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Amazon’s Big 2025 PPC Algorithm Change: Is Your Ad Spend Still Working?

In 2025, winning on Amazon isn’t just about spending more — it’s about spending smarter. Amazon has quietly reengineered its algorithm, shifting from a pure CPC-bid system to one that prioritizes traffic quality, listing performance, and conversion strength. If your entire Amazon strategy revolves around running ads, you’re likely overspending and underperforming. Here’s how the landscape has changed — and what your team should do next What’s Actually Changed in Amazon’s PPC Algorithm?  The pay-to-play environment still exists, but it’s now part of a much bigger game of trust, signals, and shopper behavior. Here’s what matters in 2025:  External Traffic Is Now a Ranking Factor Amazon now rewards listings that attract off-platform traffic — from Google search, Instagram stories, influencer campaigns, and even emails. This is a game-changer. 1. Why? External traffic signals real consumer demand. It tells Amazon your product is being sought after — not just served through paid impressions.  This is key for sellers focused on campaign optimization and Amazon ad ROAS. External traffic = better organic ranking.  2. Organic Sales = Algorithm Trust  Each organic sale tells Amazon your product sells on its own merit. The more this happens, the more visibility your product earns — reducing your dependency on paid ads.  3. Insight: Brands with strong ecommerce analytics and product-market fit see their share of shelf expand even without heavy ad spend.  Your Listing Is Now the Decider  Clicks alone don’t cut it anymore. Amazon now evaluates:  Time spent on the product page  Scroll and engagement behavior  Bounce rates and exit paths  Conversion rates vs. competitor redirection  If your listing isn’t optimized to convert, your ad dollars are being wasted — silently.  Use ad monitoring and content analyser tools to diagnose weak product pages.  Sponsored Brand Ads Are More Powerful No longer just top-of-funnel fluff, Sponsored Brand Ads now directly influence visibility and conversions. These ad formats tell brand stories, and Amazon is rewarding storytelling that converts. Use Amazon ad optimization strategies that include SBAs to capture high-intent traffic and build brand equity. Where mFilterIt by mScanIt Come In Wondering why visibility is dropping, why ROAS is flat, or why you’re losing to lesser products?  Meet mScanIt by mFilterIt — built for ecommerce-first brands navigating Amazon’s new rules.  It delivers real-time ecommerce analytics across four key fronts: Competitive intelligence: See where competitors are stealing your shelf space Product content performance: Understand if your listings are supporting or sabotaging your ad performance Pricing mismatch alerts: Catch and correct inconsistencies that kill conversions Campaign optimization insights: Identify ad fraud, misattribution, or underperforming placements Whether you’re fixing Amazon campaign fraud or maximizing sponsored brand visibility, mScanIt helps performance teams win.   Amazon’s Algorithm Is Now Reading Your Brand — Not Just Your Bid If you’re still running Amazon Ads like it’s 2022, you’re burning budget. Today’s system is a trust engine, not a pure auction.  Ask Yourself:  Is your product page built to convert cold and warm traffic? Are your prices consistent across channels? Are you riding the wave of organic sales spikes? Are you generating demand beyond Amazon’s walled garden? Because in 2025, Amazon’s algorithm isn’t just ranking your ads — it’s reading your entire brand behavior. DR for Amazon Sellers & Performance Teams Amazon’s 2025 update favors traffic quality over bid size External traffic and organic sales directly boost rankings Listing content and conversion behavior are key algorithm signals mScanIt provides ecommerce analytics and campaign optimization insights in real time Success now requires ad monitoring, pricing analysis, and performance storytelling Explore mFilterIt’s Digital Commerce Intelligence  

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Brand bidding in affiliate marketing

Google’s May 2025 Ad Safety Update: Why It Won’t Stop Brand Bidding Abuse

Google’s latest ad safety update may have made headlines, but it hasn’t solved the real problem.  With buzzwords like “transparency,” “cleaner search ads,” and “policy enforcement,” the May 2025 update sounded like a promise. But while the PR narrative got sharper, brand bidding abuse only got more precise.  It’s time to stop mistaking policy changes for actual protection.  When Brand Equity Gets Hijacked You’ve built your brand with care — through years of campaigns, influencer tie-ups, loyalty programs, and crores spent in media to earn customer trust.  But when someone types your name into Google?  You’re not the first result. An “affiliate” is.  They’ve bid on your own brand keyword. They’ve cloned your ad copy. They’re siphoning traffic meant for you — and worse, charging you commission for it.  This isn’t performance marketing. It’s affiliate abuse in plain sight. According to mFilterIt, over 38% of brand traffic in affiliate networks is exposed to keyword bidding, impersonation, and last-click hijacking — often masked as legitimate support.  These actors aren’t helping you grow. They’re exploiting your brand equity — and eating away at the organic demand you’ve already earned.  Here’s What the Data Shows In a recent case with a major online travel portal, mFilterIt uncovered the scale of the problem:  64% of brand keyword hours across cities showed white spaces ₹1.77 million was saved in just 20 days by identifying and reclaiming these gaps. CPC dropped by 52.47%, and cost per conversion fell by 46.15% Meanwhile, organic bookings jumped 86.1% All because of one trigger:  mFilterIt’s brand keyword and white space detection system caught what no platform tool flagged.  Why Google’s Policy Isn’t Enough Google’s update focuses on impersonation — but brand bidding doesn’t need a disguise. It works in the gray areas:  Tweaked match types  Vague copy  Legal but misleading tactics  By the time a violation is caught, the damage is already done.  You can’t rely on platform policing after the fact. You need real-time Affiliate monitoring that sees what Google doesn’t.  mFilterIt Fills the Gap Google Leaves Here’s what we do (and what platforms can’t):  Detect brand bidding violations in real-time  Identify unauthorized affiliates hijacking your brand traffic Map white space  opportunities city-by-city, hour-by-hour  Plug CPC leaks before they burn through budgets  Don’t Just Trust the Platform. Protect Your Brand. Google may promise clean ads, but visibility still needs verification.  Before assuming your campaigns are safe, ask yourself:  Are you measuring true presence or just platform delivery?  Curious how brand bidding could be bleeding your paid search?  Explore mFilterIt’s Ad Fraud Solution

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Affiliate Fraud

Affiliate Fraud 2.O: How AI-Generated Sites Are Gaming Your Attribution Models

Affiliate marketing has long been one of the most performance-driven, ROI-focused channels in the digital advertising landscape. However, the emergence of AI and the need for training AI LLMs has further complicated the scenario. Fraudsters now leverage AI to automate deception and manipulate attribution models. This is what we call affiliate fraud 2.O. As AI lowers the barriers to content generation and website development, the risks of affiliate fraud are expanding in both scope and sophistication. These aren’t just random bots; they’re intelligent, deceptive systems that erode ROI without being easily detected. How Affiliates Manipulate Attribution Models Using AI Generated Techniques? 1. AI-Generated Microsites: Fraudsters use generative AI to mass-produce legitimate-looking blogs and review sites that host affiliate links. These sites offer no real user value and exist solely to siphon attribution credit. 2. Short-Session Click Fraud: AI sites create traffic with sessions lasting just seconds – timed to occur before a user converts, thereby stealing last-click attribution undetected. 3. Bot-Assisted Click Simulation: Using AI-powered automation tools, fraudsters mimic human behaviors like scrolling, clicks, and form fills – tricking attribution platforms into seeing them as valid users. 4. Fake Click-Through Journeys: Entire user journeys are faked using AI – from blog visits to conversion events, mimicking real behavior and misleading attribution systems. 5. Traffic Laundering Through AI Networks: Fraudsters mask their origins by routing traffic through multiple AI-generated sites, using proxies and spoofing to make detection nearly impossible. 6. Pixel Stuffing and Ad Stacking with AI Layouts: AI-created page templates insert invisible ad pixels or stack multiple ads in one slot, creating false impressions and clicks. 7. Link Injection Based on User Behavior: AI scripts detect when a user is about to convert and inject affiliate links at the last second – grabbing credit without influencing the purchase. These sophisticated techniques result in inflated affiliate payouts, inaccurate campaign data, and wasted marketing budgets. According to mFilterIt’s first party analysis of 220 campaigns run in 2024, 25% and 30% of fraud was detected across affiliate campaigns for visits and leads respectively. How mFilterIt Can Help Fight Against AI-Generated Affiliate Frauds At mFilterIt, we offer a robust, intelligence-led ad traffic validation solution – Valid8, to address the challenges of AI-driven affiliate fraud. 1. End-to-End Traffic Validation: We analyze the full user journey from impression to conversion to detect anomalies like short sessions and unnatural behavior patterns. 2. Session-Level Intelligence : We go beyond surface metrics to evaluate behavioral depth, device fingerprints, and engagement patterns distinguishing real users from bots. 3. Proactive Campaign Monitoring : Our system continuously scans geographic spikes, click bursts, and domain impersonation helping brands catch rogue affiliates fast. Conclusion: Affiliate Marketing Demands Smarter Protection Affiliate fraud is no longer simple or visible. It’s intelligent, fast, and quietly drains your performance budgets. As the threat evolves, so must your defense. mFilterIt helps you go beyond basic fraud filters with a fraud detection solution providing actionable insights keeping your ecosystem clean, compliant, and high performing. Ready to reclaim your ROI? Let us help you outsmart affiliate fraud.    

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fake_lead

Fake Leads Are Surging in BFSI: Here’s How They’re Harming ROI This Quarter

The Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector experiences a sharp rise in marketing and lead generation efforts during Q1 and Q2, driven by consumer demand for tax-saving investments, insurance, and loans. However, this seasonal uptick also brings a surge in fake lead generation, banking frauds, KYC frauds, and financial fraud. Between April and January of FY25, India reported a sharp increase in digital financial fraud, with losses reaching ₹4,245 crore across 2.4 million cases, according to data shared by the Ministry of Finance. This marked a 67% rise compared to FY23, when losses totaled ₹2,537 crore from 2 million reported incidents. In FY24, fraud-related losses were slightly higher at ₹4,403 crore, spread across 2.8 million cases highlighting a persistent and growing threat, even with ongoing efforts to strengthen fraud prevention. This growing trend underscores the urgent need for robust lead validation in the BFSI space. Sophisticated Fraud Tactics Currently Plaguing the Industry 1. KYC Frauds Stolen or synthetic identities are used to pass KYC checks, resulting in regulatory risks and wasted acquisition costs. 2. OTP Bypass OTP-based verification is a common layer of security in lead forms. However, advanced scripts and bots automate OTP entry, bypassing this defense and flooding systems with invalid leads. 3. Disposable Numbers Fraudsters increasingly rely on temporarily active numbers to complete lead forms to pass initial security checks but are unreachable for callbacks or follow-ups, leading to dead ends. 4. Bot-Generated Leads Automated bots emulate human behavior by filling out forms, clicking ads, and skewing attribution metrics, wasting paid media budgets. 5. Identity Theft This involves using real individuals’ personal details often obtained through phishing or data breaches to submit fake leads. These often go undetected until serious harm is done. The Real Cost of Fake Leads Fake leads don’t just waste budget – they distort ROI, damage brand credibility, and mislead campaign optimization. Paid campaigns that attract invalid leads inflate customer acquisition costs without delivering real conversions. Sales teams spend time on unreachable or disinterested contacts, impacting productivity and morale. Moreover, fake interactions skew campaign analytics, leading marketers to make flawed optimization decisions based on inaccurate data. In a highly regulated sector like BFSI, engaging with fake or unverified leads poses serious compliance and reputational risks, including audits, penalties, and regulatory fallout. How mFilterIt Protects BFSI Brands from Fake Leads As digital financial fraud continues to escalate, BFSI brands need more than just conventional lead validation filters to effectively combat fake leads. mFilterIt’s ad fraud detection solution offers real-time lead validation, device fingerprinting, and full-funnel visibility to help BFSI brands stay ahead of evolving fraud tactics. Our solution evaluates every lead through heuristic, deterministic, and behavioral models, filtering out invalid or suspicious entries instantly. This ensures that only genuine, conversion-ready leads reach your CRM. What sets Valid8 apart is the proprietary lead scoring engine, which ranks leads by intent – high, moderate, or low – using rich behavioral and attribution data. This allows marketers to focus on high-quality leads and optimize campaigns for better out comes. With Valid8, brands can cut waste, protect ROI, and maintain compliance – all while improving lead quality. Conclusion: It’s Time to Validate, Not Just Generate As fraud becomes more complex, BFSI marketers must shift from merely generating leads to validating them. mFilterIt empowers you to eliminate fake leads, optimize ad spend, and safeguard your marketing efforts. Discover how Valid8 can protect your lead pipeline. Contact us today to schedule a demo.

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