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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.

Quick Commerce Trends During Festive Season

Quick Commerce Trends During Festive Season: Here’s What Blinkit Data Reveals

Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

The festive season in India has always been synonymous with indulgence. A time when sweets, chocolates, and celebratory treats dominate shopping baskets. But over the past few years, this definition of indulgence has been quietly evolving. Today’s consumers are not just celebrating, they’re consciously celebrating. The modern festive shopper is as mindful about what goes into their cart as they are about what goes into their body. Chocolates remain a staple, but they now share shelf space with protein bars, low-sugar desserts, and functional snacks signaling a clear shift towards health-conscious gifting and self-consumption. A quick look at recent festive season buying patterns confirms this transformation. Traditional sweet categories continue to grow, but health-first snacking has emerged as a parallel indulgence, driven by consumers seeking balance between taste, nutrition, and celebration. This trend is particularly visible on quick commerce platforms like Blinkit, where convenience meets conscious choice. To decode this shift, we analyzed Blinkit’s visibility data across two key festive categories, chocolates and protein bars, examining both organic and sponsored performance. The findings reveal how evolving consumer preferences are reshaping category competition and what it means for brands preparing to win on the digital shelf for the 2025 festive season. Chocolate Quick Commerce Trends During Festive Season: See How Cadbury is Leading & What Other Brands are Doing We all know that the festive season brings a surge in chocolate purchases, both for gifting and self-consumption. Here’s what leading chocolate brands are doing as per mFilterIt’s analysis of BlinkIt visibility data: Cadbury dominates with 44% organic share and 18% sponsored share, reflecting unmatched recall and consistent marketing strength. Nestlé and Amul follow Cadbury with a strong combined organic visibility of 27% but show limited investment in sponsored visibility. Karachi Bakery and Hershey’s rely heavily on paid visibility with 18% and 16% of share, respectively, to secure attention and compete with leading players. Protein Bar Quick Commerce Trends During Festive Season: Who’s Winning the Festive Protein Bar Battle on Blinkit The energy and protein bar category tells an equally revealing story. Here’s how brands are winning over the health-conscious consumer market: In terms of organic share, Yogabar leads the market with 26%, followed by RiteBite at 23%, SuperYou at 10%, and The Whole Truth at 8%. When it comes to sponsored visibility, Yogabar again takes the top spot with a 34% share, while SuperYou follows at 23%, RiteBite at 21%, and The Whole Truth at 8%. How mFilterIt’s Ecommerce Analytics Help Brands Win on Digital Shelf: A DIY Checklist As festive demand surges, managing visibility across quick commerce platforms like Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart becomes a daily challenge. Product rankings shift by the hour, competitor bids fluctuate, and stockouts can affect the momentum significantly. To stay ahead, category managers need real-time digital shelf analytics that help them track visibility, optimize performance, and make fast, data-driven decisions. That is where mFilterIt’s Ecommerce analytics tool – mScanIt, helps brands unify visibility, performance, and competitive intelligence to maintain the right balance between organic discoverability and sponsored visibility, ensuring every SKU performs at its best during festive peaks like Diwali. Learn about the benefits of e-commerce shelf monitoring in the digital commerce ecosystem.  Here’s a Checklist for Quick Commerce and Ecommerce Brands to Stay Ahead This Festive Season: 1. Monitor visibility performance in real-time On quick commerce platforms, what consumers see is what they buy. Visibility fluctuates by the hour, driven by algorithmic changes, competitor bids, and inventory availability. Failing to track visibility – both organic and sponsored means losing ground when it matters most. How mScanIt helps: The discoverability tracker helps brands track real-time visibility insights across SKUs and categories, highlighting when competitors outrank or outbid your products. This enables quick, data-backed reactions to protect your brand’s share of shelf during peak hours. 2. Build the Right Balance Between Organic and Sponsored Presence A successful festive strategy is about spending smart, not more. Overspending on ads for already visible SKUs and underinvesting in low-ranked ones can dilute returns. A balanced strategy between organic strength and paid promotion is essential to maximize efficiency and impact. How mScanIt helps: Using the category share analysis, brands can clearly see the split between organic and sponsored visibility. This helps allocate ad budgets more strategically, investing where it drives incremental visibility and optimizing where organic performance already holds strong. 3. Strengthen Product Content for Festive Discoverability Even the leading brands lose visibility if their product listings are incomplete or outdated. Content hygiene is one of the key features to stay visible and discoverable on the digital shelf. Optimized content with accurate titles, high-quality images, and relevant keywords helps your SKUs rank higher, appear in contextual searches, and attract impulse buyers. Inaccurate titles or missing visuals lower click-through rates and reduce purchase intent, especially when competition intensifies. How mScanIt helps: The content audit tool helps automatically identify missing details, inconsistent visuals, and irrelevant keywords. It ensures each SKU is optimized for discoverability using festive, gifting, and wellness-focused search terms that reflect current consumer intent. 4. Enhance Brand Trust Through Positive Consumer Feedback During festive sales, new buyers often depend on reviews and ratings to make purchase decisions. Proactive review management directly influences conversion rates and brand credibility. How mScanIt helps: The review sentiment analysis helps keep a track of consumer feedback in real time, identifying recurring issues and positive sentiment drivers. This enables brands to respond quickly, fix problems, and strengthen their overall reputation before festive peaks. 5. Keep Your Bestsellers Always Available Out-of-stock issues can instantly halt sales momentum. Especially during peak demand times, stockouts not only reduce conversion but also push competitors up on the digital shelf. Consistent stock availability ensures continuity in visibility and prevents algorithmic ranking drops. For high-demand SKUs, real-time stock monitoring directly helps increase sales and brand dominance. How mScanIt helps: The availability tracker continuously monitors stock levels and sends alerts for low or out-of-stock items. This helps category managers coordinate replenishment on time and prevent competitor takeovers of key listing spaces.

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Ad Fraud in Holiday Season

Holiday Traffic, Real Risks: How Brands Can Prevent Web & App Fraud in 2025

Blog, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8 /

The most anticipated time of the year for brands is here. Holiday season starting with Black Friday and ending with Christmas and New Year, is a 2-month-long splurging season. And while shoppers go all gaga, brands also increase their digital ad spends to be seen by their ideal audience, stand out in the crowd and make the most of the holiday traffic.   But behind the sparkle lies the real threat, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Amidst all the glitter, the brands need to keep their guard high. With rising ad spends, fraudsters keep a hawk’s eye on your every move, ready to exploit any opportunity rising from your holiday traffic.   During the holiday season, brands face a variety of ad fraud threats, including click fraud, impression fraud, fake installs, SDK spoofing, domain spoofing, brand bidding, etc. Each of these can drain budgets, distort performance metrics, and harm brand reputation.  In this blog, you will discover:  Why holiday season attracts ad fraud?  Top web and app fraud risks to watch during peak season?  How to look for the early ad fraud warning signals?  How to prevent ad fraud from draining your ROI?  Why does the Holiday Season Attract Fraudsters? Right before the holiday season, marketers ramp up their digital ad spends to maximize their holiday traffic and protect financial goals. Yet, these same efforts can unintentionally open the scope for fraudsters to bring their fraud tactics into action. Let’s understand how- 1. Higher Budget Allocation on Ads Marketers incur huge expenses on advertisements as the final act of promotion before the year ends. This catches the attention of fraudsters who instigate fake clicks in the digital advertisement and drain ad budgets, draining ROI.  2. Inflated Click Through Rate Fraudsters use deceptive tactics by employing bots, click farms, and automated scripts to generate invalid clicks without any genuine intent. These boosts click through rate artificially, creating deceptive numbers and presenting distorted performance metrics.  3. Complex Journeys Multiple apps, platforms, and devices create more touchpoints for fraud infiltration. As users interact across smartphones, web apps, and various digital services, each step in the journey becomes a potential entry point for fraudsters. From fake app installs and these multiple touchpoints make it harder to monitor and secure the user experience, leading to misallocated marketing spends.  Holiday Season Fraud Possibilities in the Web and App Ecosystem With fraudsters constantly getting smarter, brands must stay one step ahead. Here’s a look at the top ad fraud threats that surface during the holiday season across web and app ecosystems:  Possible Fraud Threats in the Web Campaigns  Click Fraud – Click fraud thrives in festive season like Black Friday, emerging as one of the most insidious types of fraud that generates fake and invalid clicks on PPC ads running on websites and search engines.  Know how a click fraud detection helps to prevent click fraud Domain Spoofing – Fraudsters misrepresent their websites to appear as premium or legitimate domains, tricking ad networks and users. This includes premium domain spoofing to inflate ad value and brand bidding to hijack keywords of your brand, draining budgets and harming campaign performance. Bot Traffic & Automated Scripts – Fraudsters use bots or automated scripts to generate fake clicks, impressions, form submissions, or account sign-ups, causing sudden traffic spikes, giving advertisers a false sense of engagement while draining budgets. There are sophisticated bots as well, which can be programmed to mimic human behaviour, varying IP addresses, devices, and browsing patterns, making detection even harder.  Web Fraud Red Flags The alarm for web fraud rings through the following signals –  Sudden Traffic Spikes – Sudden surges often indicate bot activity. High Impressions – Consistent spikes in CPM campaigns may signal repetitive bot impressions. Low Click-to-Conversion Rate – High clicks but few conversion points to bot visits. Traffic from Unexpected Locations – Visits from outside your target area suggest bot interference. Suspicious IP Addresses – Heavy traffic from a single IP is a strong indicator of bots; blocking helps prevent attacks.  Possible Fraud Threats in App  Click Injection & Click Spamming – Fraudsters manipulate ad clicks by generating fake interactions, often just before an app install or conversion. This tricks attribution systems into crediting them for actions they didn’t drive, inflating costs for brands and advertisers.  Read in detail the difference between click injection and click spamming  Fake Installs & SDK Spoofing – Some attackers simulate app installs or tamper with SDK data to make it appear as if real users are downloading and engaging with an app.  In-App Purchase Fraud – Unauthorized or manipulated purchases occur when attackers exploit app payment flows. They may steal money, redeem virtual goods, or trigger refunds. Malware & Malicious Apps – Malicious applications can secretly collect sensitive user data, redirect traffic, or even hijack other apps.  Signups & Purchases – A referral campaign can quickly attract new signups and purchases, but ROIs are still low as fraudsters exploit the system through fake referrals, coupon misuse, reseller fraud, draining ad budgets and harming brand reputation.  App Fraud Red Flags Early app fraud signals include –  High Clicks/Installs – Abnormally high engagement may indicate bots or fake activity. Low Retention/High Uninstalls – Quick app abandonment signals fraudulent installs. Attribution Gaps – Mismatched traffic or sudden spikes suggest click injection or spoofing. Low Engagement from Paid Sources – High spend with minimal activity indicates fake traffic. MMP data vs CRM Mismatch – Reported installs without real user actions point to non-existent users.  Fraud Prevention Measures: Towards a Fraud-Free Holiday Season To ensure that you make the most out of this high-spend period, with a strong campaign strategy, stronger defences are also required. Therefore, a powerful ad fraud solution is required. Valid8 by mFilterIt provides robust protection from ever-evolving ad fraud threats, ensuring that the brands have transparency of where their spends are going and who is interacting with their ads.    How Valid8 by mFilterIt solves ad fraud? Full-Funnel Protection – Monitors and secures every stage of

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GFF 2025

Top 5 Reasons Why GFF 2025 is Important

Blog /

Global Fintech Fest 2025 (GFF 2025) is one of the most renowned fintech conferences happening in the Financial Capital of India, Mumbai. It gathers the smartest minds from across the globe who drive the future of finance in the right direction. Strengthened by the key industry bodies including Payments Council of India (PCI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), and Fintech Convergence Council (FCC), the 6th edition of GFF is themed to ‘Empower Finance for a Better World Powered by AI’ through – Augmented Intelligence Innovation Inclusion mFilterit is going to mark its presence at GFF 2025 for the third consecutive year. Broadly, the topics discussed will be around identifying evolving digital threats using Open-source intelligence (OSINT), automated takedowns, mule account monitoring, web risk assessments, and chargeback prevention which are transforming the guardrails for the financial ecosystem. This blog explores the importance of GFF 2025 in the ever-evolving financial world and how mFilterIt and its technology solutions are pioneering trust and building safety in the fintech era. GFF 2025 is the Global Convergence Point for Fintech Innovation India’s fintech sector is leading the world in digital payments adoption and financial inclusion, and GFF 2025 emerges as a strong platform where ideas, technologies, and policies intersect to address emerging opportunities and challenges in the digital financial ecosystem. As the world heads in unison towards GFF 2025, let’s understand why it is important for leaders to join the fintech conference – Shaped the global fintech agenda – From digital economy acceleration to sustainability, GFF has consistently led conversations that redefine financial innovation. Driven collaboration across borders – By uniting governments, regulators, and industry leaders, it has built a global platform for collective action in finance. Set the foundation for responsible growth – Past editions have emphasized inclusion, transparency, and sustainability, making responsible finance a shared priority. Accelerated adoption of future technologies – AI, blockchain, and digital-first solutions have been at the center of GFF’s push for transformative change. Created a future-ready ecosystem – With its legacy of impact, GFF 2025 becomes the must-attend forum for leaders to shape strategies and harness AI for a better financial world. mFilterit at GFF 2025 AI-powered finance is reshaping the world, and at mFilterIt, we are driving this transformation with brand trust and brand safety at the core. As a pioneer in brand protection, chargeback prevention, and digital risk management, we are proud to be part of Global Fintech Fest 2025, the global convergence points for fintech innovation. At the event, we will lead critical conversations around: With these solutions, mFilterIt continues to champion a safer, AI-powered financial future, aligning with India’s vision to empower the world through fintech innovation. mFilterit at GFF 2024: A Quick Look mFilterIt was at GFF 2024, playing a key role as a major contributor in shaping the forces that will define the next decade of finance. Final Thoughts: Why GFF 2025 Is a Turning Point Where the world speaks the language of AI, GFF 2025 is welcoming all the innovations that will lead the way. With AI at the center, the conversations this year are about more than technology; they’re about people, trust, and the kind of financial world we want to build together. For us at mFilterIt, it’s about ensuring that as fintech grows smarter, it also grows safer. With end-to-end fraud prevention and risk assessment tools developed in India, mFilterIt is proving that trust is a Made-in-India export. That’s why GFF 2025 feels like a true turning point, a chance to not just imagine a better financial world, but to actively build it. Meet Our Experts Amit Relan, CEO & Co-Founder Varun Grover, BU Head – Brand Monitoring & Risk Shobhit Dixit, VP, Sales

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investment scams

What You Need to Know About Investment Scams & How Banks Can Protect Investors

Blog, Brand Protection /

Investment scams in 2025 don’t look like shady emails or obvious fraud. Instead, they have evolved into sophisticated digital operations that thrive on social media and messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram. Scammers chat with potential investors, use easy-to-earn or money-doubling schemes targeting people who want to earn money quickly, senior citizens who might have recently retired, looking for investment opportunities, young or first-time investors, etc. The money is routed through mule accounts and personal UPI IDs that disappear without a trace. And unless these accounts are blocked in time, investors pay the price. Between January and August 2024, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) logged 11,024 cases of investment fraud. For the same period in 2025, the number rose to 13,287 reported cases, showing a sharp year-on-year increase. Therefore, this isn’t just a consumer problem. As scammers are moving faster than ever, it is becoming more important for banks and financial institutions to ensure regulatory compliance, apply stronger checks, and block fraudulent accounts in time. What You Need to Know About Investment Scams in 2025? Social media has become one of the major modus operandi for investment scammers. Scammers who are not registered with SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) attempt to attract investors through unregulated financial channels. They lure individuals by promising guaranteed returns on their investments. Here’s how it typically works: Scammers create fake social media pages and channels on instant messaging platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram. They pose as “financial advisors” or create groups around “quick wealth” or “money doubling” fraudulent investment schemes. Victims are persuaded to transfer funds directly into personal UPI IDs or bank accounts, bypassing regulated financial channels. Once payments are made, the scammer vanishes. Victims are left with no returns, no accountability, and no way to recover their money. Common Types of Social Media Investment Scams to Watch for Investment frauds on social media are becoming more common and more convincing. Therefore, it is important for banks to understand these patterns to ensure the safety of their customers as well as their own reputation. 1. Instagram money doubling pages Professional-looking profiles mimic investment advisors, promising unrealistic returns on money using schemes like ‘get-rich-quick’. These are often packed with fake testimonials and screenshots to create the illusion of credibility and authenticity. 2. Telegram high-return groups These are closed communities where admins promote exclusive, unrealistic returns. Payments are funneled into mule accounts designed to quickly disappear once money is collected. 3. WhatsApp chat scams Fraudsters initiate private conversations acting as investment agents, slowly building trust before pushing victims toward transfers. Also read about types of social media phishing techniques used by fraudsters today. How to Detect Investment Scams Early: Warning Signs Banks Should Watch For Detecting scams early is critical. Here are some patterns that indicate a high risk of fraudulent activity: Detecting investment scams at the account level: UPI IDs or accounts tied to multiple suspicious social media pages. Sudden spikes in small transfers into newly created accounts. Payment instruments linked to unverifiable or suspicious identities. Detecting investment fraud on social media: Channels or groups promising guaranteed or extraordinary returns. Fake testimonials, manipulated screenshots, or reviews that appear too good to be true. Banks that can spot and act on these signs early can prevent large-scale online investment scams. How mFilterIt Helps Banks Prevent Investment Scams Early Accounts or UPI Ids used by scammers often exist in isolation, and traditional fraud monitoring solutions often fall short in detecting investment scams before they take place. And by the time pattern emerges, investors have already lost their money. However, our proprietary brand protection solution – Sentinel+ by mFilterIt bridges this gap using a proactive, intelligence-led approach designed for the speed and sophistication of today’s scams. Here’s how it works: Sentinel+ deploys a bot to engage directly with scammers, posing as potential victims in WhatsApp chats, Telegram groups, or Instagram DMs. Through these conversations, they extract crucial details such as UPI IDs or account numbers, and payment instructions. Once this information is gathered, it goes through human validation to ensure accuracy before any action is taken. Once confirmed, the verified details are passed on to banks, who can act quickly to block fraudulent accounts at the source to prevent any further damage. This automated process fastens the system, enabling banks to move faster than scammers, shutting down fraudulent payment channels before more investors are targeted. Conclusion: Detect Fraudulent Investment Schemes with Brand Protection Solution Online investment scams in 2025 are fast-moving, highly convincing, and difficult for individuals to spot. If left unchecked, these schemes can result in significant financial losses and erode trust in the financial ecosystem. However, with brand protection solutions like Sentinel+, banks can combine AI-driven monitoring, protective bots, and human validation to outpace scammers. The result is a financial ecosystem where investors feel safe, regulators see proactive compliance, and banks strengthen their reputation as trusted guardians of digital finance. It’s time for you to act now to prevent investment frauds, safeguard your investors, and strengthen trust.

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Brand Bidding in Affiliate Marketing

Brand Bidding in Affiliate Marketing: What It Is and Why It’s Riskier in 2025

Blog, Affiliate /

Your brand keywords are your identity. But what if you’re paying higher cost for your brand keywords, or in worst case scenario – paying for your organic traffic.  Brand bidding is a technique used by affiliates and competitors where they bid on your branded keywords to divert your traffic to their landing pages. The impact of brand bidding in affiliate marketing is not just limited to ad budget wastage.   The brands have to pay more for their own branded keywords, they lose search traffic, and revenue drops.   In 2025, it is expected that the expenditure on search advertising will hit $351.5 billion worldwide, indicating a strong growth in the paid search sector. And with the demand for search surges, it is critical for brands to have the right protection against brand bidding violations.    According to our analysis done, we have found that 43% of affiliate traffic is invalid.   This blog is going to unpack:  Why brand bidding protection is critical in 2025?   What Leading Brands Are Doing to Prevent It?    How mFilterIt Protects Your Affiliate Program from Brand Bidding?    Why Brand Bidding Is Riskier in 2025 In 2025, brand bidding has become more than just a compliance problem; it has emerged as a strategic threat. It directly attacks the authenticity of your website, leaving users in a dilemma and baiting them to make the purchase from an affiliate’s website or tracking link. Let’s understand how brand bidding is riskier in 2025:  1. Increased PPC Brand Bidding = Higher CPCs on Brand Terms Affiliates bidding on brand keywords are directly proportional to the cost-per-click. The higher the bidding, the higher the cost-per-click, leading to an increased cost of paid search campaigns, making the visibility achievement on search engines greater challenge.   2. Detection Becoming Harder Due to AI-powered Tool Monitoring the actions of affiliates and enforcing policy violations rules have become tougher for brands as affiliates consistently use cloaking, dynamic redirects, and global targeting by AI to evade detection.  3. Exploitation of Performance Metrics In 2025, brands are relying heavily on performance metrics, prioritizing channels that generate maximum clicks, conversions, and ROAS. Hence, affiliates aim to exploit these metrics by click baiting users and taking credit of the purchases, they made without creating any new demand. This boosts the performance statistics of affiliates through mispresented numbers.  4. Brand Goodwill at Stake Misleading affiliate advertisements, fake discounts, and unreliable affiliate tracking links can severely hamper the goodwill of the brand by eroding customer trust.  Real Impact: How Brand Bidding Eats into Your ROI Your market funnel is at risk; brand bidding is draining your profits. Let’s know how profit leaks are undermining your return on investment (ROI):  1. One Customer, Double Payment If users who are your organic customers, are specifically searching for you, visit an affiliate’s tracking link and make purchases, you lose one organic user and instead pay the affiliate commission on a sale you would have gotten anyway.  2. CPCs Rise Manifold Your PPC campaigns land in a competitive landscape when affiliates bid on your keywords, increasing the cost-per-click and affecting the overall paid search efficiency.  3. False Attribution Affiliates gain commission from selling your products, but no new demand is created. The customers are the same buyers who would have visited your website, anyway, hence creating false attribution.   4. Poor UX = Lost Conversions Misleading or outdated ad copy from affiliates can create confusion, frustration, or distrust — increasing bounce rates and reducing conversion quality.  How to Prevent Brand Bidding: What Leading Brands Are Doing As major talks are going around how to prevent brand bidding in affiliate marketing, brands are also recognizing its importance. The following are the strategies opted by them to tackle the same:  1.Transparent Brand Policies and Contracts Brands create their affiliate program agreements, forbidding affiliates to steal their trademarked terms. The agreement includes what keywords the brand can use; the penalties imposed on the agreement and more.  2. Real-time Monitoring through Automation Brands are keeping a hawk’s eye on violations of their trademarks by affiliates. They monitor the landing pages, ads that appear above their official website and take action accordingly.  3. Negative Keyword Implementation The tactic of negative brand keyword implementation is followed by several brands across the affiliate campaigns to prevent affiliate ads from triggering on brand terms.  4. Timely Audits & Reporting Brands evaluate affiliate traffic through patterns, source, and conversion behaviour to detect and prevent suspicious behavioural patterns. This also includes reviewing landing pages and promo codes to identify any misleading information.  5. Cross-Functional Team Alignment (Legal, PPC, Affiliate Management) Leading brands are bringing legal, PPC, and affiliate teams together to tackle brand bidding in affiliate marketing. Legal handles takedowns, PPC monitors brand keyword activity, and affiliate managers enforce the rules. When these teams work in sync, violations get caught faster and the brand stays protected.  6. Third-party Solution for Detecting Brand Bidding Violation Third-party solution provides unbiased monitoring and detection of brand bidding violations. By offering an external perspective, it ensures transparency, credibility, and consistent protection of a brand’s search presence.  How mFilterIt Protects Your Affiliate Program from Brand Bidding Every click, every booking, every creative asset your brand deserves to own them. Yet brand bidding and unauthorized promotions quietly cause loss of direct traffic, inflate acquisition costs, and dilute trust.  That’s where EffCent steps in, mFilterIt’s affiliate monitoring solution built to protect your performance marketing ROI. But how do we do it? Let’s know now –  Real-time Monitoring –Track brand keyword bidding across ad networks and regions to spot misuse instantly.  Actionable Reporting –Deliver daily reports that highlight brand bidding violations for quick corrective action.  Proprietary Detection –Use Effcent’s technology to precisely identify unauthorized bids on branded keywords.  Restrict Violations –Enable immediate blocking of ad networks bidding on brand terms.   Know how a leading brand utilized mFilterIt’s affiliate monitoring solution to combat brand bidding.  Conclusion Brand bidding is a real threat to your performance, budget, and brand trust. As we

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Festive Season Ad Spend from Mobile Ad Fraud

Marketers’ DIY Guide: Safeguard Your Festive Season Ad Spend from Mobile Ad Fraud

Blog, Mobile Ad Fraud /

The festive season in India is like a high-stakes battleground for consumer attention, and in 2025 the stakes are even bigger.  This year, brands are using all possible strategies with irresistible festive offers. More than ever, AI-powered tools are being used to personalize campaigns, predict shopping behavior, and create highly targeted festive experiences for consumers.  Recent reports reveal that digital ad spends are expected to shoot up by 15–25% this year. That’s over ₹60,000 crore expected to be invested (nearly half of the industry’s yearly budget) into the ecosystem in just a few weeks – Dussehra to New Year.  Moreover, shoppers are equally excited. 80% of brands plan to increase their festive budget compared to last year, and most of that action will happen on mobile-first platforms.  This is the golden time of the year for performance marketers to scale their app performance, boost customer acquisition, and maximize ROI.   However, scaling business growth through mobile advertising campaigns during the festive season is not as simple as it might sound. While brands prepare to shine, fraudsters prepare too – to drain festive ad budgets with fake installs, bot-driven clicks, click flooding tactics, event spoofing, etc.   And during high-stakes periods, when the competition is even more fierce, even a small leakage can snowball into lost sales and damaged ROI.  So, how do you make sure the glowing numbers on your dashboard aren’t just smoke and mirrors? The answer is – by detecting and preventing mobile ad fraud this festive season before it hits your bottom line.   TL; DR, what to expect from this article:  Why mobile ad fraud spikes during the festive season?  A hands-on checklist to spot and block mobile ad fraud  The risks of ignoring fraud during festive season  How an ad fraud detection solution helps protect performance campaigns?  Why Mobile Ad Fraud Peaks During Festive Season?  During festive seasons, whether it’s Diwali in India, Ramadan in the Middle East, or Black Friday across global markets, brands significantly increase their marketing investments. And fraudsters follow the money, waiting for chances like these. Moreover, affiliates and media partners also compete aggressively to deliver results in volume. This creates a perfect storm for sophisticated fraud tactics to slip through traditional ways of ad fraud detection.  Here’s why fraud peaks during festive campaigns:  1. Festive budgets attract fraudsters When brands increase ad spends during the season, fraudsters see it as the perfect opportunity to grab a bigger portion of ad budgets as compared to normal days.  2. Traffic volumes overload systems With millions of clicks and installs happening in a short span, it becomes tougher to spot which ones are real and which ones are fake without the right app fraud detection strategy in place.  3. Pressure to deliver numbers Affiliates and media partners often push for higher volumes to deliver results on a faster and larger scale often using various methods, which means fraudulent traffic can slip through unchecked.  4.Short and intense campaign timelines  Festive campaigns usually run for a few weeks. In the rush to maximize results quickly, marketers don’t always get the time to investigate suspicious activity.  5. Shoppers are more active on mobiles Since most festive shopping now happens on mobile, fraudsters use fake devices, bots, and emulators to mimic real user activity, making fraud harder to catch. The Cost of Ignoring Mobile Ad Fraud During High-stakes Periods like Festive Season Ignoring these red flags can be disastrous for brands running mobile advertising campaigns:  Fraudulent traffic consumes budgets that should be driving real festive conversions.  Customer acquisition costs also spike as fake installs get counted.  Fraud makes campaigns look successful when in reality, genuine reach is limited.  Every dollar wasted on fake users is one less spent reaching real shoppers.  Poor campaign performance badly on brands and damages affiliate trust.  Festive campaigns have short windows, meaning there’s little room for error. But by the time mobile ad fraud is detected, the damage is already done.  The DIY Festive Season Mobile Ad Fraud Detection Checklist for Marketers  While recognizing sophisticated levels of mobile ad fraud requires an advanced AI-ML-based ad fraud detection solution to be in place, many patterns of fraudulent activities can be identified using simple observation.   This DIY checklist is made specifically for marketers to address mobile app fraud, affiliate fraud, and what to watch for:  1. Unusual Click-to-Install Time (CTIT) Patterns Fraudsters flood fake clicks to hijack credit for real installs, distorting CTIT and attribution data, making affiliates look like they are delivering genuine users.  Festive Relevance:  High install surges make fake CTIT timings harder to spot.  Affiliates stuff clicks before festive installs to claim credit.  What to Watch For:  Installs happening too fast (<10 seconds) often indicate bot-driven installs.  Installs delayed too long (>24 hours) indicate click flooding.  CTI < 0.1% likely indicates click spamming.   2. Abnormal Post-Install Behavior  Fraudulent or fake installs may look valid at first but fail to deliver meaningful engagement or purchases post-install, inflating top-of-funnel numbers while draining budgets.  Festive Relevance:  Real festive shoppers browse more, add to cart, and purchase.  Fraudsters simulate installs or spoof in-app events only to claim payouts.  What to Watch For:  High installs with shallow sessions or instant exits.  Zero meaningful actions like adds-to-cart or purchases.  3. Click Injection and Click Spamming  Fraudsters generate fake clicks just before a user installs your app organically, stealing credit from genuine traffic.  Festive Relevance:  With installs surging, fraudsters have more organic actions to hijack.  Affiliates exploit festive urgency to push suspicious click activity.  What to Watch For:  Affiliates with sudden spikes in attributed installs.  Install timelines overlapping heavily with organic traffic.  4. Device Farms and Emulator Traffic Large-scale device farms and emulators simulate fake installs and user activity, tricking attribution systems into marking them as conversions.  Festive Relevance:  Higher festive payouts make device farms highly profitable.  Thousands of fake users can be generated overnight.  What to Watch For:  Repeated installs from identical OS versions or device models.  High device reset rates from the same source.  5. Geo-Mismatch and Proxy

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Lead Landing Page Optimisation

Lead Landing Page Optimization – How to Spot Bots and Improve Lead Quality

Blog, Ad Fraud /

The USA digital advertising industry significantly relies on lead generation strategies. For advertisers in the USA, landing pages are the backbone of their ad campaigns. Millions are spent each year on ads to drive traffic and capture user attention.   But traffic is not always equal to opportunity. Marketers often notice unsettling patterns – even when dashboards show high volume of engagement and ad traffic, clicks, and form fills, somewhere conversions still lag behind.  Why is this happening?  The issue lies in the quality of traffic. Even the most beautifully designed, highly optimized landing page doesn’t convert if the people (or bots) visiting it were never real prospects in the first place.  Bots, click farms, and fraudulent traffic infiltrate digital ad ecosystems and degrade the lead quality, leaving advertisers with misleading reports and empty pipelines.  This not only leads to wasted ad spend but also performance inefficiencies across campaigns.   To overcome this challenge, improve landing page traffic quality and lead quality, brands need to rethink their landing page optimization strategies. Landing page optimization is no longer just about design, CTAs, or A/B testing; it is also about ad traffic validation and lead validation.  In this article, we will talk about:  What is lead landing page optimization?  The hidden threat brands in the USA need to be aware of.  How can advertisers spot bot patterns themselves?  Need for behavior analysis in landing page optimization – some practical steps to implement this  How an ad traffic validation and lead validation solution helps?  What is Lead Landing Page Optimization? Landing page optimization refers to the process of improving key elements of a landing page, such as design, messaging, and user experience to maximize conversions. A good landing page has a clear headline, persuasive copy, an easy-to-find call-to-action, and a layout that minimizes friction. All these steps help maximize conversion opportunities. But only if the traffic is real.  Advertisers often track clicks, form submissions, and engagement to guide optimizations. But bots quietly pollute the funnel, making A/B tests, bounce rates, and conversion data unreliable. This leads brands to optimize for noise while neglecting real buyers.  To break this loop, landing page strategies must go beyond surface-level optimizations. Incorporating behavioral analysis (like unusual browsing patterns or abnormal session times) and web fraud monitoring ensures traffic quality, helping brands achieve meaningful results and stronger ROI.   The Hidden Threat: How Bot Traffic Pollutes Lead Generation Campaigns Bot traffic is one of the most damaging but often overlooked issues in digital advertising. In the USA, where ad spend is among the highest globally, bots exploit every opportunity, from fake clicks to automated lead form submissions. Moreover, these aren’t just spam bots; fraudsters now use sophisticated bots that mimic real human behavior and are harder to detect.  Pay-per-call campaigns are also a widely used lead generation method in the USA. However, instead of connecting advertisers with genuine prospects, fraudsters generate fake or automated calls to trigger payouts. This not only wastes budgets but also distorts campaign performance data, leaving marketers with no real customer engagement to build on.  Further, the impact is severe.   Bots fill out lead forms with junk data, leaving sales teams chasing contacts that never convert.  Fraudulent submissions make campaigns appear cheaper per lead, masking the true cost of acquiring real prospects.  Inflated lead volumes give a false sense of demand, making it harder for marketers to forecast and allocate budgets effectively.  With CRMs overloaded by bot-generated entries, genuine leads get neglected, reducing the chances of meaningful customer acquisition.  Landing pages and ad creatives end up being optimized for fraudulent behavior instead of genuine prospects.  And when businesses base optimization decisions on false signals, it directly leads to long-term ROI damage.   That is why validating ad traffic based on various behavioral signals and parameters is no longer optional; it’s a core part of the landing page optimization strategy to combat web fraud.  DIY Guide: How Advertisers Can Spot Bot Patterns Themselves While recognizing sophisticated bot behavior requires an advanced AI-ML-based ad fraud detection solution to be in place, many patterns of fraudulent activities can be uncovered using simple observation and existing analytics platforms. Advertisers and marketers in the USA can start by monitoring:  Abnormal session duration: Bots often leave instantly, resulting in high bounce rates.   Repeated form fills: Look for duplicate names, fake emails, or strangely perfect data entries.  Analyze unnatural browsing patterns or scroll behavior: Real users skim unevenly; bots scroll mechanically, or not at all.  Watch clicks patterns: Bots click too quickly, with no hesitation or natural flow.  Unusual geographies/devices: Leads showing up from regions or devices outside your campaign targeting also indicates bot activity.  Traffic spikes at odd hours: Sudden bursts of activity at 2 AM followed by dead ends or zero follow-ups.  Junk conversion: High volume of form submissions, but emails bounce or calls go unanswered.  Bot registrants and junk leads: CRMs filled with incomplete profiles, disposable email IDs, or leads that never respond waste sales resources.  These DIY checks act as early warning signs against bot traffic. This helps advertisers identify suspicious patterns before optimizing landing pages.  Why Behavior Analysis Complements Landing Page Optimization When advertisers only optimize design and messaging of a landing page, they improve the chances that a visitor will take action. On the other hand, behavior analysis acts as the missing piece in the landing page optimization process.  Behavior analysis helps track how users move, click, and engage with a landing page or an ad, separating real prospects from fake ones.  By monitoring signals like irregular mouse movements, abnormal session durations, repeated form submissions, or patterns that don’t match natural human interaction, advertisers can separate genuine prospects from fraudulent traffic in real time.  As a result, this not only helps improve campaign efficiency but also improves lead quality. Sales teams receive fewer junk leads, reducing wasted effort. Marketers can make smarter budget allocation decisions when they’re working with clean data instead of bot-inflated numbers. Ultimately, it protects ROI by ensuring that every dollar spent is directed toward

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Managing Ads Across Multiple Ecommerce Marketplaces

How a Unified Platform Cuts Hidden Costs of Ads Across Ecommerce Marketplaces

Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Aditya was running a festive campaign for his brand on top eCommerce marketplaces and quick commerce platforms. He sets the bid for a specific keyword, schedules the campaigns, and goes to sleep.  Meanwhile, their competitors reduce the bid cost and get a better position than them. Till the time he sees that and optimizes his campaigns, his competitors have captured the eyeballs.  And in addition to it, he is struggling to keep an eye on all the platforms at the same time.   During peak season time, brands cannot take the risk of losing visibility. But managing cross-platform campaigns manually is like floating on two boats like Aditya. Your human eye will definitely miss something.   This is the hidden cost of managing ads across multiple marketplaces separately.  So, now the question is – How should a performance manager manage ads across Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit, and others without logging into 5 different dashboards?  Let’s find that out.  In this article, we will talk about:  The inefficiencies of managing ads manually across different platforms.   Why manual campaign creation, monitoring, and reporting are no longer enough in today’s competitive landscape.  How a unified ad manager simplifies complexity by bringing everything into one dashboard.  The role of AI and automation in making ad management smarter, faster, and more efficient.  The Hidden Inefficiencies of Managing Cross-Platform Campaigns Manually Every ecommerce marketplace has its own advertising platform with unique dashboards and reporting methods. Handling 2-3 campaigns across these ad managers might seem like a manageable task. But as the number of your campaigns grows and with increased competition, the manual efforts become inefficient. And the cracks begin to show:  Time drain: Constantly switching between platforms to check performance and make optimizations wastes hours that can be spent on strategy.  Data silos: It gets difficult to get a clear, unified picture of overall marketing spend and ROI, with insights locked inside separate dashboards.  Slow response times: Marketplaces are dynamic. Bids change, competitors adjust pricing, and inventory fluctuates quickly. Relying on manual monitoring means you’re often reacting too late.  Higher risk of errors: Fragmented management increases the chances of overspending, duplicate targeting, or misaligned campaigns, all of which directly impact profitability.  Reporting headaches: Each platform has its own format and metrics. Creating consolidated reports means extra manual work, often leading to inconsistencies or overlooked insights.  Missed growth opportunities: When campaigns are managed in isolation, you can’t easily see cross-market patterns, like whether Amazon campaigns are outperforming Flipkart, or if a product trending on Blinkit could be pushed more on other platforms.  Guesswork in bid adjustments: Without consolidated insights, marketers often rely on trial-and-error when setting bids. This guesswork leads to overspending in some areas while underfunding campaigns that could actually deliver better results.  Therefore, manual ad campaign management methods fail to keep up with the speed, complexity, and interconnectedness of the rapidly growing ecommerce space. Advertisers now need to move towards a smarter, unified system that not only tracks campaigns across platforms but also provides real-time, actionable ecommerce analytics as well as saves optimization time using AI and automation.  What is a Unified Ad Manager? A Unified Ad Manager is a single platform that allows brands to create, manage, monitor, and optimize their advertising campaigns across multiple ecommerce marketplaces and digital channels from one place. Instead of juggling Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit, Myntra, or other platforms separately, a unified marketing platform consolidates all campaign data into a centralized dashboard.  This unified approach removes the need to switch between multiple dashboards, download endless reports, or manually reconcile metrics. Brands get advanced ecommerce analytics, a standardized view of ad spend, ROI, keyword performance, and campaign results across platforms, all in one single dashboard.  Benefits of Using a Unified Ad Manager 1. Centralized Campaign Management: Create, manage, and optimize campaigns for multiple marketplaces from one dashboard. This eliminates the need to switch between platforms, saving time and reducing complexity.  2. Smarter Campaign Creation Set up campaigns faster using data-driven insights on budgets, products, and keywords. Bulk campaign creation ensures consistency across platforms while tailoring strategies for individual marketplaces.  3. Real-Time Campaign Modifications Adjust budgets, bids, keywords, and product codes in one place. Updates reflect instantly across platforms, and bulk optimization at once makes scaling effortless.  4. Optimization & Bid Management Improve performance with dynamic bid adjustments, budget reallocations, and automated dayparting. The platform even auto-pauses campaigns for out-of-stock products, ensuring ad spend isn’t wasted.  5. AI-Powered Rule Engine Use of AI-based ecommerce analytics helps apply smart rules to optimize campaigns automatically. From adjusting bids to reallocating budgets, AI triggers ensure campaigns remain competitive without constant manual oversight.  6. Integrated Digital Shelf Analytics Track keyword share of search, monitor category visibility, and measure competitor rankings. This integration bridges ad performance with digital shelf presence for a complete view.  7. Budget Management & Pacing Spreads ad spends across peak hours with automated pacing. The platform also provides instant alerts on low balances and intelligently shuffles budgets for maximum efficiency.  8. Deep Insights & Reporting Access a global Power BI dashboard with detailed insights on platform, brand, keyword, or product. This includes availability, ratings and reviews, and share-of-search, making decisions more data-driven.  9. Transparency Through Logs Every change, from bid updates to rule executions, is tracked in an activity log. This provides clarity, accountability, and a clear audit trail.  10. Better Outcomes at Scale By simplifying ad management, reducing manual effort, and applying automation, brands achieve higher ROAS, fewer errors, and continuous performance improvement.  How AI & Automation Help in Advanced Ad Campaign Management Unified ad manager solves the problem of fragmentation, but by leveraging AI-based ecommerce analytics, brands can move beyond visibility. AI brings the power of automation to everyday ad campaign management. Here’s how:  Smart budget allocation: Instead of manually deciding how much to spend on each marketplace, AI shifts budgets toward platforms and campaigns based on real time competitor insights delivering the best ROI.  Automated bid adjustments: Bids update in real-time to stay competitive, saving you from hours of manual tweaks. 

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rise-in-brand-infringement-scams

Rise in Brand Infringement: How Brands Can Stay Protected This Festive Season

Blog, Brand Protection /

It’s the busiest time of the year… Especially for ecommerce brands, when shoppers are eagerly browsing, ready to shop, spend, and convert. And at this moment, the buzz has already begun, users have already started wishlisting what new products they need to bring home this festive season. Brands are all geared up to make the most from festive sales like Flipkart’s Big Billion Days, Amazon’s Great Indian Festival, Meesho’s Mega Blockbuster Sale, etc. But are you aware, it’s the most wonderful time of the year for whom? Fraudsters and scammers. E-commerce brands are highly targeted by fraudsters during the festive season. mFilterIt spotted more than 1600 suspicious domains and fake websites appearing on ad networks mimicking known e-commerce platforms, dedicated to phishing and selling counterfeits. This is just one part of the bigger problem. Festive season fraud in India has evolved far beyond the occasional fake product listing. Today, cybercriminals run full-fledged operations, registering lookalike domains, cloning brand websites, impersonating customer service representatives, and creating social media ads that look almost indistinguishable from those of the real brands. Around 45% of Indian consumers report that they or someone they know has been targeted by a deepfake-based shopping scam, and over half of these victims, about 56%, ended up losing money to the fraud. Source: Times of India. So, how do brands ensure protection against brand infringement scams to safeguard their integrity in the market and among consumers? In this article, we’ll break down types of brand infringements targeting Indian consumers during the festive season and explore how both shoppers and businesses can protect themselves. We’ll also look at how brand protection solutions help e-commerce platforms keep the festive spirit safe. Why Festive Season Is Prime Time for Scammers? A report by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) found that phishing and brand impersonation attacks spike by up to 70% during peak shopping seasons. This means that when customers are highly energetic, lured, and distracted by discounts, fraudsters are busy making their fraudulent operations look more legitimate than ever. Here’s why the number of scams surges during this time of the year:  Shoppers are in a hurry – Limited-time deals, flash sales, and midnight offers push customers to act fast. This urgency often means they skip basic checks like verifying seller authenticity or double-checking website URLs.  Massive ad spend boosts brand visibility – Brands invest heavily in festive marketing across channels. Fraudsters hijack this visibility by copying creatives, mimicking landing pages, and targeting the same ad keywords to divert traffic.  Fear of missing out drives impulsive clicks – Festive campaigns create a “buy now before it’s gone” mindset. Fraudsters exploit this by using phishing sites, listings, and even emails that look identical to official ones, banking on consumers’ lack of attention.  Customers’ trust in brands – Customers expect big discounts during festivals like Diwali, Independence Day, etc., from the brands they know they can trust. This high trust level lowers their skepticism toward unusually cheap offers, making it easier for scammers to mislead them.  Volume of activity makes monitoring harder – With brands handling high order volumes, launching new SKUs, and running multiple campaigns, it becomes harder to track every marketplace listing, social ad, or new domain in real time, giving scammers a window to operate.  Therefore, the lack of vigilance from both brands’ and consumers’ results in an increase of brand infringement cases and lost brand integrity, sales, as well as customer trust.  Common Types of Brand Infringement Attacks You Need to Know About Several brand infringement patterns repeatedly surface during festive sales. Below are some things you need to be aware of:  1. Fake Websites, Typo Squatting, and Lookalike Domains Fraudsters register domains that closely mimic brand URLs (swap letters like replacing ‘O’ with a ‘zero’, add prefixes/suffixes, use similar TLDs) and build landing pages that copy official branding, logo, and product images. These pages are then promoted by running fake ads across platforms, SMS links, or mass phishing campaigns promising 50-70% discounts. So, customers land on convincing checkout pages and complete payments that never reach the real brand.  2. Counterfeit and Unauthorized Marketplace Listings Unauthorized sellers list fake or low-quality replicas of legit products under a genuine brand name. These listings often come with heavily discounted prices to lure buyers who end up buying substandard goods, leading to a poor experience and loss of money.  According to a joint study conducted by Crisil and the Authentication Solution Providers Association (ASPA), counterfeit goods account for roughly 25–30% of total products sold in India. The problem is particularly severe in the apparel and FMCG industries, where counterfeit selling reaches about 31% and 28%, respectively. Source: Business Standard 3. Social Media Impersonation and Fake Promotional Accounts Fake Instagram pages, cloned Facebook profiles, or fake WhatsApp customer service numbers are commonly used to run festive promotions. Scammers create accounts that visually mimic the brand, run paid ads, or DM followers with limited-time coupon codes that lead to phishing websites or fake storefronts. This not only steals immediate sales from the brand but also floods their original account with angry customers requiring PR and customer-care bandwidth to resolve issues and re-establish trust.  According to research conducted in 2024, 31% of consumers admitted that they are likely to purchase from sellers discovered on social media if the offer seems appealing, leaving them particularly vulnerable to brand impersonation fraud. Moreover, nearly 47% of Indian consumers have encountered scams involving forged celebrity endorsements or questionable online retailers on social media platforms. Source: McAfee  How Brand Infringement Scams Hurt Consumers and Brands: The Ripple Effect The first and most direct victims of brand impersonation attacks are consumers. The festive season makes shoppers even more vulnerable. Major impacts include:  Financial losses – Customers end up paying for products that are never delivered, or receive counterfeit goods of little or no value. Refunds are rarely possible because scammers disappear once the transaction is complete.  Compromised personal data – Fake websites and phishing campaigns collect sensitive information such as credit card numbers, addresses, and login credentials. This

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ad fraud guide

Marketer’s Guide to Ad Fraud – What it is and How to Solve it

Guide, Ad Traffic Validation /

If your campaigns are costing you more than they’re performing, it’s time to rebuild your strategy, because the issue might be lying in your traffic itself. Ad fraud has become one of the biggest reasons impacting your campaigns and marketing budgets across walled gardens, open networks, affiliate platforms, apps, and programmatic ecosystems. The first half of 2025 recorded an average global ad fraud rate of 39.7%, and fraud peaked at 49% in June, the highest in five years. With AI-driven bots, fake users, and manipulated attribution becoming more advanced, the financial impact is far deeper than most marketers realize. Therefore, to help you get clarity, this guide will help you understand what ad fraud looks like today, where it hides, how it impacts real performance, and what you can do to protect your budgets with the right validation strategies. What is Ad Fraud?   Ad fraud is the deliberate manipulation of advertising systems to generate illegitimate revenue by simulating real user interactions, such as clicks, installs, or views, without actual consumer interest.   The lost advertising money is not the only obvious impact of fraudulent activities. Since fraudsters manipulate the most important ad performance metrics, they also skew the insights marketers and advertising teams may draw from those metrics. The impact from this, in many cases, leads to a long-term negative impact on the brand’s advertising efforts.    The problem is made worse because of the availability of options for fraudsters.    Let’s look at some of the most common methods and techniques employed by fraudsters to scam honest advertisers.   What are the Different Types of Ad Fraud? [Channel-wise Fraud] Types of Web Ad Fraud Web advertising remains one of the most vulnerable digital channels because of the open networks and automated programmatic advertising ecosystem, that makes it challenging to track and verify the legitimacy of each impression and click. Here are the common types of web ad fraud techniques every advertiser must be aware of:   Click Fraud As the name suggests, click fraud involves generating fake clicks on pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Many fraudsters use simple bots to generate these fake clicks. However, most ad networks and platforms can now detect fake clicks coming from simple bots. To overcome this, fraudsters have started developing and deploying sophisticated bots that can mimic human-user behavior and fool the algorithms of the ad platforms.    In some cases, specifically in less developed countries, fraudsters employ cheap labor on “click farms” to generate fake clicks without attracting suspicion from ad networks.    Impression Fraud Impression fraud involves fraudsters creating fake impressions on ads that pay in exchange for those impressions.    This type of fraud also often involves bots to create fake traffic that can be used to register impressions on ads. Tech-savvy fraudsters may also use more sophisticated methods such as pixel stuffing or ad stacking.   With pixel stuffing, the fraudsters “stuff” the ad into a single pixel on their webpage. This way, when a real user visit said webpage, they don’t see the ad and the fraud publisher still ends up getting paid for that impression.    Similarly, ad stacking involves “stacking” multiple ads on top of each other in a single ad space on the webpage. This way, when the user visits the page, they may see just one ad, but the fraud publisher will get paid for all the ads stacked in the ad space.    Domain Spoofing Domain spoofing is a type of ad fraud where a fraudster tricks advertisers into thinking their ads are showing on popular, trustworthy websites. However, in reality, the ads run on low-quality MFA (Made for Advertisements) websites or even fake websites.  The primary goal is usually to steal sensitive information like login credentials, generate fake leads, and earn money.   In digital terms, the fraudsters change the website’s identity by using a spoofed domain name, elements, and visuals (similar to that of a legitimate website like a well-known press release page) during the ad auction process, so it appears to be a premium site. Advertisers end up paying high prices, thinking their ad is being seen by a valuable audience, but it’s actually wasted on irrelevant or fake traffic, hurting performance, ad budgets, and brand safety.   Cookie Stuffing Cookie stuffing is one of the common ad fraud tactics used by fraudsters to manipulate affiliate marketing performance. This happens when a fraudulent affiliate secretly “stuffs” or adds multiple affiliate tracking cookies into a user’s browser without their knowledge or action.   These cookies are meant to track if the user later makes a purchase on a brand’s site. If they do, the fraudster earns a commission, even though they didn’t contribute to the sale. It’s like someone secretly putting their referral name on your order so they can get credit. This affiliate fraud tactic hurts brands because it inflates affiliate payouts, messes up marketing data, and steals credit from genuine affiliates who actually put real efforts to earn the sale.   Geo Masking Geo masking, also known as location fraud, is another type of web ad fraud where the actual location of the user is hidden or faked to make it appear as if they are from a targeted region.  Fraudsters use various methods like using proxy servers, or VPNs to route invalid traffic through target locations spoofing GPS data and IP addresses.    Fraudsters do this to trick advertisers into paying higher rates for traffic that looks like it’s genuine, when it’s really coming from irrelevant regions, misleading performance metrics and further campaign optimization.   Types of Mobile Ad Fraud With the expansive growth in app-based marketing and the complexity of attribution models, mobile apps have become a breeding ground for highly sophisticated ad fraud. These fraud types manipulate app installs, in-app engagements, and user attribution at each stage of the funnel using following techniques:   Install Fraud Install fraud is a type of mobile ad fraud and involves faking app installs to scam advertisers that operate on cost-per-install (CPI) campaigns.   Fraudsters may employ simple or sophisticated techniques to execute this type of fraud. Simpler techniques

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