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Affiliate & Incent Fraud In MENA: Are Your Marketing Dollars At Risk?
Affiliate marketing in the MENA region is growing exponentially as a result of the region’s growing digital connectivity and e-commerce environment. As brands and advertisers realize the effectiveness of affiliate campaigns in driving ROI and engaging with digital-savvy consumers, they are investing more in it to reach wider audiences and increase app downloads. According to Cognitive Market Research, the global affiliate market size was estimated at USD 18,512.2 million, out of which the Middle East and Africa region held a significant share of around 2% of the global revenue, with a market size of USD 370.24 million in 2024. The region is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.7% from 2024 to 2031. But with this growth comes greater risk. As the affiliate ecosystem scales rapidly, so do opportunities for fraudsters to manipulate metrics and quietly drain your ad budgets. On the surface, your campaigns could be performing great, with installs pouring in, but when you dig deeper, user engagement is weak, uninstall rates are high, and your conversions don’t quite match the traffic volume. This could be a sign of incent fraud and other app install fraud activities, which affiliates often use to drive fraudulent traffic to their app campaigns. This discrepancy raises a critical question: Are you truly paying for performance, or are you being misled by fraudulent metrics? This article delves into the nuances of this issue, shedding light on regional vulnerabilities and strategies to safeguard your marketing investments in the MENA region. The Digital Boom in MENA: Opportunities and Risks As of 2023, the UAE’s smartphone penetration stood at over 96%, while Saudi Arabia saw nearly 92%, driven by younger demographics and high internet accessibility. This always-online audience has fueled explosive growth in e-commerce, fintech, travel, and entertainment apps, making mobile the primary touchpoint for brand-consumer interactions. MENA’s e-commerce market alone is projected to reach $50 billion by 2025, with countries like KSA and the UAE leading the charge with increasing trust in online payments, digital-first government initiatives, and a surge in mobile transactions. Amid this, more brands are shifting budgets to Cost-Per-Install (CPI) and Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) campaigns via affiliate partners, aggregators, and influencers. These models promise efficiency, scalability, and outcomes tied directly to results. This performance-based ecosystem has created the perfect conditions for fraud to thrive quietly in the background. The global mobile app installs fraud exposure increased 157% to reach $5.4 billion, with bots responsible for over 70% of fraud across all regions. In terms of impact, for the MENA region, the fraud exposure (estimated financial value of fraud) topped at $65 million in 2023. Travel companies experienced fraud rates of 71% on Android and 58% on iOS. Finance apps followed with 61% on Android and 64% on iOS. Shopping apps had 40% on iOS and 23% on Android. Much of the MENA affiliate ecosystem still operates on trust-based relationships, smaller publishers, and loosely vetted networks, leaving advertisers exposed to unique vulnerabilities that traditional ad fraud solutions often overlook. The growth is real. The opportunity is huge. But so is the risk, especially if marketers don’t have visibility into what’s actually happening behind the numbers. Common Tactics Used by Affiliates to Drive Incent Traffic and Fake Installs Incent Fraud Incentivized installs involve offering users rewards (e.g., in-app currency, discounts, or cashbacks) in exchange for downloading an app. Many fraudulent affiliates use excessive or undisclosed incentives to drive volume, resulting in users who install apps solely for the reward. These users often show minimal post-install engagement, low retention, and rarely convert to paying customers, affecting the overall performance of the campaigns. Click Spamming This technique involves fraudsters generating an excessive number of fake clicks through automated means in the hope of hijacking credit for organic installs, artificially inflating the volume of pre-install activity. When a real user eventually downloads the app, the attribution system mistakenly attributes the install to the fraudulent source. This results in skewed performance metrics, misallocated budgets, and undermines the value of authentic traffic. Regional Vulnerabilities: Why MENA Marketers Are at Risk? Several factors contribute to the heightened risk of ad fraud in the MENA region: Reliance on Aggregators: Many marketers depend on affiliate aggregators or smaller networks with limited transparency, increasing exposure to fraudulent activities. Localization Gaps: Traditional app fraud detection tools may not be fully adapted to regional languages and user behaviors, allowing certain fraud patterns to go undetected. Trust-Based Partnerships: Business relationships often rely on trust without rigorous validation processes, making it easier for fraudsters to infiltrate. Lack of Benchmarks: The absence of region-specific benchmarks hampers the ability to identify anomalies and assess campaign performance effectively. How to Protect Your Affiliate and Mobile Budgets with mFilterIt Protecting your budgets requires more than surface-level metrics, it demands full-funnel visibility and real-time validation. Here’s how mFilterIt helps advertisers stay one step ahead: Full-Funnel Fraud Detection Our solution – Valid8 monitors every stage of the user journey, from the first click to post-install events. This end-to-end visibility ensures you can identify where fraud is happening, whether it’s click spamming at the top of the funnel or fake engagements after installation. Click Integrity The pre-attribution check – click integrity helps validate the authenticity of clicks by analyzing their source, timestamp, and behavior before they reach MMPs. This helps weed out illegitimate traffic from bots, click farms, and poorly vetted affiliates, ensuring you only pay for genuine user interest. Proactive Traffic Validation Instead of relying on post-campaign audits, we flag and filter invalid installs in time before attribution. This proactive approach prevents wasted ad spend and keeps your campaign data clean from the start. Case in Point: How We Helped a Leading BFSI Player in MENA Save $0.34M with mFilterIt A major Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) brand operating in the Middle East region was running performance campaigns to acquire new customers. At first glance, the install numbers appeared to be great. However, upon closer inspection, the post-install engagement and customer retention were alarmingly low – prompting an audit into
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Is Your Fintech App Marketing Losing Money to Affiliate Fraud? Here’s What You Need to Know
As an advertiser at a Fintech business, are you constantly stressed over user growth targets, tight budgets, and campaign performance pressures? Seeing the results pouring in through affiliate marketing campaigns, but something is still not working in your favor? So, what’s going wrong? Working with affiliates often feels like the quickest, most scalable, and reliable way to hit those numbers. And to be fair, it works—until it doesn’t. Behind those impressive install numbers hides a different reality—a reality that includes affiliate marketing scams like click spamming, click injection, incentive fraud, etc., which pose significant threats to both the financial integrity of your brand and user trust. We’ve seen it up close: in our analysis of 196 campaigns across industries, install-level fraud alone accounts for 43% of the total ad fraud detected. The question that now arises is – Why aren’t the fraud filters built into MMPs catching these? And more importantly, how do you ensure you’re not paying affiliates for users who never actually existed? This blog breaks it all down. Continue reading further to find the solution – How a full-funnel, validation-first approach strategy can help you protect your growth. Why Affiliate Programs Matter for Fintech Lending App Marketers? Fintech lending apps offer instant credit solutions, personal loans, and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) options to millions of users. With an extensive range of services, these apps rely heavily on affiliate marketing programs as one of the primary acquisition channels to achieve rapid user growth in a highly competitive environment. Affiliate marketing enables fintech apps to partner with third-party publishers, influencers, and ad networks who promote the app through their owned assets like websites, social media, etc. These programs typically operate on Cost Per Install (CPI) or Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) models, where affiliates are rewarded only when a specific user action, like an app install or registration, is completed. This performance-driven approach makes affiliate marketing an attractive, scalable, and seemingly low-risk strategy for customer acquisition. To maximize reach and conversion, fintech lending apps frequently run targeted campaigns such as: · Referral-based promotions with sign-up bonuses for both parties · Cashback offers upon completing the first transaction or loan disbursal · Limited-time loan offers marketed through affiliate push channels · Influencer-driven traffic from content creators in personal finance and credit niches Therefore, this channel demands substantial investment. According to Juniper Research, the average CPI for fintech apps ranges from $2.50 to $6.00, reflecting the high cost of acquiring quality users. With large-scale campaigns often spanning multiple geographies, fintech advertisers end up spending millions monthly on affiliate-driven traffic, making them a prime target for sophisticated affiliate fraud schemes that exploit these high-payout campaigns. What type of Affiliate Fraud Techniques Impact Fintech App Campaigns? As fintech lending apps continue to scale aggressively through affiliate marketing, they face growing threats from sophisticated fraud techniques designed to exploit CPI and CPA models. These fraudulent activities not only siphon off ad spend but also distort key performance metrics, leading to poor marketing decisions and wasted budgets. Here are the most prevalent forms of affiliate fraud targeting fintech apps: – Click Spamming Click spamming, also known as organic poaching, involves fraudsters bombarding attribution systems with an enormous volume of fake clicks, often generated through malicious apps running in the background on a user’s device. These clicks have no real user intent behind them, but if an install happens later, the fraudulent affiliate is falsely credited. This dilutes attribution accuracy and eats into organic user credit, masking true campaign performance. – Bot-Generated Installs Using advanced scripts or emulators, fraudsters deploy bots to simulate real app installs. These bots mimic user behavior to bypass basic fraud detection, but in reality, there is no actual user engagement. This leads to inflated user acquisition numbers and higher CPIs, with no value delivered. – Click Injection Click injection is another form of attribution fraud where a malicious app on a user’s device monitors installs and broadcasts. Just before a legitimate app install begins, it injects a fraudulent click to hijack the attribution. This tactic is especially common on Android and gives fraudsters credit for installs they didn’t influence. – Incentive Fraud Under an incentive fraud scenario, users are lured to install apps purely for incentives, such as rewards, cashbacks, or gift cards, promoted by deceptive affiliate sources, not the brands. These users have no intention of engaging with the app long-term, resulting in low retention, poor ROI, and skewed user quality metrics. – Event Spoofing Sophisticated fraudsters simulate post-install in-app events like loan applications, repayments, or KYC verifications to trick marketers into believing that real engagement has occurred. These spoofed events distort downstream performance metrics and hinder optimization strategies How to Know if Your App Campaigns are Impacted by Affiliate Fraud? Together, the above-mentioned tactics form a multi-layered affiliate fraud scam that fintech advertisers must address proactively to protect their marketing investments. Here are some of the red flags that marketers and app owners should monitor consistently to uncover fraudulent traffic: – Unusually High Install Volumes with Low Engagement: A sudden spike in installs without a corresponding increase in logins, KYC completions, or loan applications could indicate click spamming or bot-driven installs. – Discrepancies Between Reported Installs and Backend Data: When attribution platforms report high install numbers, but internal app analytics show minimal usage, it’s a strong signal of non-genuine activity. – High Uninstall Rates: If users are uninstalling the app within a few hours or days of installation, it often points to incentivized installs or low-quality affiliate traffic with no long-term value. – Inconsistent Geographic Patterns: Fraudulent traffic may originate from regions that aren’t part of your target audience or display device language/location mismatches. When left unaddressed, these red flags erode both financial resources and user trust, two critical pillars for any fintech business. Why are MMPs not enough to detect Affiliate Fraud in Apps? Most traditional ad fraud detection solutions in the market are not well-equipped to handle the level of sophistication fraudsters now employ, particularly in high-value verticals like
What Happens When You Eliminate Click Spamming – Know from KUKU FM’s real case
Ever celebrated a spike in installs, only to realize no one’s using your app? You’re not alone. For every marketer chasing performance metrics, there’s a nagging truth: not all installs are created equal. In fact, a growing chunk of them might be fake, incentivized, or just plain useless. According to our analysis, there has been a significant rise in ad fraud in apps at each level of the funnel, the highest being at the install stage. There are various sophisticated methods used by fraudsters to manipulate app installs. This includes junk installs, click spamming, and affiliate fraud—all quietly inflating your numbers while your actual ROI flatlines. Kuku FM, one of India’s fastest-growing audio platforms, ran headfirst into this challenge. Massive install numbers. Minimal post-install activity. Skyrocketing costs with little to show for it. But they didn’t just accept it. They fought back with the right partner and the right data. This is the story of how Kuku FM turned fake installs into real engagement, leveraging a mobile ad fraud detection tool with their current tech stack, and reclaimed their growth narrative. The Growth Ambition vs. Ground Reality Kuku FM had one goal: grow fast and grow big. With a rich library of audiobooks, podcasts, and audio courses, the stage was set. So the marketing team did what any growth-hungry team would do—they fired up the ad engines and watched the installs roll in. And roll in they did. Like, a lot. At first, it felt like a win. The charts were climbing. Campaigns looked like they were crushing it. High fives all around. But then… nothing. Users weren’t sticking. They weren’t signing up, subscribing, or even poking around the app. It was like throwing a party and no one showed up—except a bunch of bots and bounty hunters chasing rewards. Digging deeper, the red flags started waving. Installs were pouring in from shady APK sources. Click counts were exploding, but actual engagement? Flatlined. And a whole chunk of traffic came from “incent walls”—users downloading the app just to score a freebie, not because they cared about the content. The result? Ballooning marketing spend. Bloated attribution costs. A whole lot of noise, and very little signal. Kuku FM wasn’t just dealing with underperforming campaigns—they were up against full-blown mobile ad fraud. Something had to change. Fast. Diagnosing the Problem: A Closer Look at Fraud – Looks good on paper Kuku FM’s dashboards were lighting up. Installs were rolling in. The growth team was hitting every acquisition target they’d set. From the outside, it looked like a textbook campaign. – But behind the curtain… not so pretty Users weren’t engaging. No logins. No streams. No subscriptions. The installs were there, but the people behind them? Not so much. That’s when the team started poking around. – Junk installs These were coming from APK sources. Basically, a high volume of junk installs that looked like real users but never did anything after download. No events, no engagement, no heartbeat. These installs were likely faked just to meet click-to-install ratios and pass fraud checks. But they added zero value—like tossing empty jars on a shelf and calling it inventory. – Click spamming This one was sneakier. Certain affiliate partners were generating a tidal wave of clicks. Not real clicks from interested users—just inflated numbers meant to hijack install credit. So instead of rewarding the actual source, the fraudster pocketed the payout. Kuku FM ended up paying for “traffic” that was never intended to stick around. – Incentivize traffic The downloads were real, but the motivation? All wrong. These users came from “incent walls,” meaning they downloaded the app just to earn a reward. A coupon. A gift card. Maybe digital gold coins for some random mobile game. The second they got what they wanted, they bailed. No loyalty. No interest. No lifetime value. – Reality check All three fraud types had one thing in common: they were quietly wrecking ROI. Marketing budgets were being chewed up by users who were never going to become listeners, let alone subscribers. Translation: It was time to clean house. Turning Point: How mFilterIt Helped – Junk installs? Kicked to the curb With mFilterIt’s advanced fraud detection in place, APK-based installs that showed zero post-install activity were flagged and filtered out. These weren’t just “low quality”—they were dead weight. Cutting them meant less noise, more signals. – Incent walls got walled off mFilterIt tracked incentivized traffic sources and flagged partners pushing reward-based installs. Result? A drop in low-intent users. Campaigns shifted toward audiences that cared about the content, not just the freebies. – Click spammers exposed Ad sources running click spamming tactics—flooding the system with fake taps to win attribution—were identified and removed. This wasn’t just affiliate fraud detection in action. It was money in the bank. – Attribution costs trimmed By eliminating fraudulent publishers, Kuku FM cut down on attribution fees charged by their MMP. Less fraud meant fewer fake payouts—and a lot more budget to spend on genuine growth. – Better partners. Smarter spending With the bad actors gone, Kuku FM gained visibility into which networks were performing. Budget reallocation became easier and smarter. Every rupee started pulling its weight. The Results: Impact Beyond Numbers – ₹26 lakh saved. No kidding That’s how much Kuku FM recovered once they kicked fake installs, click-happy affiliates, and reward-chasing freeloaders out of the picture. All that money? Back in the growth team’s pocket. Actual growth, not ghost traffic. – MMP fees got a reality check Before mFilterIt, attribution was chaos. After? Streamlined. Fraudulent publishers were axed. Only legit installs cut. And with cleaner data came lighter MMP invoices. – Partners, unmasked With shady traffic sources gone, the marketing team finally saw who was really delivering and who was just soaking up spend. Spoiler: Some networks looked a lot less shiny after the cleanup. – People who used the app What a concept. Post-fraud, the installs didn’t just go up—they started meaning something. Users played content. Subscribed. Came back. The
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Peak Season Brand Protection: Stop Brand Bidding Violations
Would you pay twice for the same customer? Many brands do—without knowing. Every time your top-of-funnel campaigns drive branded search traffic, affiliates and ad networks are watching. Some quietly bid on your brand name, intercept clicks meant for your site, and take credit for conversions they didn’t create. You pay once to generate the intent. Then again, as a commission on your traffic. During high-demand seasons, this problem scales fast. CPCs rise, ROAS drops, and budget burns faster than it should. Most marketers chalk it up to increased competition. But the real threat is invisible: brand bidding by partners you’re already working with. This guide breaks down exactly how affiliate brand bidding works, how it distorts your campaign performance, and what to do to stop it in real time—before it eats into your seasonal results. Why High-Demand Seasons Invite Brand Bidding Top-of-funnel campaigns aren’t just good at driving awareness. They spike branded search queries. As performance teams push seasonal offers through social ads, influencer drops, or email blasts, users start googling the brand directly. That’s the window affiliates and ad networks wait for. They target your brand name because these aren’t rivals or fakes. They’re your own affiliate partners, coupon sites, or arbitrage platforms. Here’s how it happens: · Coupon aggregators bid on your brand plus terms like “discount” or “promo” to catch deal-hunters. Even if you don’t work with them directly, many ride through indirect affiliate links. · Automated bidding tools used by partner platforms use dynamic scripts to spot trending queries—your brand being one of them during a big campaign. · PPC arbitrage networks snap up brand terms at scale and send users through a redirect maze, taking a cut of the conversion while inflating your CPCs. The result: you end up paying twice. First to generate the intent. Then to win it back from your own partners. hey know the intent is hot. Their ads show up right above or next to yours, competing for the same clicks you’ve already paid to generate Signs You’re Losing Budget to Brand Bidders Brand bidding often hides behind metrics that appear healthy at first glance. But dig deeper, and patterns start to emerge—especially during high-demand campaigns. These are the most reliable indicators that your branded traffic is being hijacked by affiliates or ad networks. Sudden Branded CPC Spikes During Campaigns If your branded search CPCs climb sharply during a sale or new product drop, and you haven’t changed your strategy, it’s likely external bidders have entered the auction. Affiliates or partner platforms may be targeting your brand keywords This shifts you from low-competition bids into competitive territory, inflating costs by 20–30% or more. You’re now competing for traffic you already created. Drop in ROAS Despite a Stable Media Strategy ROAS should stay consistent when targeting, creative, and user intent remain steady. If it drops without a clear cause, CPC inflation from brand bidding may be the culprit. You’re still getting conversions, but at a higher acquisition cost—and sometimes paying an unnecessary commission on top of it. This directly reduces your return. Performance Plateaus as Spend Increases You increase your media budget expecting higher conversions, but results don’t scale. That’s a sign your campaign isn’t reaching more users—it’s just paying more for the same ones. Bidding partners can drain your daily budget early in the day, especially if their tools ramp up aggressively on trending brand terms. Your budget runs out before the day’s highest-intent traffic arrives. Affiliate Reports Show High Last-Click Wins on Branded Terms If affiliates suddenly show strong performance from last-click conversions and branded queries, take a closer look. Partners who haven’t changed tactics but start claiming more conversions may be targeting your brand name. Campaign Budgets Exhaust Early in the Day Brand bidding drives up CPCs quietly. When that happens, your campaign spend gets used up faster. If your branded campaigns go offline by afternoon, it’s not just strong demand—it could be your own partners outbidding you, forcing premature pauses in delivery during critical traffic windows. Traffic or Click Surges in Irregular Geographies If affiliate-referred traffic starts showing higher CTRs from regions not aligned with your core market, this could be automated bidding behavior. Some arbitrage networks use scripts to scoop up branded traffic wherever they can find it, regardless of quality or location. These patterns waste spend without contributing meaningful conversions. Spotting these signals early gives you the chance to stop CPC leakage before it spirals. Passive monitoring doesn’t cut it during peak periods—especially when brand bidders are watching your campaigns as closely as you are. The Real Cost of Ignoring Brand Bidding During Peak Periods When brand bidding by affiliates or ad networks goes unchecked, the damage isn’t just in a few lost clicks. It hits multiple layers of your performance stack. · CPC inflation from competitive auctions Branded keywords typically deliver high ROI due to lower CPCs and stronger intent. But during high-demand periods—sales, product launches, festivals—affiliate partners and coupon sites often start bidding on those same keywords. This competition drives up the auction price. Brands that normally pay ₹4–5 per click may suddenly pay ₹6–7 for the same traffic. That’s a 25–30% increase in acquisition cost without a corresponding lift in quality or volume. · Paying twice for the same user. First, you run TOF campaigns to build intent—think influencer reels, paid social, email, SMS. Then, that user searches for your brand. If an affiliate’s ad appears above yours and gets the click, you pay again in the form of a commission. That’s media spend plus affiliate payout for a single conversion. It erodes the margin and misrepresents channel efficiency. · Attribution distortion. Most brands rely on last-click attribution models. Affiliates and arbitrage platforms know this. They aim to be the last touchpoint by intercepting brand searches. This hijacks credit from the real performance drivers, like your paid social or content efforts. Over time, this distorts media performance data, leading to misallocated budgets. · Faster budget exhaustion. Higher CPCs mean your daily
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