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Out-of-Stock

Out-of-Stock: The Most Dangerous Phrase in eCom

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Online shopping has experienced a significant boom with the increased number of web users in the last two years due to COVID-19. Finding the desired product and discovering new ones have also contributed to the increased conversions on eCom platforms. The new peaked velocity of transactions has made managing out-of-stocks challenging for brands. Stockouts mean the product is no longer available on the eCom platform and has multifold brand implications, not just limited to purchases/transactions. Out-of-stock leads to switching to another brand, checkouts on another platform, finding an alternative solution, diminished customer base, and more. Loyal customers may no longer stay associated with the brand if they can’t buy its products and might share their grief in reviews. Experiencing it during lightning deals can increase the chances of such negative feedback. Some eCom platforms may offer better product rankings to listings with higher sales/conversion. The ongoing and occasional sales, competitor offers, and availability of similar products on the eCom platform makes managing out-of-stock an essential factor for businesses. Reasons and Implications of Out-of-Stock The factors for product unavailability on the eCom platform can get segregated into mismanaged inventories, wrong product demand forecasts, supplier-side issues, etc. Whatever the reason, the customer becomes dissatisfied with the brand/seller and even more challenging to re-acquire, assuming all the problems get resolved, which is an impossible scenario. Our eCommerce Intelligence Solution reviewed the change in the brand for grocery products and found that the switch is almost immediate. Customers don’t wait to buy “atta” until it arrives at the specific store and is available through the particular seller. Instead, they find alternatives for purchasing the product. Our research states that customers who want to stay loyal to a brand or buy a specific product would go to lengths to switch apps or websites that are readily available and make transactions. Stockouts can also diminish the product demand, which directly decreases SKUs and even causes delayed purchases, as the brand continuously faces issues increasing the customer base. Furthermore, the brand would have to boost the advertising budget to achieve the previous customer base and cultivate marketing spending to increase the loyalty base. Fortunately, managing stockouts is possible for brands through eCom Competitive Analytics powered by mFilterIt. mScanIt Helps Brands to Manage Stockouts Our solution analyzes the stockout of your brand and your competitors. It offers a clear picture of the brand ranking. Reviewing these results offers numerous other benefits. For example, brands can identify and alert the responsible teams when the stock status changes. The solution also scans average availability demand across city, pin code, brand, sub-brand, variant, etc. Figuring availability and unavailability can offer many more advantages. For example, the brand can review the best platform for a particular product. Similarly, the brand can check the demand percentage of a single product across eCom stores. Moreover, a competitive analysis can give the scope of demand for such products on different eCom platforms and change SKUs. Additionally, the brand can discover the hero product that meets the availability criteria across eCom marketplaces. mScanIt offers daily, weekly, and monthly to manage availability across prominent eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, BlinkIt, etc. Managing out-of-stock can help brands understand the regions or warehouses with the highest/lowest availability problems and work on solutions to resolve them. By managing and diminishing stockouts, brands can increase customer satisfaction, sales, seller engagements, and market visibility. Takeaway No customer likes to read “The product is currently unavailable,” and keeping the customer satisfied is a brand priority. Out-of-stock causes severe damages to a brand and leads to a higher cost of recovering from them. Therefore, using an availability tracker like mScanIt can benefit a brand. The solution also analyzes competitor performance and offers a complete picture of the brand’s product rankings across stores. Such a solution offers multifold advantages to a brand on a single dashboard, making it easier to review and make decisions. Moreover, brands can make retail execution easier with a comprehensive solution scanning the web marketplaces and delivering customized reports.

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eCom-Brands

Negative Reviews: How Should eCom Brands Respond?

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Any brand’s reputation relies on the feedback of its consumers, and most eCom brands have at least a few measurable sarcastic and derogatory reviews across Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, or other ecom stores. As per Statista, 48% of fashion consumers in India purchased a product after seeing reviews and ratings. On the other hand, another survey revealed that 36% of ecommerce shoppers have stated that their low online product ratings were rejected, whereas 30% of the buyers couldn’t say if they were rejected/accepted. A major portion of negative ratings gets eliminated from the ecom store product listings, while a significant proportion of the buyers rely heavily on reviews and ratings, and impact of negative reviews’ seems grave. Although negative reviews paint a horrible picture in the consumer’s minds, they also offer a positive edge, i.e., bring trustworthiness or genuineness to the product listings. Too many ratings and reviews with positive responses often make the consumers believe that the feedbacks are fake/influenced. According to a survey, 65% of consumers don’t trust the product’s ratings. Simultaneously, 68% of online shoppers consider reviews as valuable as recommendations and lay their trust in them. Implications of Negative Reviews A buyer reads at least ten reviews before trusting an online business. Moreover, 62% of eCommerce brands feel that their reputation is threatened by negative online reviews regarding products or services. Other major areas of concern for these brands include loss of revenue, diminished product visibility, decreased add-to-cart actions, low engagement, lower SERP, decreased consumer base, etc. Also, some industries like fashion (mentioned above) depend upon reviews and ratings for conversions and can suffer heavy losses and overstocking issues. Here is a summary of the implication of negative reviews and ratings: Reputation Damage: High number of negative reviews creates distrust of the brand and/or product. Also, recovering from a damaged reputation becomes a costly affair. Decreased Revenue: According to a source, U.S businesses with 1 to 1.5- star Google ratings incurred 33% lower profit than others. Bad feedback leads to low trust and lower conversions. Gives an Edge to the Competition: Customers often avoid products with negative reviews and ratings. They become tempted to opt for alternative or similar options. Diminishes SERP: Google searches often show the best results with positive reviews and ratings. According to a source, product listings with negative feedback decrease their rankings on search engines. Is There a Need to Respond to Reviews? According to a source, consumers that read reviews also paid attention to the responses. While shopping for a product, buyers want to check if the brand values its customers and the actions the brand is willing to take in case of an issue related to the product or retailer. By knowing these facts, ecommerce shoppers can make appropriate buying decisions. Moreover, responding to negative, neutral, and positive reviews enhances the brand’s impression in the eyes of the consumers, as they can see the efforts they are making. Another perspective from a source is that 70% of consumers would become more willing to re-engage with a brand or retailer if there is a response to negative reviews. Besides this, the Harris survey shows that 33% of buyers post a positive review if they receive a response to their negative feedback, and 34% of the shoppers delete their negative reviews. So, brands uphold the responsibility of responding to reviews as a priority, and most focus more on the reasons for negative and neutral reviews. What Guidelines Should Brands Follow While Responding to Negative Reviews? Negative reviews impact brand reputation and decrease the potential customer base and sales/revenue. Also, we have cleared that responding to reviews is necessary for brands. But, brands should follow a few guidelines religiously while responding: Monitor Reviews & Ratings on eCom Stores and Social Media The best method for knowing about the rising customer issues across Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, or other online shopping stores is through eCom Competitive Analytics or mScanIt. The solution helps to learn more about the customer experiences by highlighting the positive, neutral, and negative words commonly used under the reviews and ratings. Simultaneously, an extended solution of mScanIt is a deep dive into sentiment intensity, which tracks instances of brand mentions on the open web using AI, even when the brands are not hash-tagged. By using these solutions, brands can ensure that they can instantly view a spike in negative review intensity and reduce the response time using the insights provided on the mScanIt dashboard. Customize Your Crafted Responses Giving a bad response to pressing issues mentioned in reviews states that the brand is not diving deep into the buyer’s concerns. Moreover, many customers would look for brands that give personalized responses, addressing their problems. The easiest method to achieve this goal is to continue using the scheduled responses but customizing the responses. It would give the brand a good impression and increase loyalty/re-engagements. So, you should acknowledge the problem, provide assistance for addressing the concerns, and give assurance of response time & resolution. According to Statista, 47% of customers from the U.S. and 59% of global shoppers have a favorable view of the brands if they respond to customers’ complaints or service questions on social media. Decrease the Response Time Upset customers tend to share their experiences on social media platforms, aside from e-commerce’s review and rating section. According to a source, consumers also wait for a response for their review for up to a week. However, health and safety issues can cause dramatic issues and require quicker responses even while investigating the problem. Assuring an upset buyer that the brand is looking into the problem and will get back to the customer could diminish lawsuits and bad publicity. Conclusion Negative reviews will remain never-ending, as would positive or neutral ratings and feedback. Therefore, tracking customer experiences through social media and the e-commerce review & rating section has become crucial. The best method for monitoring the brand or product reputation is through eCom Competitive Analytics, highlighting the commonly used words. Simultaneously, brands should address the customer’s pressing matter through personalized and quick responses. By doing so, brands have a greater chance of improving their

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eCom-Brands

What Consumers Expect from eCom Brands During the April Fools Month?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Customer engagement is at the top of the list for all brands. April is the perfect month to share some laughter with your customers and get to know them even better. Brands also use social media, outdoor advertisements, and other means to capture the eyes of new consumers as marketplaces become highly competitive. eCom brands have often witnessed massive sales during April. According to a source, the sale of non-food items in eCom stores grew by 21.1% in April 2016, whereas the Jan-March incurred an overall growth of 8.2%. In addition, another source stated that the eCom store’s traffic surpassed Black Friday sale traffic every day in April 2019. As per Adobe’s digital economy index, eCom sales were boosted by 49% in the U.S., compared with Jan-Mar 2020, before the restrictions of shelter-in-place. This report also stated that grocery sales on Instacart reached nearly $700 million in sales by the end of the first two weeks of April. Holy Moly! The surge in traffic and boost in sales was certainly a game-changer for brands. However, their attribution could go to the change in consumer behavior during the month. For example, consumers often search for gift or prank options on eCom stores during April fools month. Therefore, brands often try to provide the most suitable choices to their consumers during festivities or occasions. So, consumers often expect the following from eCom brands during April: 3 Things Consumers Would Expect from Brands in April More Mischievous Recommendations Consumers would undoubtedly expect product recommendations from brands just like any other day. However, they would want pranking, jokes, or humoring products, especially during April. Brands that offer the best mischievous recommendations would undoubtedly attract a goofy customer base, and the majority of them would engage with brands wholeheartedly. Even if consumers buy FMCG products, a laughable message card or coupons like “Haha” offering a discount would undoubtedly increase their loyalty to the brand. Bulk Availability of Foolish Products Gifts can be for an individual or a group of friends. On April fools day, people are more likely to spread laughter or pranks with more than one person. Therefore, consumers in eCom stores are likely to seek products with higher availability in their pin codes. Unavailable will cause a severe blowback to the brands, as consumers would find alternate options or eCom stores for making online purchases. Sponsored listings that meet the criteria of such consumers will also become favorable towards higher SKUs. Honest Response to Sarcastic Reviews and Ratings Brands should not become weary in the presence of higher sarcastic reviews or ratings that don’t match the review, as consumers are likely to plat it as a prank. At the same time, consumers would expect a swift response from retailers or brands on the reviews if it is not a prank and an honest review with a mistaken rating. Consumers checking product reviews and ratings are likely to read such reviews and make the final buying call. Therefore, brands are expected to provide a much more engaging response than “we are sorry to hear, or your concerns are duly noted,” Scaling the Business with mScanIt As mentioned before, April is a month for scaling business every day. Therefore, it requires a solution that can present a real story of the consumer sentiments, deep-dive into real-time insights, and provide accurate results across different eCom stores. mScanIt covers all such areas and more by offering analytics daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Moreover, it is the best eCommerce Competitive Analytics solution because it provides deep-dive into pricing insights, share-of-shelf, SKU availability, etc., which would come in handy even after the April fools month. Businesses across continents use the solution for mapping their and competitor products across eCom stores, pin codes, and cities. Conclusion April fools month is not just a business opportunity but also a chance for brands to increase engagement with their consumers. Moreover, customers expect eCom brands and retailers to bring exciting products, recommendations, sponsored listings, etc., on marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, etc. On the other hand, meeting the increasing consumer demand is one of the objectives of an eCom organization. Therefore, scaling the business would require a solution that can deliver meaningful insights and trends with peaking accuracy. mScanIt is the aptest eCom Competitive Analytics solution that can meet these requirements. So make your brand appointment with us to learn more about mScanIt.

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Click-Integrity

Click Integrity: A Solution to Combat Click Fraud in Acquisition Campaigns

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Advertising /

A ‘Click’ is all that matters to begin a user’s journey on an app or a website. Click integrity is a component that essentially defines whether the click is legit or not. Click is a vital ‘attribution’ responsible for measuring the click-through rate (CTR) and an essential factor for ‘click-based’ campaigns. Click integrity is a pre-attribution check that helps block invalid clicks before they reach the MMPs, leading to bad installs. It also helps to reduce unnecessary click load on the Attribution Platform, thereby reducing the costs of Attribution Platform spending by Advertisers. So, it is a contributing factor towards saving on the marketing budget. However, fraudsters cannibalize a brand’s traffic, and the process is revocable through a few actionable measures. Furthermore, the invalid clicks pose the following implications: Implications of the Invalid Clicks Reliance on MMP Data The advertisers mostly rely on sources attributed through the MMPs. However, in the absence of a pre-MMP fraud detection mechanism, advertisers primarily depend upon MMP’s elementary fraud checks to ascertain the validity of a click. Having a single source for defining click integrity makes the advertiser more worried about campaign performance. Moreover, the assurance of the MMP doesn’t prove helpful because the sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) penetration is never caught. Untrustworthy Ecosystem Advertisers often mistake high-volume clicks to signify ‘amazing’ campaign performance/high CTR. However, upon reviewing the sources of ‘clicks,’ i.e., measuring click integrity, they often encounter ad fraud and inconsistencies. What happens next? The advertiser no longer trusts ad networks or affiliates and seeks alternative marketing strategies or advertising methods for acquiring users. The large-scale distrust of multiple advertisers directly impacts the overall ecosystem. ‘Double’ Payouts from Advertising Budget for Invalid Traffic Clicks are sourced to the MMP through multiple sources and activities. The advertisers make payouts to these sources. By the end of the day, the advertiser pays the ‘attribution’ cost on MMP and the ‘acquisition’ cost (CPC/CPI) to the source. Illegitimate sources steal the organic traffic and get paid for organically arrived users by firing fraudulent clicks. Does this make’ click integrity’ essential for you as an advertiser? So, what is happening behind damaged click integrity? To answer this, let’s go back to a more important question “What is the objective of the ad?” You’d get lower ad performance as an advertiser if you could not weed out the invalid clicks. Critical Indicators of Invalid Click Traffic Repeated/Multiple Clicks “Due to last-click attribution, fraudsters can easily capture the organic traffic by firing millions of repeated clicks in the background on a single device-id.” This means that a fraudulent source converts your organic traffic to inorganic traffic. The incrementality of these users in these cases will be ‘0’ as these would be coming from the source who has captured the last click Attribution, which essentially means that you are paying for your traffic. Click spamming skews the campaign performance and the advertising budgets as the fraudulent source gets paid for your organic traffic. The simplest way to identify click spamming would be to look at the CTIT and the Click to Install conversion ratio. Click-to-Install Time (CTIT): If you analyze the click-to-install pattern over a period, the CTIT curve would be a declining trend with 70-80% of the installs coming within the first few hours followed by a declining tail towards the end of the day. The time gap between click and install will not be very high for a standard traffic source. A typical user will click a source and then install an app. However, in an abnormal traffic source, you would see a large CTIT. It can’t be that a user clicked on an Ad, and installs are seen coming after a considerable gap or maybe after a day or even more. Click-to-Install Conversion Ratio (CVR): If the click-to-install conversion ratio is extremely low, i.e., less than <0.01% coming from a specific source/sub-source and sometimes more than that region’s population, this is a clear case of click spamming. Analyzing the Campaigns with anomalies like looking at long CTIT and an exceptionally high number of clicks with a scanty conversion rate of <0.01% CR is also not good enough!!! These clicks spamming should be blocked in real time to prevent organic traffic from converting to inorganic traffic. Invalid Devices Spurts of concentrated click traffic coming from invalid Make-Model, which don’t exist in the real world. The heavily correlated, linked clicks indicate that this behavior is identified and can be blocked in real time. This helps save the attribution cost as you weed out the bot devices. Invalid GEOs Proxies or VPNs are used to fake geographies. A high % of click penetration coming from a specific GEO location can be identified and blocked. IP Repetitions/Blacklisted IPs IP addresses are randomly allocated to users and are hobbled between users in a pool by Internet Service Providers. Extreme repetition or disproportionate IP addresses are generally not expected from clean traffic. However, Bots use servers, so spikes or clustering patterns are seen. The same IP addresses are repeatedly used across days for different SETS of device IDs. The IP addresses follow a pattern and sequence indicating fake clicks. These might come from VPNs, Proxies, Data Centres, or other sources. mFilterIt helps identify clicks coming from the blacklisted IPs and blocks the clicks coming from these blacklisted IPs in real time. Key Takeaways Based upon the integrity of the click, the click is sent either to the MMP for processing or gets rejected. It basically acts as a firewall for the install and post-install events and thus helps in weeding out the invalid clicks in real-time and thereby cleans the ecosystems. To conclude, click integrity filters invalid/malicious clicks from genuine clicks. mFilterIt (click fraud solution) helps the advertisers validate the click’s integrity and identify abnormal patterns such as repetitive behavior of Clicks, IPs and Device-IDs, Blacklisted IPs, Invalid Make-Models, and Invalid GEOs, which indicate BOTs and spamming behavior. Get in touch to learn more about the Click Integrity.

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Share-of-Shelf

Share-of-Shelf: What Should Matter?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Easing consumers’ shopping experience begins by making efforts to get discovered even when there is no awareness about the product/brand. Discoverability is building a successful search and exploration journey for the consumer to achieve this result. Brands use keywords to enhance findability and visibility on eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc. The brand’s success in achieving these goals is measured by comparing the search results with competitors, and it is commonly called Share of Shelf (SOS). A study suggests that search engines build 62% of eCom journeys. Consumers come across new or potential products on eCom stores because brands customize discoverability based on their search behavior deciphered through analytics and keyword analysis. For example, brands have insight that consumers could be unaware of the latest bestsellers of the year and use keywords like “best books to read best sellers, best books to read, best books 2022,’ etc., based on eCom results on Google, and eCom marketplace search results. SOS measures the percentage of product visibility compared to competitors based on specific keywords. Measuring SOS offers numerous advantages to brands, such as generating awareness if competitors target the same keywords, identifying keywords with low competition, brand/product rankings, etc. Share-of-digital-shelf on eCom stores is measured for the competitor, sponsored, and organic keywords to get a complete picture of the brand presence. Moreover, platforms with higher positioning enhance visibility and tend to garner higher add-to-cart actions and greater chances of transaction. Therefore, brands acquire more revenue and an extensive customer base with a higher SOS percentage. Understanding the competition’s SOS helps the brand plan the future course of business. In addition, SOS helps brands determine their market positioning. Evaluating a brand’s overall, ranking-based, and category-specific SOS can deliver a full picture of the product presence across eCom stores. 3 Things to Consider While Evaluating eCom Share of Shelf Total SOS Measuring the overall presence of a brand’s product across eCom stores gives a simplified view of the market positioning based on select keywords. Brands with high SOS percentages have successfully eased the consumer’s discoverability journey. Such listings would acquire higher reachability, and enhanced visibility, witness more add-to-cart actions, and ultimately acquire more revenue. Comparing the percentages every month would provide insights into the change in SOS performance of your and competitor brands while displaying the change in performance. Such insights play a crucial role in creating brand strategies and marketing spending decisions across eCom platforms and require continuous monitoring. Reviewing product SOS across stores would also help understand the highest performing eCom platforms, distinguish between the share of sponsored, competitor, and organic keywords, etc. mFilterIt’s eCom Competitive Analytics conducts a deep scan of e-commerce platforms to analyze drivers of sales. Moreover, mScanIt helps brands compare their platform coverage with the competitors and find the top performers for product/brand searches, SKU ranges, and variants. The overall share of the digital shelf is calculated and displayed on a single dashboard portraying a score based on these categories. SOS by Category Brands use categories for product listings on eCom stores which significantly impacts discoverability. For example, Amazon enlists “press” under “dry iron, steam iron, iron, and other categories. Brands add keywords on their product and company page of the eCom platform that match the categorical search results. Evaluating category-wise share of digital shelf can offer promising deliverables. For example, brands can learn the category with the highest SOS and decide to change the categories of their products. The eCom competitive analysis of categorical SOS displays the share acquired by the brand and its competitors. Therefore, brands can decide to enlist products under categories with higher chances of discoverability, visibility, and consumer reachability to boost add-to-cart actions and conversions. Moreover, the brand understands its categorical presence across eCom platforms. Another advantage of using keywords based on categorical segregation is ranking on the bestseller page. Brands often evaluate their and competitor’s SOS percentages on bestseller pages under different departments/categories. However, the full scale of SOS results by category can be derived by evaluating visibility based on brand, sub-brand, pin codes, variants, and SKU range. mFilterIt’s eCommerce  Analytics uses these categories to provide an in-depth view of the SOS. Moreover, mScanIt informs brands of any KPI deviations. Therefore, you stay updated about product health and data. As a result, you always keep an eye out for KPIs and don’t lose hold of market trends unless you change your marketing or advertising strategies. Top Results of Products by Searching Specific Keywords Measuring the share of a product under a category on an eCom platform is valuable, but so is knowing the page rank of the products using various keywords. As per our research, consumers are more likely to see products, add them to a cart, and even successfully place an order if the product is listed in the top ten results or on the first page. For example, if a consumer searches for the keyword “Shampoo”, the brand with the highest ranking and visibility on the first three pages will most likely achieve consumer interactions. mScanIt beholds the capability of finding the keyword-level share of brands based on rankings. Another research stated that many consumers might even decide the product’s traits, such as features, options, etc., based on the listings visible to them ahead of the line. Therefore, brands that will enlist their products on the eCom store or already have listings present on the e-commerce platforms would use this to their advantage by adding keywords of such listings on their product/company pages of the eCom platform. The consumer sentiment of product ranking based on the most researched keywords changes the playing field of eCom store brands. Acquiring a higher ranking on search pages has become a competitive game and requires careful analysis using a solution that recognizes consumer behavior based on search results. Most brands also spend on promoted/ sponsored listings which keep their product listings at a desirable position on the search page. However, winning the search rank organically is what brands strive for since that gives them relatively permanent

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OEM-Myths

Busting the OEM Myths

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

During the first quarter of 2021, OEM app stores acquired nearly 42% of the global market share. OEM refers to original equipment manufacturers, and in mobile terminology, it caters to brands like LG, Redmi, Realme, etc. Such companies offer personalized app stores, and brands can obtain premium leads through OEM advertisements. Moreover, unlike Google Play Store, OEM apps are perceived as relatively safer and fraud-free. The cost of advertising on OEM stores varies on the type of placement. OEM advertising has two broad categories: pre-installed apps and app store promotion. Pre-installed apps are a gateway to new users as they are visible on the screen upon first-time phone usage. App store promotion is an icon & browser-based promotion, hot downloads, and recommended apps on an OEM app. In mobile terminology, OEM stores are even referred to as alternate Play stores, as they are pre-installed in addition to Google Play Store. OEM advertisements have opened doors to an untapped market, wherein brands can directly connect with the targeted traffic. Moreover, advertisers believe that they can generate higher ROAS and not worry about fraud, as the mobile manufacturer ensures exclusivity. OEM stores are mainly used for app installation. According to sources, OEM stores can boost app installs by 5x higher than the standard advertising methods. Does the App You are Promoting Require OEM Type Traffic? OEM app stores offer high-quality users and increase the visibility of the app. Moreover, it is an optimum platform for boosting installations. Apps removed from the Google Play Store can use the alternate app store to increase their market growth. The third-party app stores receive security certification and clearance from the manufacturer. Unfortunately, they may not take measures like Google Play Store apps when they encounter potentially harmful apps (PHA). Therefore, it is necessary to decide whether putting the app on an alternate store with lower protection levels against ad fraud can cause more harm than benefit. Look at the Data Points When receiving installs, carefully look at the app versions used. Many times, fraudsters may display fake installs using an archived app version. Moreover, sudden spikes in conversion levels should also match the click levels. If you find discrepancies, it is most likely due to ad fraud. Closely monitor and question the type of traffic. For example, is the correct targeting happening, or a plain install campaign? For, what is the percentage of the handsets traffic in installs vs. reality? Are the installs happening on older handsets? Besides this, do a simple click-to-conversion analysis and see what the graph looks like, and does that make any sense? Then, check your backend/KPI’s are they getting met or not. Issues with OEM Advertising Merely Runs on Faith Advertisers believe that OEM app stores offer brand-safe environments because they trust the OEM mobile manufacturing brand. The two-way communication between the advertiser and the brand ensures transparency in this relationship. Building a two-way trust helps in increasing the app installs, but how does it prove that they are legit? Do you have to leave that on trust too? Moreover, does it eliminate the possibility of duplicate/fake apps? So, are alternate app stores offering a brand-safe environment, or is it an illusion? Moreover, the recent malware release through the Netflix duplicate app on an alternate store is sufficient proof that “yes” is a questionable answer to any of these questions. If it were true, ad fraud elimination companies wouldn’t be working hard and fast to detect data anomalies. Nobody Goes Behind and Checks What is the Actual Source? Is the Actual Source and Claimed Source to be Same or Different? The transparency between the OEM and advertisers often leads to the belief that the actual and claimed source would remain the same. However, if advertisers go in-depth and review, they would find many discrepancies. For example, fraudsters display fake installs by cloning the SDK of an app and using different means of installation. Sources state that 13-18% of third-party app installations happen majorly through fake devices and other ad frauds. At times, users are unaware of the app install. Fraudsters also use cloned installs to display the “x” installation of the advertiser and achieve monetary gain. Moreover, cybercriminals even add malicious codes to these apps and conduct more ad fraud in the background. By default, these Sources are Whitelisted on MMPs. Commonly, an MMP receives click and impression attribution after a user clicks on an ad. The “install” attribution happens whenever a user opens an app for the first time. Such in-app OEM installs, impressions, and clicks are commonly whitelisted by MMPs. However, fraudsters register fake impressions and clicks with the MMP. Moreover, they even use spoofed SDKs for faking “install” attribution on the real device and report the same to the MMP. Another common method of stealing attributions for organic and inorganic installations on MMP is through click spamming, wherein fraudsters fire clicks until they claim the last click attribution. When analyzed, the install-to-attribution ratio goes beyond the 1:8 ratio. Therefore, the default misattributions by MMPs are causing analytic and reporting discrepancies. How did they Get Themselves Whitelisted and Start Mixing Traffic and Fooling Everyone? At present, the decision to recognize sources to include in the whitelist lies with the MMPs and includes numerous fraudulent attributions. Moreover, the whitelists are created by default, and the advertiser has no say in the whitelisting decision, even though the advertiser is making the payments. As such, the advertiser believes that the MMP is doing its due diligence and providing accurate attribution results. Moreover, the results provided by the MMP motivate the advertiser to increase the advertising budget and the payout to the fraudster. Similarly, outdated app or SDK version installation is typical fake installs used by fraudsters. Moreover, the fraudulent ad network may make the fake attributions appear organic to boost the installation’s legitimacy. Furthermore, cybercriminals may even use the older version of the SDK for displaying purchase rates. In reality, there is no purchase from the fraud ad network, and neither does

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Click-Injection

Click Injection: Why Should Brands/Advertisers Worry About It?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

During the first install session, fraudsters hijack ‘install broadcasts’ using bots/malware, and inject clicks for misattribution with the MMP. This fraud is commonly called click injection and is the most hated fraud by brands/advertisers. It diminishes click integrity and derails the efforts of providing a safe experience to the user, the backbone of an organization. In addition, it forces brands/advertisers to pay for their ‘own’ traffic from the advertising budget to the fraudster The reliability of campaign analytics for building marketing strategies is further hampered, and the scary part is that fraudsters build ‘relationships’ with the brands by sharing false performance reports. If we want to add fuel to the fire, cybercriminals also take over user accounts and steal identities and financial details through malware/bots. 6 Ways Click Injection Endangers Brands/Advertisers Organic Stealing Organic traffic is an intent-based audience targeted using many marketing practices. They are vital to advertisers as they help diminish advertising budgets, increase app installs, generate higher revenue, etc. Brands often advertise their apps on their websites, and social media handles to increase organic installs. The users click on such ads and install the app after redirection to the Google Play Store, Apple Store, or a third-party store. Such users have organically installed the app, but unfortunately, the credit for it often goes to the fraudster because he/she injected the last click, and it got registered with the MMP. As a result, cybercriminals are stealing organic users of the app owner. Attribution Theft Attributions are important for advertisers because they help understand the highest/lowest-performing sources/channels, drive campaign goals, and structure investment decisions. Unfortunately, advertisers become victims of attribution theft through click injection. It is the basic principle of this ad fraud. The cybercriminal can report a high install conversion rate (CVR) by manipulating the advertiser’s attribution and acquiring financial gain. However, the user could have organically installed the apps from any store or the brand’s website. Bad Analytics Brands often measure the click-to-install (CTI) ratio to determine the CVR of an ad install campaign. Unfortunately, attribution theft caused by click injection leads to reporting falsified high CVR of the fraudster. As a result, advertisers instill confidence in the campaign’s performance. In reality, the conversion rate of install campaigns lies between 1-1.5%. Therefore, a high percentage of CVR, which in most cases is a result of click injection, is 100% and drives the marketers in the wrong direction. Furthermore, the estimated Click-to-Install Time (CTIT) becomes extremely short through click injection. As a result, brands misinterpret the performance of campaigns/affiliates and make wrongful investments. Builds Trust on ‘Fraudsters’ – Scary! Fraud affiliates share high-performance reports with the advertiser and gain the advertiser’s trust. However, they are in the game for making money and don’t care about them. So, they continue with their click-injection fraud. Moreover, brands/advertisers would seek alternative options if they don’t receive the ongoing performance. Additionally, brands/advertisers don’t recognize the attribution misrepresentation by cybercriminals because the real CVR is hidden through spiked traffic. Their irresponsibility of not using an ad traffic validation solution makes them vulnerable to fraudsters. Meanwhile, brands/advertisers disassociate with an underperforming affiliate displaying the real campaign performance. Furthermore, affiliates rely on ‘word-of-mouth’ for brand associations, and their distrust drives away other affiliates from the brand/advertiser. However, this doesn’t last long as the latter has the option of switching affiliates. Loss of Advertising Budget Brands/advertisers lose millions of dollars every year from their advertising budget to fraudsters by not eliminating click injection. The misattribution caused by it diminishes the profits/commissions of legitimate publishers and advertisers. Moreover, most businesses run CPI campaigns on different ad networks. Additionally, global CPI rates for many countries are much higher than in India. Therefore, brands/advertisers constantly expand budgets for increasing networks for running CPI campaigns on such networks. Our research suggests that networks with higher CPI costs often witness higher click injection because the fraudsters can make more money and find this an ad campaign vulnerability. Therefore, brands/advertisers begin paying even more than before to cyber criminals due to network expansion or placements in costlier networks. Creates Brand Distrust Due to Malicious Device Activities Users installing brand apps and becoming victims of click-injection fraud also experience malicious device activities. Besides stealing unconsented “install broadcast” notifications from the user’s device, fraudsters also use bots/malicious codes to read messages and take over accounts. User messages often consist of OTPs and financial details. Fraudsters steal this information and conduct identity/financial theft. As a result, the malicious activities through the app make the user disinterested in the brand and uninstall the app. Brands experience high drop-offs as the users have lost trust in it. Furthermore, the CTIT ratio of the install campaign substantially diminishes. Therefore, click injection directly hampers the brand’s reputation. A Single Solution for App and Web Ad Frauds mFilterIt’s Ad fraud solution uses AI, ML, and data science to reveal the actual traffic sources and eliminate ad fraud on the web and app. In addition, the solution reports activities of click injection to the brand/advertisers and helps prevent association with fraudsters. Moreover, mFilterIt’s solution tracks sudden spikes in traffic, attribution hijacking, organic stealing, and other fraudulent activities on brand and performance campaigns. Therefore, a single solution is enacted as a safeguard against ad fraud. Diminishing ad fraud through click injection restores the user’s faith in a brand, optimizes analytics, and avoids wrongful investments. Conclusion Mitigating ad fraud has become a primary objective for advertisers across the globe because it reaps multiple advantages. In addition, however, it has become crucial to fight against click frauds, especially click injection, because marketers rely on user engagement and assess it through click-to-visit conversion as a measuring metric. mFilterIt’s Ad Traffic Solution solidifies consumer trust in the brand/advertiser by avoiding the dangers associated with ad fraud. Brands seeking accurate analytical results, higher human ad engagement, and reliable CVR must use this solution. Get in touch to know more about Click Injection.

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Click-Injection-Affect

How Does Click Injection Affect a Brand’s Users?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

“You have been locked out of your account/You have zero balance” is a message no user ever wants to see. Can you believe this could happen to a brand’s user through the same source of click injection? – a copycat app or pirated APK. Users behold brands as the responsible party for their asset duplication. The repercussions for the brand become dire in this process. On the other hand, fraudsters committing identity and financial theft, besides click injection, make the user’s life a living hell. Here is what happens to them: 4 Direct Implications of Click Injection Attacks on a Brand’s Users ● Device Access/OTP Fraud/Financial Fraud Click injection is often found in pirated apps downloaded from app stores or APKs. Users are tempted to download such apps because they offer free access to the content/features and remain immune to the click-firing activity in the background. Moreover, fraudsters use malicious codes or bots within the app or APK to acquire access to a user’s device, messages and hacking financial details. Unfortunately, the user also blames the brand for the financial and OTP fraud. Therefore, the apps/APKs responsible for click injection fraud also drive users away from a brand and switch to next-in-line alternatives. ● Decreases Trust and Loyalty Click injection generates unconsented ‘clicks’ on behalf of the real user. Unfortunately, the MMP doesn’t see such ill-actions, so the advertiser/brand remains unaware & unworried. Unfortunately, the sources of this ad fraud are also responsible for plaguing other attacks through them on the user’s device. Such activities make the user concerned and hardwire distrust in the brand, which becomes nearly impossible to repair. Furthermore, the brand’s inaction to fight back against the sources of fraud makes the user backlash through negative reviews, app store reports, and participation in social media trolling. The bad publicity causes a dent in loyal users and increases the real app’s drop-off rate. Moreover, the users become tempted to find other shortcomings and cripple the brand’s reputation through the ongoing repercussions. ● Creates Widespread Panic and Anxiety Pirated apps or APKs causing click injection and identity/financial theft create widespread panic and anxiety in the minds of the brand’s users. The users become more concerned about the thefts and want payback. At this point, they can’t sue anyone other than the brand. On the other hand, the brand doesn’t take responsibility for the thefts because the user was never on its app. But unfortunately, when a large number of users use a brand, new users are less likely to create accounts, and the old users won’t want to stay associated with the brand. Anxious app users also believe any fake news and share it across social media, causing widespread anger, panic, and irritation against the brand. Moreover, the user’s actions diminish the potential reach of organic traffic, and competitor visibility significantly increases. ● Cannibalizes Revenue from Existing Users Bad reputation caused by click injection and other frauds certainly cannibalize business aspirations; however, a positive notion makes a brand rise: “Time heals all wounds.” – the Greek poet Menander. But until the right time arises and the brand has somehow restored faith in the existing users, the company witnesses diminished revenue through in-app and web ads. Moreover, the brand also has users who haven’t been victimized. Moreover, the existing users still have faith in the brand and believe it will repair its reputation. Furthermore, the existing users are scared of making profiles and purchases. So, they are less likely to make large transactions. A Solution to Avoid Ad Traffic Violations mFilterIt’s Ad Traffic Solution safeguards brands against web and app ad fraud. Moreover, it is driven by AI, ML, and data science and generates real-time alerts. Therefore, brands can detect analytical anomalies caused by ad fraud instantly. Moreover, mFilterIt’s solution uses technology to eliminate ad fraud and safeguards digital advertising and customer data systems. Additionally, it systematically showcases the types of ad fraud and their sources. Some of the biggest advantages of using the solution include avoiding attribution & organic stealing, better ad engagement rates, no wastage of advertising spending, etc. Conclusion Click injection seems like an advertiser-centric problem, but it is also a brand and user issue. Moreover, fraudsters commonly use the source of this ad fraud for identity and financial theft and cause widespread panic, disinterest, and disengagement with the brand. As a result, fighting back against click injection has become essential for safeguarding a brand’s reputation, revenue, and users. mFilterIt’s Ad Traffic Validation monitors and eliminates ad fraud on the internet and contributes to the brand’s faith restoration in the users’ minds. Get in touch to learn more about the Click Injection.

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Digital-Ad-Frauds

The Deep Dark World of Digital Ad Frauds

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Advertising /

Digital ad fraud is a thing that didn’t drop just today. It has been surviving in the ever-evolving digital world and making its space in bits and bytes. While some cases have been there in the limelight, some are just well hidden in the systems. The last decade has made digital fraud, the perfect crime to do in silence. With everything tracked in spreadsheets and dashboards, there has been no crime easier to commit than this. The cybercriminals don’t even have to make bots and malware themselves. They can hire a person easily and all they need to do is rent their time on the botnets and pay for what they use like cloud computing. They can easily paint the picture of ads running and traffic generating when nothing is happening in reality. Fraudsters Who Became Celebrities Between 2003 till 2016 there was a splurge of celebrities in the cybercrime world who became famous for the wrong reasons. All the world could see was their fancy cars, homes, and yachts which attracted heavy traffic. But behind all this glam, there were some of the biggest digital frauds for which they had no fear of getting caught. Here are some of the examples of such cases that made a layman into a celebrity due to the digital fraud they have committed. Bot Traffic or Human Traffic: In 2013, a guy from the USA admitted his indulgence in buying many of the visitors to his websites. One fraud detection firm detected 94 percent of the visitors as a bot and the other detected approximately 74 percent traffic as bot traffic. It was surprising to see that despite all these findings, he was not concerned. Instead, he stated that if he can buy some traffic and it gets accepted then why not do it? He also highlighted the fact that advertisers pay only a little to get more traffic and results. And he got away with this scam by saying that the advertisers can go directly to the publisher if they want human traffic. But how does it affect the company? The bot traffic receives impressions which directly affects the click-through rates. Though, the campaign results appear massive in terms of engagement. However, that doesn’t imply actual human traffic. The false impressions heavily manipulate the metrics of the campaign and lower the value of ads which further results in loss of revenues. Traffic Manipulation Havoc: In 2003, some news articles allegedly brought a digital fraud of massive traffic manipulation in the limelight. The person behind the fraud became the traffic manipulation kingpin. He created browser extensions that generated a massive amount of irrelevant traffic by injection of ads. In the ad industry’s terminology, this is the term used for manipulation or fake views, clicks, and users. The key mastermind has also been sued for allegedly helping to force malicious software onto a PC. Despite such gruesome acts, his name has never been connected to a takedown of a high-profile name related to ad fraud. The line doesn’t end here because the traffic merchant’s shadow stretches beyond the operations of web extension. Sophisticated Scam: Another fraud celebrity made money – not just enough but lots of it by executing the most persistent and sophisticated digital fraud the internet has ever seen. The subscription trap is a scam where people are lured to buy a single free trial of a celebrity-endorsed product. But once the free trial is purchased, the customer unknowingly gets indulged into a pricey monthly subscription which is hard to cancel. But this was just one part of the big black hole created by Ads Inc. They later created a boiler room-style operation that convinced thousands of people to rent their personal Facebook accounts to the company. Ads Inc. later used this data to place ads for its flawed free trial offers. This strategy helped the company to run misleading ads at a huge volume, targeting people from all around the world in a sophisticated fashion. He also got away with it. Special Code: A ‘special code’ hit the digital market and created an avalanche of fraudulent views of video ads from companies like Unilever, Hershey’s, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, MGM, and Ford. The mastermind behind this is the owner of the 12 websites that were involved in the fraud and has earned revenue from fraudulent views. The ad platform was also provided by his company which is used by the sites in the scheme. Another master player in this fraud was a former employee of a massive ad network who ran a group of eight sites that were part of the fraud. And another group of eight sites that were consulted by the person. The last site identified by the researchers is owned by the co-founder of one of the 20 largest ad networks in the United States. The former mastermind was part of the industry and helped other insiders make tons of money with this scheme. He got away unaffected. Why do these fraudsters get away easily? The biggest reason that the fraudsters remain unaffected after committing a digital ad fraud is that there is globally no law to convict these fraudsters for this crime. Due to this, it is estimated that ad fraud will reach up to $68 billion globally in 2022 and will keep increasing aggressively. The Landmark Cases In 2021, Uber won over Phunware in a multi-million-dollar advertising fraud suit. There were suspicious practices that Uber noticed in Phunware ad activity in 2016. The Uber app installations that Phunware delivered came due to a fraudulent process known as “click flooding”. This means that a higher number of clicks are shown than the actual number. Some of the ad traffic also came from auto-redirects where the customers were taken to the app store automatically, whether the user had clicked or not. During an internal investigation, two of the former Phunware employees discovered that the company had also falsely billed Uber for non-delivered ad clicks. In addition to this, some of the ads run

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brand-safety

Why Has “Brand Safety” Become a Major Concern?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Brand Safety & Protection /

Facts that worry brands, marketers, and advertisers. Brand safety safeguards a brand’s reputation and image by ensuring correct context or placements. Nowadays, it is a serious concern for advertisers. Misleading ads or ads without custom contextual targeting often get trolled on the web. The Most Concerning Brand Safety Issues Brands that use digital advertising face brand safety issues like incent/coupon fraud, non-contextual media placements, keyword bidding fraud, etc. The strain of this problem is dominant in the BFSI sector. A banking advertisement on a terrorism video can have serious implications like online trolling, negative press coverage, wrong cause funding, etc. Managing it has become crucial for ed-tech. Unmonitored ad placements on the ed-tech app/web can expose kids to unsuitable content. In 2018, a press release by Digiday’s AI company GumGum and Custom revealed serious implications of brand safety issues. 47% of companies suffered social media blowback, 25% received negative press, and 13% lost revenue due to brand safety issues. Additionally, 44% of companies and brands faced brand-unsafe imagery, and 32% reported that it resulted from videos. Our experts analyzed one billion frames within 25 million videos on YouTube. The research revealed that 14% (3.5 million) of the context was unsafe, and 7% (1.75 million) content was unsafe. While monitoring videos according to the GARM categories through our brand hygiene protection, we identified 10.5% Illegal Drugs Tobacco E-cigarettes Vaping Alcohol, 9% Terrorism, 6% Online Piracy, and other violations. On the other hand, correct placement of ads can lead to higher conversions, signing up for newsletters/loyalty programs, increasing social media followers, and building trustworthiness. Moreover, it will help brands to reap higher and recurring profits. Since 2018, marketers have started incorporating strategies like earned/influencer media, user-generated content, working with premium publishers, etc., to curb brand safety issues. However, the massive scale of such problems required a much more effective AI, ML, and manual monitoring solution for recognizing brand/ad placements. mFilterIt’s brand safety solution encompasses GARM checks and content classification under brand-safe or unsafe categories. These include contextual, content, and sentiment analysis. Blacklisting URLs can help to protect online reputation. On the other hand, whitelisting URLs helps to recognize relevant ad placements. So, the audience targeting of brands increases and enhances the overall ROI. Our brand hygiene protection recognizes brand infringement, brand safety (media), and Keyword Search Abuse. Implementing this solution will further improve ROAS. Should You trade between Brand Safety and Ad Performance? The rising concern about brand safety is important for marketers and advertisers. However, the dilemma lies in trading it off for a better performance campaign output. In August 2018, a survey across EMEA and the US revealed that 64% of marketers believed that problems related to it negatively impact the campaign performance, and 71% struggled to target “reachability” with the right context. Almost 2/3rd of marketers believe that it is okay to use unsafe brand environments to achieve campaign targets. However, the perception that brand safety protocols undermine campaign performance is completely misguided. Marketers need to look beyond the initial vanity metrics to realize that brand safety doesn’t come at the expense of meaningful results. Firstly, marketers should realize that incorporating a solution can enhance reachability by targeting the correct audience, even when a programmatic campaign fails. For example, a sports brand ad next to a cricket match would enhance conversions and clicks. Likewise, ad placements on pornographic, torrent, free music, or similar domains can tarnish the brand’s reputation, diminish profits, etc. So, optimizing campaigns without incorporating brand safety can have deadly implications. In November 2018, GumGum and Digiday Media surveyed hate speech (34%) as the most brand-unsafe element. Marketers who participated in it also revealed that disaster/tragedy, divisive politics, and fake (accounted for 39%) were elements encountered next to client’s digital advertising. It also showed that Facebook (-23%) was the least safe platform whereas, Linked In (+45%) was the safest platform brand. Brands that didn’t take measures to ensure brand safety have suffered social media blowback, lost revenue and received negative press. On the other hand, incorporating brand safety offers benefits like effective ad spending, increased ROI, enhanced brand image, etc. Takeaway It even protects against misinformation, data protection & privacy and recognizes correct ad placements on digital platforms. mFilterIt’s brand safety solution also provides great online transparency and reduces ad fraud. The solution also supports more than 50 languages, offers a global reach with regional capabilities, encompasses 96+ content avoidance categories, and has flagged 400+ million content globally. Get in touch to learn more about the Brand Safety.

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