked like growth turns into wasted spend.   That’s why fake app installs are so hard to catch early. It doesn’t break campaigns overnight. It quietly trains platforms to invest in fake activity while genuine users get pushed out.   In this blog, we’ll explain what install fraud is, the common ways it happens, and how marketers can spot and prevent it—before it starts impacting real growth.  What is Install Fraud in Mobile Advertising?  Install fraud occurs when fake app installs are generated or manipulated to claim attribution and payouts, without real user intent.  In simple terms, a fake install appears as a genuine app download on your dashboard but doesn’t come from a genuine user who intends to engage with your app. These installs may be created by bots, emulators, manipulated devices, or deceptive techniques designed to game attribution systems.  Install fraud falls under the broader category of mobile ad fraud, and it primarily targets CPI-driven campaigns. Since advertisers pay for installs, fraudsters focus on triggering that one event, regardless of what happens afterwards.  What makes this problem more complex is that modern mobile ad fraud techniques don’t just stop at installs. When install traffic isn’t verified, the same fraudulent activity extends to post-install events as well, such as sign-ups, in-app actions, or other action-driven KPIs. These events may look legitimate in reports, but they’re often designed to reinforce false performance signals.  The result? You end up paying for volume, but you don’t get real value in return, leading to weaker optimization signals and campaign inefficiency.  Common Types of Install Fraud Techniques You Need to Know About  Fraudsters use various techniques to generate fake installs and manipulate last-click attribution. These techniques closely mimic real user activity, making it impossible for basic tools to identifymobile ad fraud. Here are the most common install fraud techniques performance marketers should be familiar with:  Click Injection Click injection happens when a fraudulent source identifies that an install is about to take place. A click is fired right at that moment (by exploiting the narrow attribution window) to steal the last click attribution from the channel that actually drove the install. This is also known as organic poaching or install hijacking.  Click Spamming Click spamming is when a large volume of fake ad clicks are sent and injected into devices in advance. This increases the chance that one of those clicks gets credited whenever an organic install eventually takes place, stealing the attribution as a result.  SDK Spoofing SDK spoofing fakes app installs by imitating devices and app signals through emulators or scripts, making it appear as a real user installed on the app, without any actual download taking place.Fraudsters generate installs only to exhaust advertising budgets and spoof installs.  Fake App Versions Fraudsters use altered or cloned versions of the app that appear legitimate but generate fake installs and in-app events. These versions mimic normal activity and deceive attribution systems into counting non-genuine traffic.  Know what unusual app version patterns look like and how they reveal bot traffic.  What makes all these techniques dangerous is not just how they work but also how normal they appear to human eyes in standard reports.  How Does Install Fraud Impact Mobile Advertising Performance? Install fraud operates silently. It passes basic attribution checks, mimics normal install behaviour, and avoids sudden spikes that might raise alarms. This happens because installs are counted before user quality is proven.   The moment an install is attributed, it’s treated as success, long before anyone knows whether that user will engage, return, or convert. Therefore, the business impact begins to fall. It doesn’tjust affect one metric or one campaign. It spreads across attribution, the entire funnel, optimization, teams, and long-term strategy. Here’s how:  Confusing performance metrics Fake installs inflate metrics like CPI and install volume, masking real weaknesses in retention, engagement, and long-term value.  Misleading attribution signals & optimization decisions Mobile ad fraud techniques steal credit from genuine channels, making fraudulent partners look better than they truly are, leading teams to invest where value isn’t being created.  Lower audience quality Fake installs never engage meaningfully post-install. When these users enter retargeting lists or lookalike pools, overall audience quality drops.  Budget misallocation Because dashboards don’t always show red flags early, money keeps flowing toward channels that appear efficient but deliver little real return.  Cross-team impact Product, growth, and analytics teams end up working with skewed signals, affecting feature prioritization, engagement strategy, and user journey decisions.  Unreliable forecasting and planning Cohort trends, lifetime value projections, and performance forecasts become unreliable when they’re built on compromised data.  Skewed event-level analysis Low-intent users trigger surface-level actions, making it appear as though users are progressing through the funnel. This skews event-level analysis, weakens action-driven KPIs, and makes it harder to identify where genuine drop-offs are actually happening.  But my attribution platforms flag mobile ad fraud? Most attribution platforms are designed to assign credit, not to validate whether an install or event came from real user intent. As a result, sophisticated mobile ad fraud techniques manipulate attribution logic, steal credit from genuine channels, and reinforce false performance signals. This often leads teams to trust reports that look complete, but miss the underlying quality and

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Click fraud

AI vs AI: How AI powered tech can help to detect advanced click fraud?

Blog, Ad Fraud /

AI is no longer just accelerating digital advertising; it’s powering a new generation of bot-driven fraud.  As AI adoption surges, growing from USD 8.6 billion market in 2023 to a projected USD 81.6 billion by 2033, it has unlocked unprecedented speed and scale. But this same power is now being exploited to generate massive volumes of intelligent bot traffic that looks, behaves, and performs like real users.  These AI-driven bots don’t raise obvious red flags. They blend into campaigns. AI has made click fraud faster, smarter, and harder to detect. And the only way to fight it is with AI itself.   This blog will uncover –  How AI becomes a fraud enabler?  What are the impacts of AI-driven fraud on ad performance  Signs to Identify Advanced AI-Driven Click Fraud  How AI shields brands against advanced fraud tactics   How AI Becomes a Fraud Enabler   Earlier, fraudulent activity was easier to spot repetitive patterns, obvious spikes, or low-quality traffic that clearly looked non-human. Today, AI has changed the game click fraud has evolved with sophisticated tactics like click spamming and click injection. Fraudsters now use intelligent bots that analyse campaign behaviour, mimic real user journeys, and continuously adapt to evade detection. The result is an illusion of performance.  The most damaging outcomes of AI-driven click fraud include:  Bot-Driven Automated Clicks AI-powered bots now simulate real human browsing behavior, mimicking scrolling, dwell time, and natural click patterns to quietly manipulate engagement metrics and drain ad budgets without raising suspicion.  Emulator and Device Farm Traffic Fraudsters deploy emulators and device farms, using AI to manage thousands of virtual devices that generate fake clicks, installs, and events. To ad platforms, this traffic looks legitimate, diverse devices, consistent behavior, and clean signals.  Ad Stacking and Hidden Ads AI also enables ad stacking and hidden ad techniques, where multiple ads are layered or concealed behind visible elements. Impressions and clicks are generated without any real user intent  Geo and IP Rotation To further evade detection, AI-driven systems continuously rotate IP addresses, geographies, and device identities, making fraudulent traffic appear like it’scoming from genuine users across multiple regions.  Know how click fraud impacts performance campaigns in walled gardens What is the Impact of AI–Driven Bots on Ad Performance? As the evolution of AI is expanding its feet across the digital ecosystem, its real-world impacts on ad performance are clearly visible. Here’s how they function –  Because these bots adapt to platform rules, they often bypass basic fraud checks and continue running undetected.  By copying real user behavior, bot clicks look genuine, making fraud hard to spot.  Fake clicks and engagement corrupt performance data, so reports no longer reflect reality.  This misleads bidding, targeting, and optimization algorithms, pushing spend toward fraudulent traffic.  Over time, ROI, attribution, and conversion metrics get distorted, hiding real performance issues.  Worst of all, this activity can look clean in dashboards, while quietly eroding returns across paid media campaigns.  AI as the Defense Layer: Role of AI Against Click Fraud  AI-driven fraud prevention systems track unusual user behavior and uses past data to predict fraud, helping advertisers stay ahead of scammers causing click injection. Here’s how AI-powered ad fraud detection solution like Valid8 empower brands against click fraud –  Detecting Click Repetition and Abnormal Behaviour Patterns AI keeps an eye on clicks across devices, IP addresses, and sessions to spot unusual patterns—like repeated clicks, sudden spikes, or traffic coming from suspicious IPs, proxies, or VPNs. By identifying these signs of bot activity in real time, AI can block fraudulent clicks before they waste your budget or give you misleading performance data. Filtering Invalid Devices Through User-Agent Analysis Fraudulent traffic often reveals itself through abnormal or manipulated user-agent strings. AI examines device, OS, and browser combinations to detect inconsistencies that don’t align with real-world usage patterns. Invalid or spoofed devices are flagged before their clicks are counted as genuine engagement. Know what to look for in a click fraud detection tool Validating Geographic Authenticity Through IP Intelligence AI verifies whether traffic is coming from applicable and relevant geographies. Mismatches between campaign targeting, and user behaviour often indicate fraud. By performing geo-validation in real time, AI ensures only legitimate, location-relevant clicks influence campaign performance metrics. Detecting MFA Sites Using Impression/Click-Level Intelligence Made-for-Advertising (MFA) sites are designed to generate ad revenue rather than real engagement. AI analyses impression and click level data coming from low-quality users of these sites, captured via tracking pixels and runs it through fraud detection algorithms and blacklists. Once identified, these MFA sources are automatically blocked within ad managers, preventing further spend leakage in real time. Enabling True Source-Level Transparency AI-driven defence systems provide granular visibility into traffic sources, revealing exactly where clicks originate. This source-level transparency helps marketers distinguish high-quality inventory from fraudulent or low-value placements, allowing smarter optimisation decisions and greater control over media spend. Conclusion The real challenge for marketers isn’t whether to adopt AI, it’s how to use it responsibly and defensively. As AI-driven bots become increasingly human-like and adaptive, traditional fraud controls are no longer enough. Invalid traffic blends seamlessly into campaigns, and performance metrics alone can no longer be taken at face value.  The solution is clear: AI must fight AI. With mFilterIt’s AI/ML powered click fraud prevention tool, Valid8, brands can protect their campaigns, safeguard budgets, and boost ROI without compromising trust or data quality. 

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CTV advertising in USA

How CTV Advertising Is Reshaping Audience Interest and Need for Smarter Optimization

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability /

Media and entertainment industry has embarked on a journey towards more personalized and precise shift. People nowadays do not wait for their favourite show to broadcast, they simply pick one and proceed that’s the freedom and flexibility that Connected TV (CTV) brings, and this is the reason people are shifting their focus from TV to CTV.   Brands on the other hand have the perfect chance with CTV to directly target the most relevant audience and this can be possible if ads are optimized rightly, placed besides the right context, and is shown at a normal frequency that the impact sticks by the viewers.  As the audience interest towards CTV advertising grew, it opened the gates of opportunities for brands to target the right audience at the right time while maintaining brand safety standards.   Viewers consuming content on CTV makes it easier for brands to map his/her interest, hence presenting a relevant ad placement which is more likely to be noticed, absorbed, and remembered, unlike background viewing on linear TV.  Now, as a brand, you know whom to target and for branding purposes this means your ad spend is reaching the right audience. This empowers CTV campaigns to deliver more efficient campaign performance and enhanced ROI.  In this blog, you will discover –  Why CTV is central to modern building  Why CTV advertising is a good approach for brand campaigns  How can brands make the most of CTV advertising  Why CTV Is Central to Modern Brand Building Television industry has always been an easier and the most convenient approach for brands to reach to their target audience. Now, when the major talks are about a shift in the way people perceive media and entertainment, CTV has gradually and now much strongly positioned itself as the most invested destination where content is consumed in galore.  This embarked brands on a journey towards more centralized brand building approach to reach wider and most importantly relevant audience. Here’s how it has become a centre for modern brand building –  Rapid shift from linear TV to CTV An eye-blinking shift from tradition TV to CTV emerged from the control on viewability that audience receives. Instead of waiting for a particular time to watch a particular show, viewers can watch anything at any time, make a switch rather rapid and seamless.  Growing base of cord-cutters At the same time, the growing base of cord-cutters has reduced the effectiveness of traditional TV for reaching younger and digitally native audiences. CTV allows brands to stay present where these audiences actually spend time, without sacrificing scale.  High-impact, full-screen brand exposure When brand ads are viewed on CTV especially on the large screens at homes, impact is not restricted to merely seeing, it stays with the audience, driving awareness, recall, and long-term brand perception.  Intent-driven and content-aware audiences From the vast pool of available options, brands can pick any source of entertainment based on their interests, mood, and context. This enables brands to align messages with what audiences are watching, creating relevance without relying on intrusive data signals.  Why CTV Advertising is a Good Approach for Brand Campaigns? While we know the importance of brand ads, merely running an ad is not enough. Brands must also optimize their ads timely to reach the right audience at the right time with the right frequency. Here’s why ad optimization matters more on CTV –  Aligning with the viewer’s mindset Your ads must be optimized in a manner that they are presented to the right audience. For instance, a viewer streaming a live sports match, a crime documentary, or a family movie is in a very different emotional and cognitive state. Ads that align with this mindset feel relevant and natural, while those that can’t feel jarring or out of place. Optimization on CTV therefore requires understanding not just who the audience is, but what they are watching and why.  Contextual ads placements Context directly influences brand perception. The content surrounding your brand’s ads shapes how your ad is perceived by viewers. On CTV, where attention is high and associations are strong, contextual ads can amplify brand reputation.  Eliminating ad fatigue As a viewer who is deeply invested in the CTV content, nothing becomes more frustrating than watching the same ad on repeat. If your ads are being shown repetitively, it impacts your brand’s image negatively, destroying the entire purpose of running an ad. Hence, with right frequency capping, brands can optimize their ads and show to the audience to a point that it remains solely for awareness and doesn’t exploit customer interest.  How Can Brands Make the Most of CTV Advertising? When it comes to CTV ads, brands cannot limit their approach to optimizing ads, they must also ensure their ads are shown beside a contextually safe and relevant content. When ads run on complex CTV systems, here’s how brands can make the most of CTV advertising while simultaneously ensuring brand safety –   Moving Beyond Keyword Blocking: Keyword blocking alone is no longer sufficient. Brands need to assess meaning and intent, not just words, to avoid both overblocking safe content and missing real risks.  Analysing the Full Video Environment: True brand safety requires understanding the entire video experience, visuals, audio, text, and surrounding content, not just titles or metadata.  Maintaining Dynamic Control Over Content & Channels: Brand safety must be flexible. Marketers need real-time control to adapt to changing content trends, channels, and emerging risks.  Accounting for Regional & Language Nuance: Context varies by region and language. Effective strategies consider local culture and sentiment to ensure ads appear in appropriate environments everywhere.  Using AI & ML to Scale Safely: AI and ML enable real-time analysis at scale, helping brands protect campaigns efficiently while maintaining reach and performance. Conclusion  Connected TV has already won attention. The real challenge now is what brands do with it. High completion rates and premium screens mean little if ad placement is not aligned with the right audiences and supported by strong brand safety controls.  A smarter CTV approach moves beyond reach and viewability to focus on relevance, environment, and intent. When brands tailor their CTV strategy—optimizing where ads appear, how they align with content, and how audiences experience them—CTV stops being just a branding channel. It becomes a performance driver.  Want to know how? Contact us now!  FAQs What is Connected TV (CTV) advertising? Connected TV advertising refers to ads shown on internet-enabled TVs through streaming apps and platforms. It combines the impact of television with digital targeting and measurement capabilities.  How does non-contextuality affect brand performance on CTV? The content surrounding an ad directly influences how viewers perceive the brand. Ads placed in mismatched or low-quality environments can dilute brand equity, even if viewability is high.  How can brands avoid ad fatigue on CTV? By applying frequency capping, rotating creatives, and dynamically optimizing placements, brands can maintain awareness without overwhelming viewers or harming brand perception. 

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click fraud

Click Fraud & What to Look for in a Prevention Tool

Infographics /

Every day, brands are copied, misused, or manipulated online. But the real challenge is knowing which protection solution can actually stop it. With threats spreading across search engines, marketplaces, social platforms, messaging apps, and cloned websites, businesses need more than basic detection. They need clarity, speed, and precision. Our latest infographic, “A Quick Checklist to Choose the Right Brand Protection Solution,” breaks down the essential capabilities every modern solution must offer. This checklist highlights what actually makes a solution effective, from impact-based risk scoring and AI-driven discovery to removing false positives and enabling quick, automated takedowns. It also showcases how advanced platforms like Sentinel+ by mFilterIt combine OSINT intelligence, hybrid classification, and cross-platform enforcement to safeguard brands from impersonation, counterfeits, phishing pages, and deceptive listings. As digital risks continue to evolve, one question stands out: Is your brand protection partner equipped to detect threats before they turn into consumer harm or revenue loss? Download the infographic to explore the complete checklist and make an informed, secure choice. Download Submit

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Brand Bidding for Better Search Performance

Brand Bidding: Dos & Don’ts for Better Search Performance

Blog, Affiliate /

What happens when someone searches for your brand and still doesn’t land on your webpage?  Brand keywords sit at the most fragile point of your funnel: the moment earned intent turns into revenue. When users search with your brand keyword, they are not browsing, they are deciding. For marketers, this is the highest-intent traffic you will ever get, and how you handle it can make or break conversions, attribution, and overall search ROI.  That’s where the dos and don’ts of brand bidding come in.  Do it right, and brand keywords become a powerful lever. Do it wrong, and the damage is subtle but expensive.  What you are going to see isn’t just a tactical checklist. It’s about discipline at the bottom of the funnel. Because when it comes to brand keywords, what you allow and what you don’t, decides whether intent turns into growth or quietly leaks away.  That’s exactly what this blog is going to cover, highlighting:  Who are responsible for brand keyword auction?   What brands should do to improve brand keyword performance?  What brands should not do to while navigating brand bidding checks?  How to identify if your affiliate partners are bidding on brand keywords?  How can you ensure long-term control over your brand keywords?   Key Players in Brand Keyword Auctions Brand keywords are prime targets for anyone trying to steal your organic traffic. To protect your brand, focus on the three main players:  Brand itself – To ensure they are seen when someone searches with their brand name.  Competitors – It is a common norm of competitors bidding on brand keywords to be seen for the similar audience pool.  Partners & affiliates – If affiliate partners bid on brand keywords, it is not ethical as they are paid commissions to bring unique visitors. Knowing these players helps brands take the next step, focusing on the essential actions and best practices (the do’s) needed to optimize and protect brand keyword performance.  Do’s: How to Analyse Brand Keyword Performance Here’s what brands should keep in mind when reviewing brand keyword performance.  Always Own Your Brand Keywords Owning your brand keywords is non-negotiable, even if you rank #1 organically. Brand campaigns give you full control over how your brand appears at the most critical moment of intent, your messaging, sitelinks, extensions, and landing pages. Without this control, competitors or resellers can define the narrative, intercept high-intent traffic, and dilute trust before users ever reach you.  Monitor Who Else Is Bidding on Your Brand Brand keyword auctions are rarely exclusive. Competitors, affiliates, resellers, and even unknown third parties may bid on your brand terms, often appearing alongside or above your ads. Regular monitoring helps you understand who is present in the auction, how aggressive they are, and where brand leakage or policy violations may be occurring.  Align Search and Affiliate Teams Brand keywords sit at the intersection of paid search and affiliate marketing, making alignment critical. Clear rules, shared performance metrics, and consistent communication between teams help prevent internal competition, inflated costs, and attribution conflicts. When teams operate in silos, brand efficiency suffers even when results appear strong on paper.  Measure Incrementality, Not Just Conversions High conversion volumes on brand keywords don’t automatically mean high value. True performance comes from understanding incrementality, how much of that demand is genuinely driven by paid efforts. Evaluating new versus returning users, overlap with organic traffic, and assisted versus last-click conversions reveals whether brand spend is creating growth or simply capturing existing intent.  Don’ts: What Weakens Brand Keyword Performance Here’s what many brands overlook and how it quietly weakens their brand keyword performance.  Don’t Assume Brand Traffic Is Free Brand traffic may look inexpensive, but it’s never free. Every brand click carries a cost, and without active management, CPCs can quietly rise due to competition, inefficiencies, or poor structure. Treating brand campaigns as an afterthought often leads to inflated spend and missed opportunities to protect and optimize high-intent demand.  Don’t Ignore Partner Brand Bidding Brand bidding in affiliate marketing isn’t always wrong if brand has stated the clear guidelines on which keywords are allowed for bidding. However, affiliate partners who bid intentionally or unintentionally on brand terms, and without clear rules or monitoring, this activity can inflate cost per click, distort attribution, and weaken true search efficiency. Controlled participation enables scale; unchecked bidding creates leakage.  Don’t Rely Only on Last-Click Attribution With last-click attribution, credit often goes to partners who didn’t generate demand organically but simply intercepted it by diverting users through their own links. This masks the efforts that actually brought the user in and makes brand keyword performance look stronger than it truly is, while inflating the value of traffic that was never incremental.  What to Do When Your Affiliate Partners Bid on Your Brand Keywords  If partners are bidding on your brand keywords, you need to know and identify it. Here’s a stepwise guide for brands to detect brand bidding violations by dishonest affiliates:  Step 1: Identify Which Affiliates Are Bidding Start by gaining visibility into which partners are bidding on your brand keywords. This includes understanding who they are, how often they appear, and where they show up in the auction. Without clarity on participation, brand control becomes guesswork.  Step 2: Review Their Keywords, Ads, and Landing Pages Look closely at the exact keywords, partners are bidding on, the ad copy they are using, and where that traffic is being sent. Misaligned messaging, misleading offers, or unnecessary redirects can confuse users and weaken trust at the moment of search.  Step3: Ask One Critical Question Evaluate whether the bidding activity is genuinely improving brand keyword performance or simply intercepting demand that would have reached you anyway. This distinction helps separate incremental value from inflated conversions.  Step 4: Act Based on Impact Once performance is clear, decide the right approach and allow affiliate bidding with clear guardrails, restrict specific brand terms, or adjust commissions to reflect true contribution.  How to Maintain Long-term Control Over Brand Keywords Long-term brand protection comes from governance not one-time fixes. Clear rules, visibility, and accountability keep brand keywords efficient and protected. Following guidelines enable brands to own the long-term control over their keywords –  Set Clear Brand Keyword Guidelines Define who can bid on brand terms, which keywords are allowed, and how brand messaging should appear. Clear rules reduce confusion and prevent misuse across teams and partners.  Monitor Brand Activity Regularly Brand auctions change fast, especially during sales and peak periods. Regular monitoring helps catch CPC spikes, new bidders, and compliance issues early.  Share Ownership Across Teams Brand keyword performance spans search, affiliate, and partner teams. Shared accountability keeps costs controlled and goals aligned.  Review

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Brand Safety on Video Platforms

Why Brand Safety on Video Platforms Will Matter More Than Ever in 2026

Blog, Brand Safety & Protection /

In 2026, the biggest risk in video advertising won’t be unsafe content; it will be misplaced trust.  Video has evolved into the most influential layer of the digital ecosystem, shaping brand identity and consumer perception at scale. According to a stat, 95% of the brands see video marketing as a crucial part of the overall strategy. It shapes how audiences discover brands, how narratives are framed, and how trust is built, and ultimately, brand reputation is built or eroded at scale. Unlike static formats, video does not exist in isolation. It creates an immersive environment where advertising, content, and emotion intersect.  As brands increase their investments across short-form UGC content, long-form video, OTT, and connected TV, the line between content and advertising continues to blur. Viewers don’tcompartmentalize their experience. The content they consume and the ads they see are perceived as part of the same moment.  This shift fundamentally raises the stakes for advertisers. Brand safety on video platforms is no longer just about avoiding obvious risks—it’s about ensuring that every placement aligns with how a brand wants to be seen. Heading into 2026, this alignment will directly influence brand trust, recall, and long-term equity.   What we will cover in this blog:   This blog explains why brand safety on video platforms will matter more than ever in 2026, why platform-level controls and keyword blocking are no longer enough, and what a modern, context-driven brand safety approach must account for, including contextual relevancy, placement quality, and audience perception, so advertisers can protect trust, relevance, and long-term brand value in a video-first world.  The Real Brand Safety Problem on Video Platforms Brand safety challenges on video platforms are no longer isolated incidents. They directly impact brand reputation and consumer trust. They are the result of structural gaps in how content is classified, evaluated, and governed at scale.  As video advertising grows more automated and decentralised, brands face a convergence of risks—many of which stem from outdated or incomplete approaches to brand safety.  Standards Exist, but Enforcement Is Inconsistent Industry frameworks such as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) provide a shared baseline for defining content risk and suitability. These guidelines help brands, platforms, and agencies align on what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable environments. However, compliance with standards does not guarantee consistent enforcement.  Video platforms interpret and apply these frameworks differently, often optimising for scale and monetisation. As a result, content that meets minimum standards may still be unsuitable for certain brands, categories, or markets.  For advertisers, this creates a gap between policy-level compliance and real-world placement quality. Over-Reliance on Platform-Level Controls Most brands depend heavily on platform-provided brand safety settings and automated content blocking mechanisms. While necessary, these controls are limited.  Platform-native solutions:  Operate on broad, one-size-fits-all thresholds  Lack visibility into placement-level decisioning  Are not tailored to individual brand risk tolerance  This creates a false sense of safety. Brands assume protection because controls are enabled, without truly understanding where ads are appearing or why.  As video ecosystems expand, this reliance becomes a liability rather than a safeguard.  Keyword Blocking Creates Blind Spots Keyword blocking remains one of the most widely used brand safety tactics—but it was never designed for video.  Keywords cannot capture:  Narrative intent  Visual context  Emotional tone or sentiment  As a result, brands either block too aggressively and lose quality reach, or fail to block content that appears acceptable on paper but problematic in practice.  In a video-first environment, over-reliance on content blocking increasingly works against brands rather than for them.  Lack of Content-Level Evaluation Many brand safety decisions are still made based on metadata—titles, tags, and descriptions—rather than the content itself.  This introduces risk in a video ecosystem where:  Titles are optimised for clicks  Descriptions may not reflect actual content  Visual storytelling often contradicts text signals  Without analysing the actual video—visuals, audio, on-screen text—brands lack a complete view of the environment their ads are associated with.  Absence of Contextual and Sentiment Intelligence Most existing brand safety controls treat content as either safe or unsafe. This binary approach ignores context.  Tone, framing, and sentiment play a critical role in how content is perceived. Ads placed next to emotionally charged, alarmist, or sensational content can inherit those cues—even if the content itself is technically compliant.  Without contextual targeting and sentiment analysis, brands are exposed to subtle but significant perception risks.  One-Size-Fits-All Global Frameworks Video platforms operate globally, but brand safety is deeply local.  Cultural norms, language nuances, and regional sensitivities vary widely especially in markets like India, MENA, and South-East Asia. Tools designed for Western markets often fail to capture these nuances.  Brands applying uniform global rules risk misalignment in local markets, where the impact of content can differ dramatically.  Misclassification and Category-Level Risk Accurate content classification underpins brand safety. Yet misclassification remains common on video platforms.  When content is incorrectly categorised, brands lose control over placement suitability—especially in sensitive categories such as children’s content, news, or regulated verticals.  This not only creates reputational risk but also raises compliance and governance concerns.  How do Brand Safety Measures Need to Evolve in 2026? With the digital ecosystem evolving rapidly and the threats increasing, brands need to be proactive with their safety measures. Brands need a modern brand safety solution to ensure they don’t miss any blindspots to non-transparency of ad placements.   Content-Level Evaluation Must Replace Assumptions Brand safety frameworks must evolve from signal-based checks to content-level understanding. This means analyzing what is actually present in the video—visual elements, spoken language, on-screen text, and overall narrative flow.  Relying on metadata alone introduces risk, as titles and descriptions can be optimized for discoverability rather than accuracy. Content-level evaluation provides a more reliable foundation for assessing suitability and risk. Contextual Suitability Will Matter More Than Binary Safety The concept of “safe” versus “unsafe” is no longer sufficient.  A piece of content can meet platform safety standards while still being unsuitable for a particular brand, category, or campaign objective. Contextual suitability focuses on alignment—whether the environment reinforces or undermines brand messaging.  In 2026, advertisers

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Ad Fraud and Brand Safety in Travel Industry

Why Do Travel Industry Campaigns Underperform Even When Metrics Look Strong?

Blog, Ad Fraud /

As the global travel industry moves toward a projected US$1063.00bn market by 2028, competition for traveller demand has never been more intense. Airlines, OTAs, hotels, and travel apps are investing aggressively across digital channels to capture attention early, shape intent, and convert inspiration into bookings.  To achieve this, travel industry typically run a mix of awareness campaigns to spark destination interest and performance campaigns to drive booking intent and improve the look-to-book ratio. Today, more than 78% of travel advertising budgets are allocated to digital ads, representing $7.73 billion in spend this year alone.  However, there is a catch. Campaigns may appear healthy on the surface, a significant portion of this spend never reaches a real traveller or influences a genuine booking decision. What often goes unnoticed is what happens after a campaign goes live.   Performance seems to perform well, but beneath the dashboards, early warning signals begin to emerge, signals that quietly erode efficiency, inflate results, and dilute real demand. By the time the impact is visible in bookings and revenue, the damage is already done.  This raises critical questions for travel marketers:  What hidden signals are affecting both awareness and performance campaigns?  How do these issues distort demand and ROI?  And most importantly, how can travel industry brands safeguard their campaigns before budget leakage turns into lost revenue?  Signs Travel Industry Brands Must Not Overlook in Their Campaigns Travel brands run multiple campaigns without paying much heed to the signs that cause devastating impacts, directly hampering brand’s ROI. Sneak into these signs before they sneak in your campaigns –  Sudden spikes in clicks Exorbitantly high clicks in your campaigns causing click fraud without any significant conversions.  Impact – Your budget drains faster, performance looks better than it actually is, and attribution hijacking shifts credit to the wrong channels, leading to decisions based on false data, ads being pulled away from real travellers, and a direct drop in your search-to-book ratio.   Read in detail about click fraud Artificially increased engagement High engagement from low-quality users who later uninstall the app.  Impact – Campaigns show high clicks, installs, or interactions driven by low-quality or non-genuine users who uninstall the app shortly after, delivering no real retention, revenue, or long-term value, contributing to invalid traffic and hampering the lifetime value of travellers Read in detail about incent fraud Impressions generating from unexpected geographies Ads getting viewed from locations that were never your target on the first place.  Impact – Impressions from unintended geographies lead to geotargeting fraud, causing wasted spend, diluted audience relevance, and misleading performance metrics that don’t translate into real demand or conversions. Abnormal promo code or loyalty point redemptions Unusual spikes or repeated redemptions indicate misuse of discounts or rewards, often through unauthorized sharing, automation, or expired codes.  Impact – It leads to unearned discounts, direct revenue loss, distorted campaign results, and reduced value for genuine customers.  Know more about how referral and coupon fraud exploit campaign performance Keyword bid price rising alarmingly Constant bidding on branded keywords by competitors or affiliates.  Impact – When competitors repeatedly bid on your brand keywords, bid prices rise and their ads appear above your official site, diverting high-intent traffic, inflating acquisition costs, and quietly eroding the effectiveness of your campaigns.  Read more about how brand bidding violations impact PPC campaigns Ads appearing on irrelevant or unsafe content Ads getting misplaced by fraudsters who manipulate systems using bots, spoofed domains, hidden ads, or fake apps.  Impact – It causes wasted ad spend on non-human or low-intent traffic, inflated reach and engagement metrics, misleading attribution and ROAS.  How Travel Industry Brands Can Safeguard Their Ad Campaigns For travel brands, protecting both brand reputation and campaign performance is critical. Awareness and performance campaigns rely on accurate signals, safe placements, and genuine user actions. While in-house monitoring can address some risks, it often falls short against sophisticated fraud tactics and scale-related challenges. This is why travel brands need a trusted and holistic ad fraud solution that validates traffic, ensure safe brand asset placements, and secures brands at all levels.   mFilterIt brings a unified solution to safeguard travel campaigns end to end. Here’s what the comprehensive solutions includes –   Fraud prevention across all stages (From viewing to purchasing) Maintains source-level transparency and validates traffic at every stage of the funnel, not just at the impression level, ensuring genuine engagement and conversions.  Identifying safer, high-quality inventory Detects suspicious, inappropriate, and Made-for-Advertising (MFA) sites and delivers placement-level visibility. This enables brands to proactively block unsafe environments and focus spend on premium, brand-safe, and contextually relevant inventory, ensuring ads appear only in suitable settings that protect brand reputation and drive meaningful engagement.  Clean and accurate attribution Clearly identifies which channels and partners are driving real outcomes, enabling fair attribution and informed optimization decisions.  Detection of brand bidding violations Actively identifies competitors or affiliates misusing brand keywords and bidding on branded terms, helping protect paid search performance.  Real-time, customizable infringement alerts Provides instant alerts for potential violations or unauthorized brand usage, allowing teams to act quickly before issues escalate.  Conclusion While your focus should be on scaling future campaigns and capturing the next wave of traveller demand, many brands are quietly losing efficiency in their current campaigns where they shouldn’t be. These leaks are rarely dramatic at first, but left unchecked, they compound over time.  Hence, protecting your campaigns demands more than basic checks or surface-level metrics. With mFilterIt ad fraud solution – Valid8, travel industry brands gain a unified solution that goes deeper validating traffic quality, uncovering hidden risks, and ensuring media investments drive real traveller engagement and measurable business outcomes. So, your campaigns don’t just scale, they scale cleanly, safely, and sustainably.  Want to know how? Contact us now FAQs What is click fraud in travel industry campaigns?  Click fraud occurs when automated bots or low-intent users generate clicks that appear genuine but don’t lead to real conversions, inflating metrics and wasting ad spend. What is invalid traffic (IVT) and why does it matter? Invalid traffic refers to non-human or low-quality interactions that distort campaign performance, mislead optimization, and reduce ROI. What is programmatic fraud? Programmatic fraud manipulates automated ad buying to place ads in low-quality or non-human traffic sources, inflating costs without delivering real audience engagement.

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brand protection

A Quick Checklist to Choose the Right Brand Protection Solution

Infographics /

Every day, brands are copied, misused, or manipulated online. But the real challenge is knowing which protection solution can actually stop it. With threats spreading across search engines, marketplaces, social platforms, messaging apps, and cloned websites, businesses need more than basic detection. They need clarity, speed, and precision. Our latest infographic, “A Quick Checklist to Choose the Right Brand Protection Solution,” breaks down the essential capabilities every modern solution must offer. This checklist highlights what actually makes a solution effective, from impact-based risk scoring and AI-driven discovery to removing false positives and enabling quick, automated takedowns. It also showcases how advanced platforms like Sentinel+ by mFilterIt combine OSINT intelligence, hybrid classification, and cross-platform enforcement to safeguard brands from impersonation, counterfeits, phishing pages, and deceptive listings. As digital risks continue to evolve, one question stands out: Is your brand protection partner equipped to detect threats before they turn into consumer harm or revenue loss? Download the infographic to explore the complete checklist and make an informed, secure choice. Download Submit

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ad fraud solution

How mFilterIt’s Full Funnel & Omnichannel Approach Helps Detect Advanced Ad Fraud?

Blog, Ad Fraud /

Many marketers still view ad fraud from a linear lens. They think bots are easy to spot, and platforms flag it. However, this assumption is no longer true.   Over the years, advertising has transformed into a deeply interconnected, automated, and omnichannel ecosystem. Brands no longer run isolated campaigns. They operate across open web, apps, platforms, affiliates, influencers, CTV, and ecommerce media simultaneously.   With this scale comes complexity, and with complexity comes a new class of ad fraud. One that hides deep inside the user journey, behaviour, blends into engagement, and surfaces only after real business impact has already been compromised.  This means ad fraud is no longer a traffic problem. It does not operate in straight line. It moves across channels, adapts to campaign objectives, and embeds itself deeper into the funnel—quietly influencing optimization, attribution, and budget decisions. Therefore, to protect campaigns, brands need ad fraud solutions that must follow the full campaign journey, across environments and down the entire funnel to detect ad fraud. This is precisely where mFilterIt’s advanced ad fraud solution is designed to operate.  How Ad Fraud Has Evolved and Why Omnichannel Protection Is the Foundation of Modern Fraud Prevention  Sophisticated invalid traffic is engineered to resemble genuine user behaviour. It mimics human interaction patterns, rotates devices, locations, and stays just below platform thresholds long enough to be considered legitimate. The goal is no longer just to generate fake clicks or installs; it is to influence how marketers optimize campaigns across multiple channels and platforms based on false data.  As ad fraud evolved from a visible threat to a systemic risk, protection had to evolve as well, beyond basic checkpoints – invalid ad traffic validation, click fraud prevention, into continuous fullfunnel protection.  At the same time, brands now run branding and performance campaigns simultaneously across web, app, programmatic, search, social, OTT/CTV, and affiliate ecosystems. In such a fragmented environment, fraud naturally migrates to the least protected channel. This makes omnichannel protection not a feature, but the foundation of effective, modern ad fraud prevention.  mFilterIt’s Omnichannel Coverage: How Protection Works Across Campaigns and Channels mFilterIt uses an advanced approach for detection. Instead of treating channels in isolation, the ad fraud solution aligns the detection process with campaign intent, environment-specific risks, and user journey stages, powered by a unified intelligence layer across the ecosystem. Here’s how it works:  Web Traffic Validation: Branding Campaigns – Protecting reach, visibility, and brand exposure Branding campaigns are often assumed to be low risk, as they are optimized based on CPM (impression) models and not for conversions. But in reality, they are highly vulnerable to fraud that drains budgets without triggering immediate alarms.   Viewability, while widely used as a quality metric, is not a measure of authenticity. Bots and spoofed environments can easily generate viewable impressions that technically meet industry thresholds but are never seen by real users. At the same time, ads are frequently served on low-quality or made-for-ad environments where content exists solely to host ads, offering no real audience value.  Moreover, when impressions are repeatedly served to the same users due to frequency cap violations, reach appears inflated while true exposure shrinks. In such scenarios, simply validatingimpression counts is not enough. Without deeper validation of where ads appear, how often they are served, and whether exposure is genuine, branding budgets risk optimizing for visibility metrics that look healthy but deliver minimal brand impact.  Our ad fraud solution protects branding campaigns (display and video ad platforms) through the following layers:  Viewability & Attention Metrics Measures whether ads are not just served, but meaningfully seen, ensuring brand exposure is real and not artificially inflated.  Impression Traffic Validation Filters and blacklists non-genuine impressions generated by bots, automated scripts, abnormal environments, or invalid sources that distort reach and frequency.  MFA (Made-For-Ad Sites) Detection Identifies and blocks low-quality inventory or publishers designed purely to monetize ads without real audience engagement.  F-Caps (Frequency Cap Violation Detection) Prevents excessive repeat exposure to the same users, preserving true reach, avoiding ad fatigue, and improving campaign efficiency.  Know how to improve ad engagement with attention metrics.  Web Traffic Validation: Performance Campaigns – Protecting optimization, attribution, and lead quality Web performance campaigns are more sensitive to ad fraud. Platforms continuously learn from clicks, visits, and conversions to adjust bidding and budget allocation. But even if a small percentage of those clicks, visits, and leads are invalid or low intent, this can significantly distort learning algorithms, misguide bidding strategies, and inflate acquisition costs.  mFilterIt’s ad fraud solution protects performance campaigns through:  Click Traffic Validation Identifies and blocks automated, manipulated, or low-quality clicks before they influence bidding and optimization decisions.  Visit & Lead Validation with Intent Scoring Differentiates genuine user journeys from low-intent or fraudulent visits based on behavioural and heuristic signals that inflate acquisition metrics. It also ensures accurate source attribution through post backs to improve downstream conversions.  Lead Validation & Prioritization Filters and ranks leads based on intent, engagement, and historical performance before they enter CRMs, preventing sales and call-center teams from wasting effort on junk or invalid leads.  Understand in detail how full funnel validation differs from click validation.  App Traffic Validation – Protecting installs, engagement, events, and long-term app value App ecosystems present another unique level of mobile ad fraud risks because performance is measured far beyond the installs. Mobile campaigns rely heavily on post-install signals such as registrations, in-app events, retention, and purchases to optimize targeting and forecast lifetime value. Fraudsters exploit this dependency by generating fake installs, spoofed events, and incentivized activity that appears legitimate on the surface.  These attacks inflate CPI, distort retention analysis, and mislead lifetime value forecasting, resulting in inaccurate campaign optimizations and attributions.   mFilterIt’s ad fraud solution protects mobile campaigns through:  Impression and Click Integrity Ensures interactions originate from real devices and legitimate environments, not emulators or scripted activity.  Install and Visit Validation Confirms that installs and post-install actions reflect genuine user behaviour, not SDK spoofing or device farms, based on fraud signal and behavioural intelligence.  Event Validation Verifies that in-app

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influencer monitoring

Why Is Influencer Monitoring Critical for Brand Trust?

Blog, Affiliate /

People don’t buy from brands; people buy from people. And this shift in consumer mindset has led to the increase of brands inclining towards influencer marketing. Brands work with influencers to reach their audiences who already trust them and their content. But as influencer marketing grows, so do the challenges. Not every influencer uses that trust responsibly. Some take advantage of brand campaigns through misleading or fraudulent practices, which can impact performance and damage brand identity. For example, imagine a skincare brand launching a new serum through a group of influencers. Within days of the campaign going live, a few creators began promoting a “40% off” offer instead of the approved 20%, others used outdated product images they found online, and a couple even made claims the brand never endorsed. Soon, customers were confused, comments turned negative, and the brand’s messaging looked inconsistent across platforms. Situations like these are more common than brands expect—and they reinforce why active, real-time influencer monitoring is no longer optional. In this blog you will discover –  Why influencer marketing is important for brands today When influencer marketing turns into exploitation Why influencer fraud is difficult to detect How mFilterIt helps brands monitor influencers effectively Why Influencer Marketing Holds So Much Power Today  The rise of influencer marketing has made it a highly effective strategy for brands. Here’s why: Influencers have built strong trust with their audiences Influencers grow their communities through credibility and consistent engagement. This trust makes influencer marketing an effective way for brands to reach large, highly engaged audiences through a single, trusted voice. Creator recommendations feel more authentic than ads People follow creators because they value their opinions and recommendations. When influencers promote a product or service, it feels more like a personal suggestion than an advertisement, making brand messaging more believable and impactful. Influencer content blends naturally into social feeds Unlike traditional ads, influencer content fits seamlessly into everyday social media feeds. It also extends beyond an influencer’s followers, helping brands reach new audiences who may discover the content organically. Platforms algorithmically boost creator-led content Social platforms prioritize content that drives engagement and delivers value. Influencer-led content often benefits from this algorithmic boost, helping brands reach the right audience more effectively. When Influence Becomes Exploitation Influencer marketing is beneficial but only when influencers bring value in action. However, many influencers exploit the brand awareness campaigns in the following ways – IP violations Influencers may use brand assets such as logos, creatives, or messaging on unauthorized platforms or formats. These unauthorized uses can lead to intellectual property violations and raise questions around brand credibility and control. Typo-squatting Instead of driving new organic demand, some influencers create lookalike URLs that closely resemble official brand domains. This redirects traffic that would have reached the brand organically, misrepresenting true performance and inflating attribution. Brand bidding Influencers may bid on branded keywords and run paid ads to capture organic brand demand, causing brand bidding violations. As traffic flows through influencer tracking links, acquisition costs rise and bid prices increase, despite no incremental value being created.  Brand misrepresentation Unapproved or inaccurate brand messaging such as false discount claims or misleading product information, can surface across influencer content. This leads to compliance risks and erodes consumer trust. Coupon code misuse Some influencers misuse promo codes through invalid offers, self-use, or counterfeit coupons. While these actions trigger commissions or discounts, they fail to attract new audiences or deliver genuine campaign value. Why Influencer Fraud Is Hard to Detect  Influencer fraud is not an easy catch. With the evolving tactics, it becomes more critical to catch because basic monitoring cannot address the following questions – Are influencers reaching the intended audience? Reach is frequently inflated through fake followers or audience manipulation. While surface-level metrics may look strong, they fail to show whether the audience is real, relevant, or capable of driving genuine value. Is content aligned with brand guidelines? Influencer content exists outside controlled ad environments. Non-compliant or misleading posts can blend seamlessly into organic feeds, allowing brand guideline violations to go unnoticed at scale. Are commissions tied to genuine performance? Performance-based payouts are a prime target for abuse. Promo code exploitation and self-referrals can trigger commissions without real customer intent activities that traditional monitoring often misses. Know more about referral and coupon fraud How mFilterIt Enables Smarter Influencer Monitoring Influencer monitoring must be done on various parameters that holistically analyse the authenticity of influencers. A renowned electronics company implemented mFilterIt’s influencer monitoring solution, Effcent to evaluate if their influencer partnerships are driving true engagement to their campaigns or not. Here’s what our influencer monitoring includes Influencer Profile Analysis – Evaluates an influencer’s credibility using key indicators such as engagement rate, follower quality, and audience authenticity to determine whether a campaign will truly reach the intended audience. Influencer Posts Analysis – Assesses the quality and impact of influencer-created content by analysing likes, sentiment, and content relevance to gauge overall effectiveness. Influencer Followers Analysis – Uses a comprehensive 13-point checklist to assess audience quality, filter out fake or low-value followers, and deliver a composite score out of 30 that helps brands decide whether the influencer is worth investing in. Conclusion: Turning Influencer Marketing into a Controlled Growth Channel Influencer marketing continues to be one of the most powerful ways for brands to connect with audiences but only when it is built on transparency, accountability, and trust. This is where structured influencer monitoring becomes critical. By combining performance analysis, audience intelligence, compliance checks, and commission validation, brands can move from reactive detection to proactive control. For right influencer monitoring solution like mFilterIt’s Effcent becomes essential to monitor marketing more intelligently. Want to know how? Contact us now. FAQs What is influencer marketing? Influencer marketing is a form of marketing where brands partner with social media creators or influencers to promote products or services to their audience. What is influencer fraud? Influencer fraud refers to deceptive practices such as fake followers, inflated engagement, brand bidding, coupon misuse, or misrepresentation that distort campaign performance. How can influencer fraud

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