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Ad Fraud Blog – Valid8

Click Fraud Impacts Performance Campaigns

How Click Fraud Impacts Performance Campaigns in Walled Gardens

Blog, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8 /

“I’m seeing a surge in clicks on my paid campaigns, but something feels off. The costs are rising, conversions aren’t improving, and a large chunk of my budget is disappearing without any meaningful results. At this point, I’m not even sure if these clicks are from real users—or if competitors, bots, or automated scripts are inflating my numbers and distorting my performance.”  This is a real frustration for marketers investing budgets on ad campaigns to get results. Instead, they challenge like unexpected spikes in clicks, unexplained CPC increases, declining lead quality, and campaign optimizations that simply don’t make sense.  Yet many still assume that only 1–2% of their traffic is invalid.  The data tells a different story. Our analysis of 342 campaigns run in 2024 shows search ads carry close to 10% invalid traffic, while partner networks reach 21%—proving that click fraud inside walled gardens is far more widespread and sophisticated than most expect. On walled gardens, invalid clicks slip through easily. They distort your algorithms, inflate your CPC, clutter remarketing pools, degrade lead quality, and gradually weaken your entire performance funnel.  In this blog, we break down the real impact of click fraud inside walled gardens—and what you can do to protect your budget, your funnel, and your performance from being quietly derailed by fake traffic.  The Real Impact of Fake Clicks on Search Campaigns Walled gardens can filter basic invalid traffic, but sophisticated click fraud still slips through. Modern bots behave like real users—clicking, scrolling, even filling forms—making their activity indistinguishable from genuine engagement.  And this is where the real damage begins. Platforms treat every click as intent. So when fake interactions enter your campaigns, they don’t just waste budget—they mislead algorithms, distort signals, and trigger a chain reaction of poor optimizations.      This domino effect impacts every stage of your search campaigns. The points below break down exactly how invalid traffic quietly reshapes performance, from rising CPC to weakened remarketing and declining lead quality.  Sudden Click Spikes Mislead the Algorithm A sudden rise in clicks may seem like good news, but when those clicks are invalid, they send false demand signals. The algorithm assumes your ad is gaining traction, your audience is responding well, and your targeting is strong. In reality, fake activity steers your campaign in a direction that doesn’t reflect true user intent. Seeing such good numbers, you invest more in your campaign which is already giving you fake ad traffic.   Your CPC Starts Increasing Without Any Logical Reason Once platforms believe your ads are performing well, they push your ads into more competitive auctions. That’s when CPC starts rising. Nothing changes in your targeting, communication, or creatives; it’s simply the result of invalid clicks convincing the system that your ad deserves more aggressive delivery, even though the engagement wasn’t real.  On-Site Behaviour Drops, Impacting Relevancy Scores Invalid clicks land on your website and leave immediately. This results in unnaturally high bounce rates and very short, low-quality sessions. Platforms interpret this behaviour as a relevance issue, due to which your ads lose efficiency; delivery weakens, costs rise further, and even good audiences become harder to reach.  Lead Quality Declines and Sales Teams Feel the Impact The impact of click fraud is not limited only to click stage. The impact begins to show on the entire campaign funnel. Invalid clicks turn into invalid leads through auto-filled forms, fake details, or low-intent submissions. This clutters your CRM and slows down your sales team. Instead of speaking to real prospects, they spend valuable time following up with leads that never had genuine interest or do not even exist. Over time, this pulls down your overall lead-to-opportunity conversion rate. Know more about how to improve landing page traffic and lead quality  Remarketing Performance Drops Due to Click Fraud Invalid users also get added to your remarketing lists. When that happens, you end up retargeting audiences with no intent to convert. Remarketing becomes more expensive and less effective. Even worse, algorithms start learning from these polluted audiences, expanding your reach in the wrong direction and pushing you further away from genuine high-intent users.  Analytics Become Unreliable, Leading to Misleading Optimizations Once invalid clicks affect both initial traffic and remarketing, your analytics start losing accuracy. Conversion paths look unusual, A/B test results become inconsistent, and attribution feels off. Decisions based on this corrupted data lead to incorrect budget shifts, misguided optimizations, and scaling efforts built on signals that don’t reflect real customer behaviour.  Budgets Get Misallocated, Leading to Long-Term Revenue Loss Algorithms keep pushing budget into ad sets, keywords, or audience segments that seem to bring high engagement, but conversions remain poor. Meanwhile, genuinely strong segments may get reduced investment. The longer this goes unnoticed, the more your budget drifts away from real performance drivers. This leads to long-term revenue loss and lower ROAS.  How mFilterIt Helps Advertisers Eliminate Click Fraud and Take Back Control of Their Funnel The problem of click fraud inside walled gardens and search ecosystems cannot be solved with platform filters or surface-level analytics alone. Advertisers need a system that protects their funnel from the very first interaction with real-time visibility, smarter detection, and complete transparency. This is exactly where our ad fraud detection tool – Valid8 serves as a stronger layer of protection against ad fraud. Here’s how it helps:  Proactive click fraud detection to filter out invalid traffic Click fraud causes damage right at the moment it happens. That’s why mFilterIt validates every click proactively, before it reaches your website or influences platform algorithms. This ensures bots, automated interactions, and low-quality clicks are filtered instantly, keeping your CPC stable and your funnel protected from the very beginning.  Source-level transparency – Know if the traffic is bot or genuine Walled gardens don’t reveal much about where clicks come from or how they behave. Our ad fraud solution bridges that gap by providing an independent, transparent view into the source of each click and behavioural pattern, even inside closed platforms. This helps advertisers spot issues

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Hidden Affiliate fraud in this Holiday season

Are You Losing Revenue to Hidden Affiliate Fraud This Holiday Season? Not Anymore!

Blog, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8, USA /

The USA holiday season is approaching fast, positioning itself as the marketer’s biggest opportunity and the greatest vulnerability. With consumers expected to spend more, brands are also ramping up affiliate campaigns to capture every click and conversion.   The US affiliate marketing industry alone is valued at $11.99 billion and continues to grow each year. But with every click, lead, and install, there is a hidden cost few marketers don’t see coming. Where surface-level metrics can be misleading and hidden losses slip through unnoticed, affiliate marketing today isn’t just about driving performance; it’s about safeguarding performance integrity.  In this blog, you will discover –  Hidden threats of holiday affiliate campaigns  Quick Glance: Signs to identify fake leads in affiliate campaigns  How traditional monitoring impacts holiday season growth  Why affiliate monitoring is crucial for holiday campaigns  leading brands are fighting back this holiday season  Notable impacts of choosing an affiliate monitoring solution  The Unseen Side of Holiday Affiliate Campaigns Imagine your brand partnering with affiliates to maximize holiday traffic, leads, and conversions at scale. The performance spikes, but there lies an unseen layer of inefficiency and risk that you discover much later. The culprit? Fraudsters with their evolved tactics, are bringing sophisticated affiliate fraud into action and draining ad budgets.   Let’s unpack how these hidden losses occur:  1. Fake Leads Fraudsters deploy scripts that generate fake leads from bots to inflate performance metrics. On the dashboard, it looks like conversions are climbing, but these leads cannot convert into paying customers.   2. Repeated Leads Some affiliates take advantage of the same user information more than once or submit duplicate entries to claim multiple commissions. This causes a misleading sense of campaign success.  3. Misattributed Installs Some affiliates take the undue credit of installs by hijacking the last click attribution. Through click injection, they insert their tracking link right before the install completes, diverting the organic install and forcing marketers to pay for the traffic that was coming organically.  4. Incentivized or low-quality installs To bring a spike in install rates and claim commission, some affiliates drive low-quality users who will download your app without generating any lifetime value.  5. Brand Bidding Violation Affiliates often bid on branded keywords, stealing traffic that is already yours. Instead of amplifying reach, your campaigns cannibalize existing audiences and inflate acquisition costs.  Know why leading brands are opting for a comprehensive affiliate monitoring solution  6. Suspicious Activities by Unvetted Affiliates The rush to scale during the USA holiday season often opens doors to unsafe activities by affiliates. These affiliates redirect traffic from counterfeit or adult content sites to the genuine site. On the surface, performance metrics may appear strong, but a significant portion of spend is going toward unsafe or low-value traffic, quietly eroding ROI and putting both revenue and brand reputation at risk.  7. Reseller Fraud Some affiliates manipulate D2C discount programs meant for genuine customers by purchasing products in bulk at discounted rates and then reselling them at higher prices. This affiliate fraud disrupts the advertiser’s retail ecosystem and gives a false idea of affiliates driving high-volume sales.  The Hidden Cost of Traditional Monitoring During Peak Holiday Campaigns In today’s multi-platform, multi-partner ecosystem, brands need real time monitoring to safeguard every dollar, especially during the USA holiday season. Traditional and manual monitoring often misses hidden affiliate fraud, leaving marketers unaware of wasted spend. Here’s why surface-level metrics aren’t enough: –  Late Discovery, Lasting Damage: Performance gaps are only visible when ad spend is exhausted, and the loss cannot be recovered.  Shallow Insights: Traditional metrics highlights the increased number of holiday traffic but not the authenticity that whether the user is genuine or not.  Lost Optimization Power: Without real time monitoring, marketers will only have a vague idea of the high-performing channels, hence reallocating budgets would become challenging.  Compromised ROI and Brand Trust: Poor visibility not only drains budgets but also exposes brands to unsafe placements and credibility risks.  Why Holistic Affiliate Monitoring is Critical for Holiday Campaigns? Without continuous monitoring, affiliate campaigns can leave your brand exposed to hidden affiliate fraud and wasted ad spend. Now the question arises, how to mitigate holiday affiliate fraud. The answer is simple; a comprehensive affiliate monitoring is the only solution to avoid budget leaks specially during the peak holiday season. mFilterit’s Valid8, a robust ad fraud detection tool keeps your campaigns authentic with thorough tracking and customizable monitoring.  Here’s why it is essential –  1. Holistic Multichannel Monitoring During the holiday season rush, it tracks affiliate performance across display, social, search, and email to ensure every partner delivers real value and not inflated metrics.  2. Protect Ad Spend with Search-Engine Monitoring Holiday season competition fuels keyword hijacking and unauthorized brand bidding, hence affiliate monitoring is important to ensure that your organic traffic remains intact.  3. Brand Asset Recognition It safeguards your festive season campaigns from any misuse of logos, creatives, or promotions, maintaining consistent messaging and customer trust.  4. Clear, Intuitive Dashboard With traffic spikes and short windows to optimize, real time dashboards help in detecting anomalies, analyzing performance, and acting instantly.  5. Compliance Oversight Staying compliant to the legal guidelines during the peak holiday season must be the priority of your brand. Affiliate monitoring protects your reputation when visibility is highest.  How Leading Brands are Fighting Back Forward-thinking USA brands are turning to data-driven affiliate validation powered by AI, automation, and real-time analysis to safeguard their budgets.  What a comprehensive affiliate monitoring tool can bring to the table: Identify and flag invalid traffic sources or suspicious leads coming from affiliate partners Spot low-retention incentivized installs and stop paying for vanity results. Block brand keyword misuse across affiliate campaigns. Prevent organic install hijacking and restore accurate attribution. Ensure brand-safe affiliate partnerships through continuous validation. Catch reseller fraud early with AI-driven affiliate tracking.  Know why leading brands are opting for a comprehensive affiliate monitoring solution  Conclusion: Don’t Let Holiday Growth Turn into Holiday Losses Affiliate marketing should amplify your ROI, not erode it. This holiday season, increase spendings and maximize holiday performance through affiliate

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Click Level Validation in Ad Fraud

Why Click-Level Validation Alone Isn’t Enough to Combat Ad Fraud

Blog, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8 /

For years, marketers have relied on click fraud validation as proof that their campaigns are reaching real users. If the clicks look clean, the traffic must be genuine, right? It’s been the comfort metric, the checkpoint that promises accountability in a noisy digital ecosystem.  But here’s the catch: validating just click fraud doesn’t guarantee real outcomes. Behind a perfectly validated click could be a fake lead, a disengaged visitor, or a bot sophisticated enough to mimic human behavior. You may have solved surface-level traffic hygiene, but not for what truly drives performance — authentic engagement and meaningful conversions.  Because fraudulent activity and inefficiency today don’t stop at activating click fraud. They seep into every stage of the funnel — from impressions to sign-ups, from page visits to purchases. And that’s why click-level validation alone isn’t enough anymore.  In this blog, we’ll explore why clicks can be deceiving, what blind spots they create in your current validation setup, and how a full-funnel validation approach gives marketers the confidence to measure outcome, not just interaction. What Click Validation Does Right? Click validation acts as a first line of defense for click fraud prevention. It helps ensure that your campaigns attract genuine clicks from legitimate sources and filter out obvious invalid traffic generated by bots, click farms, and other non-human entities.  By validating ad traffic based on various parameters like device type, IP consistency, geographic locations, and user behavior patterns, click-level validation helps advertisers maintain cleaner campaign data and avoid inflated click-through rates (CTRs).  This allows marketers to:  1. Filter Out Invalid Clicks Early Click validation detects and blocks fraudulent or non-human clicks in real time, protecting campaigns from the most common forms of click fraud at the entry point.  2. Improve Traffic Quality By ensuring that only genuine clicks are counted, marketers get higher-quality traffic that’s more likely to engage and convert.  3. Protect Ad Budgets from Immediate Wastage When fake clicks are filtered out, marketers can prevent their ad spend from getting wasted on irrelevant or non-existent audiences.  4. Get a Clearer View of Engagement Validating clicks helps refine key engagement metrics like CTR and CPC, giving marketers more accurate insights into ad performance.  5. Enables Smarter Optimization Decisions With reliable and validated click data, marketers optimize campaigns based on authentic user engagement, not misleading or inflated metrics.  Therefore, click validation helps marketers and advertisers separate real users from fake traffic. However, this is not enough. As user journeys are multi-step and omnichannel, so are the ad fraud techniques used by fraudsters.   Why Click-Level Validation Alone Isn’t Enough Anymore Modern ad fraud does not stop at click fraud. It runs deeper into the marketing funnel, using sophisticated ad fraud techniques that mimic real user behavior and distort performance metrics across channels.  Here’s how post-click manipulation happens:  1. Misattributed Conversions Fraudsters hijack genuine user sessions, making fraudulent sources appear to drive conversions that were actually organic or direct.  2. Automated Leads Form submissions or inquiries that look authentic but are generated through automation or paid farms, offering no real business value.  3. Behavioral Mimicry Fake engagement patterns simulate actions like scrolling, time-on-page, or app usage, making it difficult for marketers to distinguish real intent from fraudulent activity.  4. Invalid Conversions Purchases, sign-ups, or installs that seem legitimate but are generated through proxies or emulators instead of genuine customers.  These tactics operate beyond the click, often undetectable to systems that validate only the initial interaction. This leaves a major blind spot in the marketing funnel.  Learn why CPC campaigns need full funnel validation Beyond Clicks: The Case for Full-Funnel Validation Click-level validation tools did their job — they brought transparency to the first layer of digital marketing: the traffic. But the problem is, ad fraud didn’t stop there. It evolved.  Today’s fraudsters know how to simulate clicks that look perfectly valid. They can mimic user agents, device IDs, and behavior patterns that fool most detection systems. So, while your dashboard shows “clean” traffic, what happens next — the visit, the sign-up, the purchase — may tell a very different story.  That’s where mFilterIt’s full-funnel validation changes the game.  Instead of stopping at the click, it follows every user journey across the funnel, from impression to final conversion — to ensure that every interaction is genuine, traceable, and outcome-driven. It’s not about rejecting traffic; it’s about validating intent.  Here’s how full-funnel validation redefines campaign integrity 1. Impression-Level Insights Detect and eliminate fake or stacked impressions before they even lead to a click.  2. Click-Level Validation (and beyond)  Go past the usual hygiene checks to identify behavioral anomalies and proxy patterns even within “clean” clicks.  3. Post-Click Validation Track what users actually do after clicking — whether they engage, convert, or drop off instantly. 4. Outcome Verification Validate final conversions to ensure they’re genuine, not fabricated or incentivized actions.  With this end-to-end lens, marketers don’t just see traffic quality — they see business impact.  Full-funnel validation is not just a more advanced version of click validation; it’s a mindset shift from volume to value, from activity to authenticity. Because in the age of performance marketing, real success isn’t measured by clicks; it’s measured by trust.  Read more about how full-funnel validation approach ensures clarity for mobile app campaigns Click Validation vs. Full-Funnel Validation: A Clear Comparison Case in Action: How Full-Funnel Validation Drove Real Results for an Automobile Brand A major automobile brand was running Google Search campaigns to attract new customers and drive website traffic from various Meta platforms. However, despite steady investments in paid search, the brand observed a low and inconsistent conversion ratio.   Upon analysis, it was found that despite blacklisting fraudulent clicks in the upper funnel, the leads quality was still questionable. This meant that the sophisticated bots or advanced ad fraud techniques were used to seep through the validation checks, impacting the bottom funnel. This transparency was identified due to the full-funnel analysis of the campaign, basis on which further measures were taken. Due to active blacklisting at

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Click Fraud in USA Holiday Season

Holiday Click Surge or Click Fraud Spike? Why CPC Campaigns Need Full-Funnel Validation

USA, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8, Blog /

The clicks are soaring. Traffic is peaking. Teams are gearing up for the holiday rush.  But not all that traffic is real. Budgets are rising, but your CPC campaign conversions are not keeping pace.  With the onset of the holiday season in USA, online shopping spikes from Black Friday through Christmas. Ecommerce brands ramp up their budgets for CPC campaigns to capture the attention for eager shoppers. But rising traffic also brings higher ad fraud risks. Relying only on surface-level metrics creates risk for brands to pay for worthless interactions, making decisions based on incomplete data, and reducing ROI even when dashboards look healthy.  In this blog, you will discover –  How click fraud impacts our CPC campaigns  What are the sophisticated types of click fraud  Why click-level validation is not enough for your CPC campaigns  Why full-funnel validation is the new benchmark  Actionable insights for advertisers to safeguard their campaign  The Hidden Cost of Click Fraud in CPC Campaigns  Fraudsters, competitors, and even certain affiliates generate invalid clicks on CPC campaigns without any genuine intention of making the purchase. This practice, known as click fraud, manipulates performance metrics creating the illusion of rising traffic while actual conversions stay low. As a result, advertisers end up paying for traffic that will never convert.   Click fraud exploits the campaign performance through –  Search/PPC: Automated bots that repeatedly click ads, exhaust budgets or inflate click-through rates.  Affiliate Marketing: Duplicate or incentivized clicks that are used to fraudulently increase payouts.  App Campaigns: Fake engagement that occurs even before app installs or sign-ups, making conversion data unreliable.  Sophisticated Types of Click Fraud and How They Work While bots and click farms are the most common types of click fraud, fraudsters have evolved, using smarter and harder-to-detect tactics to exploit digital advertising, particularly CPC campaigns. Some of the most sophisticated click frauds include:  1. Click Injection In click injection, a malicious app or SDK triggers a fake click just before a genuine install, allowing fraudsters to steal attribution credit. These tactics make your app appear popular while real user adoption lags and distort campaign performance.  2. Click Spamming Multiple fake clicks are generated in click spamming to confuse attribution systems. These fake clicks are timed to overlap with genuine installs, causing the system to misassign conversions to fraudulent sources.   3. Ad Stacking In a single placement, several ads are layered invisibly causing ad stacking. In this, only the top ad is visible, but all ads underneath register impressions and clicks, creating false engagement metrics.  4. Pixel Stuffing Fraudsters embed ads in tiny 1×1-pixel frames, a tactic called pixel stuffing, so impressions or clicks register invisibly, artificially inflating engagement metrics.  5. Geo-Targeting Fraud Fraudsters spoof IPs or device locations (GPS) so clicks and installs appear to come from high-value regions, tricking location-based targeting.  Know in detail about Geo-Targeted Ads  6. Conversion Hijacking Fraudsters intercept user actions like installs or purchases and claim credit for them. Conversion hijacking results into stolen attribution, wasted ad spend, and distorted campaign performance.   7. Affiliate Fraud / Incentivized Clicks In affiliate fraud, dishonest affiliates generate fake traffic, clicks, or installs to boost their payouts, often using bots, recycled device IDs, or spoofed postbacks.  Why Click-Level Validation is not Enough? Click-level validation is the first strong line of defence against fraud, but it is not enough to tackle fraud at all levels. Key reason why click-level validation is not enough –  1. Post-click fraud remains undetected It only verifies clicks on the initial stage, but the real consequences of post click like fake installs, bots, or invalid conversions, remain unnoticed, impacting campaign effectiveness and ROI.  2. Limited user behaviour analysis Legacy click fraud tools don’t track user activity after a click, so without the ability to analyze human-like behavior analysis and heuristic checks, brands can’t tell if it’s a real user or just a bot driving invalid traffic.   Know if your ad fraud verification partner uses the latest technology or not   3. Skewed Optimization & Misguided Strategy When post-click fraud goes undetected, Hard KPIs such as events (Leads, sales, order placed etc), conversion rate, and are inflated or misleading which impacts the campaign optimization.  Why Full-Funnel Validation Is the New Benchmark This holiday season, full-funnel validation is essential to track real user behaviour across the entire journey. mFilterit’s Valid8 tool, offers full-funnel ad fraud solution, delivering advanced human-behaviour analysis powered by our legacy pixel tools.  Significance of Full-funnel Validation 1. Protect Every Step of the User Journey Monitors click, impressions, installs, and events, ensuring every interaction is genuine. This keeps campaigns efficient and maximizes ROI.  2. Prevent Fraud Before Spending Advanced pre-click anomaly detection identifies suspicious traffic sources and placements before ad spend occurs, saving budgets from invalid activity.  3. Understand Real User Engagement By analysing session depth, dwell time, and authentic interactions, brands focus on meaningful engagement rather than superficial or bot-driven activity.  4. Detect Sophisticated Fraud Across Channels Cross-channel visibility combined with AI and ML enables detection of evolving fraud across search, affiliate, and app campaigns, keeping CPC campaigns secure.  5. Ensure Comprehensive Campaign Protection All threats, including bots, blacklisted devices, and distribution fraud, are monitored and blocked, safeguarding every step of the campaign and protecting ROI.  Impact of Full-funnel Validation: Real Campaign Performance, Not Inflated Valid8, with its. all its features aim at improving campaign performance throughout all the levels without presenting any inflated metrics. Here’s how it impacts –  1. Budget Efficiency Wasteful interactions are filtered out, allowing brands to focus spend on genuine traffic that drives revenue.  2. Conversion Quality Campaigns attract real users, optimizing for conversions that truly matter.  3. Long-Term Growth Fraud-free, accurate data enables smarter decisions, improving ROI and supporting sustainable growth.  4. Cross-Channel Consistency All channels search, affiliate, apps, and retargeting—are monitored, preventing fraud migration across platforms.  5. Real-Time Campaign Adaptation AI-driven detection identifies emerging fraud tactics instantly, allowing marketers to adjust campaigns before losses occur.      Conclusion To make your campaigns really work, it’s not enough to just

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Protect your ecommerce brand from ad fraud this holiday season 2025

USA Holiday Season 2025: Protect Your Ecommerce Brand from Ad Fraud & Risks

USA, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8, Blog /

The US holiday season 2025 is fast approaching, and ecommerce brand is gearing up to capture every opportunity to reach their target audience. In a highly competitive and oversaturated market, it’s not just about attracting the right customers, it’s about retaining them and ensuring meaningful engagement. With the U.S. accounting for nearly 10% of global ecommerce, the scale and influence of the American ecommerce market make it clear why brands are focusing their strategies here to maximize holiday sales and ROI.   This Holiday season opens the opportunities, but scammers are racing to exploit the surge in ads, holiday campaigns, and offers, and consumer urgency, making brands prone to market vulnerabilities like ad fraud and phishing attacks. They gradually exhaust brands’ ad budgets, impacting reputation and eventually impacting growth.  In this blog, you will discover:  Why brands are more prone to scams during the holiday season  How Holiday Brand Campaigns Are at Risk of Ad Fraud  Holiday Season Threats Beyond Ad Fraud: Brand Misuse and Counterfeits  Domino Effect of Ad Fraud and Brand Infringement  How to Safeguard Your Ecommerce brand from Holiday Fraud and Threats  Quick Pre-Holiday Safety Checklist for ECommerce Marketers  Why Brands are More Prone to Scams during the US Holiday Season As US e-commerce enters the holiday season, rising ad spends and shopper activity create prime opportunities for fraudsters to exploit. Let’s know why –  1. Surge in Ad Budgets Marketers ramp up their digital ad budgets to capture the attention of customers who are willing to spend more in the US holiday season. They run multiple campaigns on various sites, attracting massive holiday traffic, and making it easier for fraudsters to blend their fraudulent activities in the process.  2. Performance Pressure Holiday season creates a performance pressure on brands that release their marketing campaigns. This urgency to capture customer attention may often lead to ads being exposed to unsafe ad placements, invalid traffic, and even hijacking of organic traffic.   3. Impulsive Clicks on Attractive Deals Fraudsters use “too good to be true” offers as a prey to attract customers, enabling them to click on the advertisement and redirect them to fake sites, harvest data, or generate fake conversions, all while damaging the brand’s trust and reputation.  4. New Affiliates and Networks During the peak US holiday season, when brands onboard new affiliates or networks for more organic reach, this raises the risk of fraud. Affiliate traffic without any checks can expose ad campaigns to various scams like coupon fraud, organic hijacking, brand bidding violation etc, therefore manipulating the data and leading to increased spends to acquire new users.    Holiday Ad Campaigns at Risk: Key Ad Fraud Techniques to Watch While you are doing everything right. Your traffic reaches the promised numbers, but still conversions remain behind. This is a clear sign that your ad campaigns are at risk. To maximize the impact of your campaigns and minimize the risk, ecommerce brands must look out for the following ad fraud techniques –  1. Click Farms and Bots Fraudsters bring automated bots into action who repeatedly click on ads to stimulate engagement. This will make the campaign statistics rich in numbers but rarely convert them into real conversions.  2. Incentivized Installs/Signups Another way of inflating metrics with false statistics is offering gifts and coupons to users who have no intention of making any purchase. These users install the app or signups without any genuine interest.  3. Install Hijacking Through various click frauds like click injection, fraudsters cause install hijacking. They take the credit of the install that was organically performed by the user, letting marketers pay for the organic install.  Know how click injection costs brand  4. SDK spoofing Fraudsters track user actions, like installs, sign-ups, or purchases, and manipulate the SDK data, making them look like real user activity.  5. Domain Spoofing Fraudsters impersonate a low-quality website as a brand’s website, misleading users and taking the purchase credit. This causes wastage of budgets, undermining campaign performance.  E-Commerce Holiday Scams Beyond Advertising The tactics of fraudsters are not limited to ad fraud; they go beyond that. When your product or brand logo appears on an illegitimate site or an unsafe place, the impact extends beyond just a failed campaign. Here’s why the holiday season is a hotbed for brand infringement. To tackle this, brands must look out for the following brand infringement scams like –  1. Counterfeit Products & Lookalike Sites Fraudsters create sites mimicking official stores to steal user data, including basic credentials and payment information, and selling counterfeit products in return. This hampers user trust and brand reputation.  2. Phishing Campaigns Using Your Brand’s Name Scammers send fake emails or offers, like bogus discount codes, to trick customers into sharing sensitive information.  3. Social Media Impersonation Fraudsters create fake brand accounts or influencer pages to promote fraudulent deals, misleading followers, and harming brand trust.  4. Misleading Ad Placements Misplaced ads have emerged as a severe problem for brands where ads appear alongside inappropriate, polarizing, or low-quality content on search engines, potentially damaging brand reputation.  5. Unauthorized Resellers Third parties list your brand’s products on marketplaces with altered prices or misleading claims, eroding margins and customer trust.  Ad Fraud and Data Distortion: The Domino Effect on E-Commerce Campaigns Ad fraud and brand infringement do not just cause monetary loss; they distort the data ecommerce brands rely on, and the problems go deeper than you think. Let’s understand the impact:   1. Inflated Engagement from Fraudulent Clicks Click fraud causes invalid clicks, which inflate the campaign metrics, making it appear more successful than it really is. This causes the optimization models to learn and strategize from false data and misallocate ad budgets.  2. Skewed ROAS from Fake Affiliates & Spoofed Installs Invalid holiday traffic generated from fake leads or hijacked app installs distorts ROAS metrics, making campaigns seem profitable when they are not.  3. Diversion from Counterfeit Listings Fake or unauthorized product listings draw real customers away from legitimate stores, reducing sales and hurting brand

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Ad Fraud in Holiday Season

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

USA, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8, Blog /

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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mFilterIt's Attention Metrics Tools

How mFilterIt’s Attention Metrics Tools Differs from Competitors?

Blog, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8 /

Most branding campaigns today are measured by impressions, clicks, and viewability scores. These numbers can confirm that ads were displayed on a screen—but they reveal very little about whether the audience actually paid attention. An ad might be technically viewable, yet ignored, skipped, or scrolled past in a split second.  That’s why marketers are increasingly turning to attention measurement. Unlike traditional metrics that focus on exposure, attention metrics uncover whether ads truly capture consumer focus and influence behavior. In today’s crowded media landscape, it’s not enough to win screen space—you need to win meaningful human attention.  The real challenge, however, is choosing the right solution. While some tools provide only surface-level visibility checks, others go deeper to show how attention translates into engagement and impact. In this blog, we’ll compare these approaches—highlighting how mFilterIt measures attention across the full funnel to help brands optimize campaigns, reduce wastage, and drive ROI.  Why Attention Metrics Matter? Traditional metrics like impression and viewability only measure if the ad was viewed or not based on the standard IAB viewability criteria. According to this, a display ad is considered to be ‘viewable’ if at least 50% of its pixels are visible on the screen for one second, and a video ad is considered to be ‘viewable’ if viewed for two seconds.  However, these criteria might light up the dashboards with green signal metrics but do not answer the real questions.  Was the ad genuinely noticed? Did it capture attention long enough to influence action? Did it contribute to measurable outcomes? This is exactly what attention measurement does.  It captures the right set of insights required to know whether a particular campaign performed well or not. What further steps need to be taken at the optimization level.  But do all attention metrics tools offer the right set of insights you need? Here’s how you can find that out.  Here are four key dimensions that brands need to consider while evaluating attention measurement solutions:  Depth of measurement – Moves beyond basic visibility to capture interaction, dwell time, and attention stickiness.  Funnel coverage – Assesses attention across the journey, from awareness to engagement to conversion.  Optimization readiness – Ensures real-time, actionable insights that can directly help in optimization of media and creative strategies.  Adaptability across channels – Verify that the solution delivers accurate insights across regions, platforms, and emerging environments like OTT/CTV.  How mFilterIt Differentiates from its Competitors? Stage-by-stage Breakdown When evaluating attention metrics tools, it is important to recognize how they measure performance across the campaign funnel – top, middle, and lower stages. To understand the real impact of attention analytics advertising, brands need to move beyond surface-level simple viewability indicators and assess how focus translates into outcomes at every step of the customer journey.  Here’s how we at mFilterIt takes a differentiated approach compared to competitors.  Awareness & Reach Stage – Top Funnel Competitor approach: Focuses on surface-level visibility signals like impressions, audibility, player size, and exposure time. While these confirm the ad was served, they fail to reveal whether the user actually noticed or engaged with it.  mFilterIt approach: Our ad fraud solution, Valid8, goes beyond visibility to assess real view-worthiness, tracking mute percentage, skip percentage, scroll behavior, fullscreen or PiP usage, and contextual relevance. This ensures brands measure whether ads are actually seen and absorbed by users rather than just being displayed.  Consideration & Engagement Stage – Mid Funnel Competitor approach: Relies on proxy metrics like cursor hover or generic data, which provide limited insights into the depth of engagement.  mFilterIt approach: Measures authentic engagement behavior signals, including scroll depth, unmute/mute events, fullscreen adoption, repeated interactions, etc. It also segments engagement by audience type and placement (creative performance, audience segments, and placement quality), enabling marketers to make informed adjustments and design more effective mid-funnel strategies.  Conversion & Action Stage – Lower Funnel Competitor approach: Often stops at the conversion level or requires 3rd party uplift or attribution tools, leaving advertisers with fragmented data that does not connect directly to outcomes.  mFilterIt approach: Maps attention signals to business results, linking behaviors like bounce rate, time on site, OTT/CTV drop-offs, and conversion likelihood. This allows brands to spot underperforming placements, optimize spend, and tie attention directly to return on investment.  Regional Accuracy and OTT/CTV Attention Measurement – A Major Differentiator Most competitors rely on standardized viewability or attention models that overlook the local nuances of user behavior, cultural context, fraud patterns, and brand safety requirements. This often leads to misrepresentation of campaign effectiveness in diverse markets.  On the other hand, mFilterIt’s Attention Measurement Tool embeds regional data intelligence and advanced fraud detection into its measurement framework. It ensures that brands receive contextually accurate and market-relevant reporting.  In addition, mFilterIt brings a distinctive advantage in OTT/CTV ecosystems, where risks of ad overexposure, inflated impressions, and fraudulent traffic are notably high. By combining attention-first measurement with invalid traffic (IVT) checks and brand safety validation, mFilterIt ensures ads reach the right audience segments while controlling costs and maximizing genuine engagement.  This approach enables brands to move beyond surface-level metrics and gain a true view of audience behavior across regions and media platforms.  Therefore, if you operate across diverse regions, multiple platforms, and emerging channels like OTT/CTV, you may need an attention metrics tool that provides deeper, more contextual insights rather than relying solely on contemporary benchmarks.  Final Thoughts The advertising industry has evolved far beyond counting impressions, and if you are still stuck only on those metrics, you are probably lagging behind. To keep up with the competition, brands need to know whether their campaigns are truly resonating with real people and driving meaningful outcomes.  Therefore, it is important to use advanced solutions that connect attention with authentic engagement beyond viewability and drive true business impact.  So, if you’re ready to move beyond surface-level validation and unlock the real value of your advertising, it’s time to explore mFilterIt’s attention metrics intelligence.  Book a demo today and see how attention metrics can transform your advertising strategy. 

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Learn how shifting to dedicated landing pages with real-time lead validation helps reduce junk leads, improve transparency, and boost your Meta campaign ROI.

Meta Lead Gen or Landing Page Forms: Which Brings You Better Leads?

Blog, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8 /

You have done everything by the book.  Made a fully optimized, well-researched campaign, targeted a precise audience, and got engaging creatives made by your team. Even your dashboards show that the campaigns are performing great.  But what you hear from your sales team is a whole different story.  “Fake leads, wrong phone numbers, uninterested people, never heard of the brand before” Leaving your performance credibility being questioned.  It’s not that your strategy is flawed. You’ve done exactly what a high-performing Meta lead gen campaign demands, what every marketer does.  The problem lies in where those leads are being captured from.  Meta’s native lead forms are built for speed and simplicity, which makes them great for collecting high volumes of leads. However, since Meta is a walled garden, a closed ecosystem,   This gap in visibility is what allows fake sign-ups, bots, and low-intent leads to slip through. And by the time sales flag the problem, it’s too late, the budgets are spent, the data is messy, and the targets are affected.  The way forward isn’t to stop running Meta campaigns; it’s to change the lead-capturing strategy. By shifting traffic to dedicated landing pages, you bring leads into an environment you control, where real-time validation and ad fraud solutions can help you ensure that only genuine, sales-ready leads make it through. This means cleaner CRMs, stronger conversion rates, and a lot fewer tense conversations in post-campaign reviews.  Continue reading further to know how it works.  Understanding The Problem: Why Meta Lead Gen Campaigns Produce Junk Leads? Meta’s native lead forms are optimized for speed, efficiency, and ease for a seamless user experience. Users can easily fill in the form with a couple of taps, often using pre-filled information extracted from their profiles. While this effortless experience boosts form submissions, it also makes the campaigns vulnerable to lead generation fraud.  This ease in the process makes it even more easier for the bots, or click farms (low-paid workers), to fill in the forms.   Moreover, the bots easily bypass the basic level checks like CAPTCHAs and OTPs using CAPTCHA solvers available at just one click. That is why, marketers relying solely on these efforts to prevent junk leads lack behind.  Here’s how junk leads fill in, when left unchecked:  Invalid or fake phone numbers and emails – Many users submit temporary, outdated, or fabricated contact details. Some don’t even review the pre-filled information before hitting submit, leaving you with leads that cannot be contacted or verified.  Bots and click farms – Automated scripts and low-paid workers mass-fill thousands of forms within a matter of few minutes. While they make your numbers look impressive on the dashboards, they have zero intent to buy and generate zero actual revenue. Zero-intent leads – These are people who sign up purely out of curiosity to know what’s next, boredom, or by mistake. Since there’s little to no effort involved, they have no genuine interest and rarely convert into paying customers.  Repeated or duplicate submissions – The same user, or an automated system, submits identical details multiple times. This inflates your lead count, clogs your CRM with fake leads, and wastes valuable time of sales team resources on the same invalid contacts.  The combination of these factors completely disrupts the campaign goals, skewing performance metrics, and manipulating further campaign optimizations or remarketing efforts.   So, if you have ever wondered why your Meta lead generation campaigns have great CPL but disappointing conversions, above mentioned are likely the reason, the system is rewarding volume, not quality.  The Impact of Junk Leads on Business Growth The impact of junk leads is far-reaching. These fake leads don’t just waste money; they sabotage your entire marketing system. Here how:  Direct financial loss: You’re paying for every click, impression, and form submission. If 40–50% of those are fake or irrelevant, that’s a significant chunk of your ad spend going to waste.  Wastage of operational efforts: Your sales team spends valuable hours chasing invalid numbers, disconnected lines, and people who have no interest in your offer. This not only wastes time but also lowers morale.  Misleading campaign data: Junk leads distort your web performance metrics, making your campaigns look better than they actually are. Your reported conversion rates may seem healthy, but the actual sales numbers tell a different story.  Poor remarketing audiences: When your CRM is full of low-quality leads, your lookalike and retargeting campaigns also suffer. You’re essentially teaching Meta algorithm to target more of the wrong people.  Damaged brand reputation: Repeatedly contacting people who never wanted to hear from you in the first place can hurt your brand image and even lead to spam complaints.  Therefore, to combat junk lead generation fraud, advertisers are now transitioning from native Meta lead forms to dedicated landing pages with custom leads forms.  Why Marketers Should Move from Native Ad Forms to Landing Pages? The shift from native Meta lead forms to redirecting the traffic to dedicated landing pages gives marketers more control, cleaner data, and better lead quality. Here’s how: 1. Complete control over messaging and funnel flow A landing page lets you customize headlines, copy, images, and CTAs to match your campaign objectives. You can guide visitors through a carefully structured journey that builds interest before asking them to fill out a lead form. This helps pre-qualify the lead before it even hits the form.   2. Higher accuracy in data Unlike native forms that pull pre-filled details from a user’s Meta profile (often outdated), landing pages require users to manually enter their information. This reduces the risk of invalid or old phone numbers, emails, and incorrect names entering into your CRM.   3. Behavioral analysis  On a landing page, advertisers can measure valuable engagement signals like scroll depth, time spent on the page, clicks on key elements, etc. These metrics help you understand how invested a visitor was and also help identify patterns for high-quality leads.   4. Consistent brand experience  Campaigns having default Meta lead forms are bound to have the same preset design and

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guide to click fraud tools for marketers

What Marketers Should Look for in a Click Fraud Prevention Tool?

Blog, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8 /

The high season for advertisers is round the corner. Check your ad campaign report. Do you see a high volume of clicks not converting into your users? You’ve tried every way of optimization, but the results are still not satisfactory. You know you need an answer, but the traditional methods of ad fraud detection might not be able to give you that. Click fraud is no longer limited to just bot traffic. It has become more sophisticated over time. These techniques by fraudsters cannot just click on your ads to inflate traffic but also steal your organic traffic or worse – skew your hard KPIs like leads, sign-up, or even purchases.   Therefore, the traditional methods of identifying fraudulent clicks will not be enough. You will need a tool that has advanced specifications which can help you stay ahead of these evolving threats.   We have simplified this search for you. This detailed blog will help you identify key things to remember when selecting a click fraud prevention tool.   Read ahead to get your unanswered questions like:   What comes next is the critical decision – Which click fraud prevention tool actually solves the problem?  This is exactly what we have done for you.   In this blog, we break down:  What features should an advertiser prioritize in a click fraud protection tool? How is mFilterIt different from standard ad fraud detection solutions?  Why isn’t click-level protection enough for my web and app campaigns?  If you’re comparing solutions or preparing to invest, this is the clarity you need to make the right decision.  Key Features to Look for in a Click Fraud Protection Solution The right click fraud protection tool is supposed to give you actionable insights, measurable improvements, and cross-channel protection. Here’s what to expect from a tool that actually solves your business problems:  1. Proactive Click Validation Click fraud operates in milliseconds, and your tool should also have the capability to detect fraud proactively. Click validation ensures invalid traffic is flagged and filtered before it drains your ad budget. Without this, you’re constantly reacting to losses instead of preventing them.   2. Multi-Channel Compatibility Fraud is not confined to one platform. It spreads across Google Ads, Meta, DV360, affiliate programs, mobile app networks, and even OEM and influencer traffic. Your protection tool should have omnichannel compatibility to work seamlessly across all environments to give you consolidated protection.   3. Behavioral & Session-Based Analysis Basic filters can’t catch sophisticated fraud. You need a deeper context. Modern click fraud prevention software must analyze session depth, scroll behavior, dwell time, bounce rate, and other engagement signals to understand true user intent. This helps distinguish a curious customer from a bot.   4. Device Fingerprinting & IP Reputation Fraudsters often disguise their identity using spoofed devices, anonymized browsers, and rotated IPs. Your tool should apply advanced fingerprinting to track devices across campaigns, combined with real-time IP reputation scoring to catch proxies, VPNs, fraud networks, and repeated offenders.   5. AI-Powered Detection Engine Look for a solution that uses machine learning trained on large-scale, multi-industry datasets to flag both known and emerging fraud patterns. The ability to adapt over time makes this an essential feature for long-term fraud defense.   6. Click Journey & Traffic Scoring A robust platform doesn’t just analyze a single click; it evaluates the entire journey. From impression to post-click behavior, each interaction should be scored based on engagement, path anomalies, and conversion likelihood. This helps identify suspicious traffic that may initially look normal.   7. Custom Rules Engine Every brand runs unique campaigns. A good tool should offer flexible rule configurations, letting you set thresholds for frequency, geo-targeting, source type, traffic origin, and campaign duration. This enables a fraud strategy that aligns with your media goals and market dynamics.  8. Auto-Blocking & Publisher Blacklisting Detection is just one part of the job. Choose a solution that instantly blocks invalid clicks and allows you to blacklist underperforming or suspicious publishers from your affiliate or display ecosystem. It should also integrate with your ad platforms to automate enforcement.  9. Transparent Reporting & Optimization Layer Data transparency is critical for trust and decision-making. A trustworthy platform offers intuitive dashboards with campaign-level and source-level insights, including traffic diagnostics, high-risk locations, time-based fraud trends, and publisher-level threat analysis. Shareable reports should help your media, product, and performance teams to adjust strategies and make data-driven decisions.  How mFilterIt Stands Apart from Other Click Fraud Detection Solutions Most tools stop at surface-level detection. mFilterIt offers a comprehensive, customizable, and omnichannel solution – Valid8 that addresses fraud at every point in your ad journey, built for marketers who demand accuracy, control, and performance clarity. Here’s how:  Multi-Platform Level Protection Across Your Entire Ad Ecosystem Our advanced ad fraud detection solution, Valid8 provides end-to-end fraud protection across all major digital media channels – search, display, programmatic, affiliate, app installs, and OEM campaigns. The platform delivers consistent click fraud validation across all sources, whether you run campaigns across Google Ads, Meta, DV360, affiliate networks, etc.   This ensures you are not just protecting isolated campaigns but safeguarding your entire performance stack. With no platform blind spots, your budget is protected wherever it’s being spent, maximizing both visibility and returns.  Source-Level Transparency Unlike tools that offer generic fraud reports, mFilterIt provides detailed visibility down to the source and sub-source level. You can identify exactly which publisher, sub-publisher, campaign, or device is generating invalid traffic.   This level of granularity enables precise decision-making, whether it’s blacklisting bad actors, negotiating with networks, or optimizing media allocation. This helps marketers to stop ad fraud at the root source instead of relying on broad-level assumptions.  Advanced Custom Logic Enablement for Brand-Specific Protection Our click fraud protection software combines machine learning algorithms with customizable brand-specific rules to deliver smarter fraud detection. The ML engine identifies behavioral anomalies, unusual device patterns, and other red flags that generic rule-based systems miss.   At the same time, brands can implement custom logic tailored to their business goals, regions, or historical fraud

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Impression Spam

What is Impression Spam? Know How It Impacts App Campaigns.

Blog, Ad Fraud Blog - Valid8 /

While marketers focus on driving installs and scaling campaigns, there’s a silent threat that’s bleeding budgets dry – Impression Spam. These are fake or hidden impressions generated to manipulate attribution models and steal credit for app installs, especially through View-Through Attribution (VTA). On the surface, everything looks great. High impression counts, rising install numbers, good reach. But beneath, you’ll often find invalid impressions that were never actually seen by real users. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if your VTA numbers are spiking without corresponding clicks, your ads are likely being targeted. Impression spam doesn’t just distort your data; it rewards fraudsters, inflates costs, and hijacks installs that should have been credited to genuine traffic or organic users. That’s where impression validation becomes non-negotiable. In this article, we’ll talk about how impression spam works, what red flags to watch for, and how mFilterIt helps you bring transparency back to your attribution funnel with impression integrity. Why Impression Spam Happens? Most marketers use both Click-Through Attribution (CTA) and View-Through Attribution (VTA) to measure performance. While CTA requires a user to click on an ad before converting, VTA allows installs to be credited based solely on an impression, if the user later installs the app within the attribution window. This is where the impression fraud creeps in. VTA opens the door for bad actors to take advantage of attribution systems, inflate VTA that allow installs to be attributed even when no click happens, just by showing an impression. What is the Difference Between Click Through Attribution & View Through Attribution? While both CTA and VTA serve distinct purposes in performance measurement, their attribution mechanics differ significantly. Here’s How:   Why is High VTA Ratio a Problem? One of the major indicators of impression spam is an abnormally high View-Through Attribution (VTA) rate, particularly when it significantly exceeds your Click-Through Attribution (CTA) numbers. As a general benchmark, if more than 60% of your attributed installs are coming through VTA, it calls for a close audit. It is very less likely for a user to see an ad, not click on it but remember it and later search for the app on play store to install. This kind of user journey is possible, but when it appears on a scale, it’s statistically improbable. An inflated VTA rate often signals that impressions are being generated in unusual ways: Impression stuffing: Multiple invisible ads loaded at once, none of which are truly viewable. Background ad rendering: Ads shown in hidden browser tabs or apps running in the background. Bot traffic: Automated scripts mimic user behavior, including fake impressions and subsequent app installs, to game attribution making it appear as though an ad influenced the install. When in reality, no meaningful user engagement occurs. And while these installs might look normal on the surface (matching attribution windows, geographies, and even device models), they usually show poor post-install performance: no session activity, zero events triggered, and very high uninstall rates. On the other hand, a healthy performance-driven campaign should have a balanced ratio of CTA to VTA, especially when you’re targeting engaged users with clear calls to action. While VTA can play a valuable role in measuring upper-funnel awareness (particularly for display, video, or CTV ads), it should not dominate your attribution model, especially if your campaign objective is direct response or installs. How Impression Spam Hurts Your Campaigns? (Some Red Flags You Shouldn’t Ignore) Impression spam affects campaign son multiple basis: Wasted Budget: You end up paying for impressions that never reached real users. Skewed Performance Data: Optimization decisions based on fake data lead to flawed strategy. Fraudulent Payouts: You reward the wrong sources, while genuine traffic partners get undervalued. Organic Hijacking: Fraudsters take credit for installs that would’ve happened anyway, distorting your organic benchmarks. Poor ROI on User Acquisition: Invalid impression drives low quality installs affecting return on investment as well as LTV And if you’re wondering how to spot impression spam in your performance data, here are a few red flags to keep an eye on: High VTA, Low CTA: A disproportionate number of installs attributed to views over clicks. Short impression-to-install windows: Installs happening unusually fast after impressions are served. Low post-install engagement: Users attributed through VTA show poor retention or event completion. Traffic from non-targeted geographies: This is clearly indicative of impression stuffing or bot activity. Do you know ad fraud is not limited to just impressions? Learn how it impacts your bottom line in this blog.   How mFilterIt Helps You Detect and Block Impression Spam Stopping impression spam isn’t just about identifying invalid impressions; it’s about restoring trust in your data and ensuring that every impression that enters your attribution funnel is validated and has impression integrity. That’s exactly what we do for our clients. Our advanced ad fraud detection solution helps protect the very first touchpoint of the user journey – impressions. Here’s how: 1. Impression Integrity Validation Our tool validates each impression based on multiple parameters – device authenticity, placement, location, timestamp accuracy, etc. It ensures that impressions are not only technically served, but also actually seen by real users under acceptable conditions. 2. Granular VTA vs. CTA Disparity Checks It also helps analyze attribution patterns and conversion timelines, proactively detect anomalies in View-Through Attribution ratios. If the VTA numbers rise disproportionately compared to Click-Through Attribution, it flags the issue before the whole campaign is compromised. 3. Bot Install Detection Linked to Impression Trails Many fraud schemes use bots that not only generate fake impressions but also simulate full-funnel activity. Our tool identifies such bot installs by linking post-install behavior to suspicious impression patterns. This helps uncover impression fraud that traditional MMPs overlook. 4. Source-Level Blacklisting and Partner Insights Our proprietary impression validation solution also gives complete visibility to monitor all traffic sources. Once identified, these sources are automatically flagged or blacklisted, reducing budget wastage at the earliest stage. We have helped Kuku FM improve their engagement by validating their ad traffic. Learn how.   Conclusion: Protect Your Campaigns with

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