Identify bot-driven engagement before festive campaigns go live: A marketer’s checklist
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How a Unified Platform Cuts Hidden Costs of Ads Across Ecommerce Marketplaces
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: How Brands Can Stay Protected This Festive Season
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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Marketer’s Guide to Ad Fraud – What it is and How to Solve it
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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Win the Digital Shelf This Festive Season with Data-Driven Ecommerce Analytics
Festive season is around the corner, and the most challenging times for ecommerce brands as well. The battle to win on the digital shelf and ultimately the conversion is real. It’s that time of the year when traffic is peaking on ecommerce platforms because of festive sales like Big Billion Days, Great Indian Festival, etc. The consumer intent is high and willing to spend during this time According to a RedSeer report, festive season sales accounted for $9.2 billion in revenue in 2021 alone. Moreover, according to a report by KPMG India, the festive season generates up to 30-40% of annual retail sales. But with this surge in opportunity comes a sharp rise in complexity – more competition, fluctuating prices, last-minute stockouts, unpredictable consumer behavior, and an overwhelming amount of data scattered across platforms. However, amid the chaos of flash sales, ad campaigns, and instant demands, brands can’t afford to rely on guesswork or delayed reporting. And here’s the harsh truth: every missed keyword, every out-of-stock product, every ranking position lost gives an edge to your competitor who is doing all the above. That’s why leveraging a real-time ecommerce analytics solution isn’t just helpful; it’s essential. To win sales, and more customers during this festive season, brands must operate with complete clarity on what’s working, what’s not, and what needs immediate action. Because in a market where every second counts, only those who can see and act faster will own the digital shelf. In this article, we will talk about the challenges ecommerce brands face during mega sale campaigns/festive season sales and what ecommerce brands should focus on during peak times. Challenges Ecommerce Brands Face During Festive Season Sales It’s easy to be caught up in dashboards, creatives, and campaign calendars. But if you zoom in, there are deeper challenges that affect outcomes throughout the process, and many ecommerce teams miss them until it’s too late. 1. Limited Visibility into SKU Performance Even the best-selling products can lose sales if they’re not consistently available or properly listed across platforms. During the high traffic periods – availability is opportunity. If your shoppers are exploring and don’t find your product on the digital shelf, they will move to the next best option. And for you, it’s just a lost opportunity. While being present is important, it is also essential to do a continuous scan to avoid out-of-stock situations and not appearing for the competitive keywords. These blind spots are often only caught when it’s too late. Without real-time visibility into SKU-level performance insights, brands risk losing high-intent buyers in the most critical hours. 2. Inconsistent Product Details on Various Platforms You’ve invested in driving traffic, but if your product page has low-resolution images, outdated specs, or a missing description, it directly impacts consumer behavior, their decision making and kills conversion. The complexity of this challenge is that ecommerce platforms often display different versions of your product content, especially when multiple sellers are involved. This inconsistency across PDPs not only looks unprofessional but can also lead to poor SEO rankings and reduced shelf visibility, costing you valuable clicks. 3. Price Undercutting and Discount Violations Everyone wants to be the cheapest during a sale, and sometimes resellers/competitors take that a little too far. Unauthorized discounting or MAP violations often go unchecked during peak periods. While this might spike short-term sales for violators, it damages your brand’s perceived value, confuses customers, and disrupts your pricing strategy and even campaigns running for particular products. 4. Delayed Response to Competitor Actions During the festive season you might also see a lot of new competitors emerging with aggressive pricing plays, and flash campaigns. And if your team isn’t tracking these shifts of pricing in real time, your brand risks falling behind. Knowing who’s gaining visibility, what keywords they’re winning on, and how they’re bundling or discounting helps you respond quickly and protect your share of shelf and avoid loss of revenue. 5. Disconnected Media and Shelf Performance Running ad campaigns and making sure they are working in your favor are two different things. Many ecommerce teams measure clicks and impressions but fail to link them to what matters: improved product rank, better keyword positioning, and higher conversions. If your ad budget isn’t moving the needle on your shelf presence, it’s time to question where and how you’re spending. Media and shelf performance must be aligned for your campaigns to deliver real ROI. 6. Struggling to Stay Discoverable in Crowded Search Results Discoverability is the first touchpoint to even be considered. However, with hundreds of brands competing for the same keywords, simply being listed on a platform doesn’t guarantee visibility. Festive sales demand aggressive yet mindful keyword bidding, and organic placements become harder to maintain. If your product isn’t ranking on the first few scrolls, you’re invisible to most shoppers. And the worst part is you might be bidding on the wrong keywords or missing out on search trends altogether. 7. Poor Product Availability During Peak Times It’s frustrating when your campaigns are performing well, but the product isn’t available in key regions or goes out of stock right in the middle of a peak day. Stock availability across SKUs, platforms, and cities can make or break festive performance. Consumers don’t wait; they simply move to the next best option. Without proactive availability tracking and alerts, brands risk losing sales not because of strategy, but because of a lack of visibility into inventory gaps. Here’s How Leveraging Ecommerce Analytics Solution Helps You Take Back Control To thrive during high demand periods like festive season sales ecommerce brands need more than dashboards, they need real-time, platform-specific, SKU-level intelligence that turns complexity into clarity, and data into actionable insights. This is exactly where our ecommerce intelligence solution – mScanIt helps. It is an AI powered analytics tool that empowers ecommerce, media, and content teams with real-time, granular, and actionable insights, so you can make smarter decisions, faster. Here’s how mScanIt helps you overcome the festive season chaos and
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