With the constant development of digital advertising, ad fraud techniques are developing too, becoming more sophisticated and hard to detect. Novel ad fraud methods are now a usual thing to see at various AdTech trends rankings alongside the other technologies. So, it’s essential to keep a finger on the pulse of the latest fraud transformations: forewarned is forearmed.
The Latest News on the Adtech Fraud Traffic
We gathered the most significant events related to advertising fraud worldwide and added some statistics reported by various sources. Briefly, the situation is not that inspiring, as ad fraud does not show any decrease. What makes things much better is that anti-ad fraud solutions are also developing, so we at ADEX have an answer to most threats that may arise for advertisers and affiliate marketers.
Overall Ad Fraud Losses will Rise Globally: the Juniper Research
Juniper Research reported the potential growth of ad budget losses related to fraud in 2022 worldwide and also separated the top countries that might suffer the most. According to the research, US advertisers face the most significant impact from various ad fraud schemes. China, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Japan are the other top-impacted countries.
The overall amount of losses related to fake impressions and bot clicks might reach $68 billion all over the globe. Interestingly, the fraud rate decreased in India, with the APAC region currently having the lowest post-bid fraud rate overall.
Australia Beats the Records of the Video Ad Fraud Rates
Another research, coming from Integral Ad Science, showed that Australian advertisers suffer from desktop video ad fraud more than anyone else. According to stats, desktop video ads take the most of the traffic (80,6%) and, pretty obviously, suffer from the biggest numbers of fake impressions. While the worldwide average ad fraud rate related to this format is 1,3%, it has grown to 2,9% from 1,4% in Australia.
The 3ve High-Profile Fraud Update
A much-talked-of story related to the so-called 3ve bot network is not over yet. Back in 2019, two hackers were accused of scamming advertising networks using an expensive and exquisite fraud scheme. They created a massive network of hacked and infected PCs in the USA and worldwide and used bots imitating real users on these machines. The overall loss caused by Ovsyannikov and Timchenko, the crime organizers, reached over $29 million.
The latest news related to 3ve (the botnet’s name) says that the USA has now recovered over $15 million of the losses. The overall loss report showed $29 million, so the refund only covers a little more than half of the total amount.
Scammers Find New Approaches to Protecting Themselves
The Russian cybercriminal gang modernized the traditional click- and impressions-fraud scheme. The fraudsters created fake job positions targeting English teachers working abroad. The teachers saw job adverts at various online resources and applied for them. The job offer implied creating a publisher account at an advertising network; the ’employers’ explained it was necessary for representing the company on the web.
Thus, teachers became the third party between a network and the gang, protecting the latter from being discovered. The scheme is still active, and, what is more, not all teachers realized they were involved in the scam — even though the amounts paid to them could have looked suspicious enough, reaching $40,000 per month.
Read also: How ADEX helped an advertising network detect and liquidate scammers
Payday Loans have Become the Most Suffering Sector
The latest research on click frauds based on targeting top popular keywords showed that payday loan lenders had become one of the most vulnerable industries. It turns out that ‘a payday loan’ and several other related searches bring significant amounts of traffic and have highly-paid CPC rates.
So, fraud gangs create fake websites that display genuine ads using payday loan keywords and then create massive conversions by various click fraud methods. As a result, payday lenders lose colossal amounts from their advertising budgets, and these figures only tend to grow.
Combating Modern Ad Fraud Methods: ADEX Tools
Luckily, ADEX is familiar with the vast majority of the modern ad fraud techniques. Yes, the latest reports and researches demonstrate that the traffic scam is flourishing, especially when it comes to the Tier-1 GEOs. However, there are proven technologies that can help and, mixed with ADEX’s personal approach, have shown excellent results so far: see for yourself. Here is how you can avoid losing money on an ad campaign using ADEX:
- ADEX tool uses innovative technologies that analyze traffic by 50 parameters and detects even the most elaborately masked bots. Such parameters include location, browser, VPN usage, and behavior: for instance, how long a user stayed on a page or what they did at particular time spans.
- ADEX divides all your traffic into good, warning, and alert categories. Besides, ADEX stats allow you to check particular slices of traffic, for instance, only US impressions from iOS devices.
- The smart AI system of ADEX allows you to stop bots before they spoil the campaign. It can block or redirect them and uses real-time alerts, so you always keep your eye on the campaign performance.
- ADEX automates your communication with publishers. It can provide you with a ready report that you can use for disputes and refund claims. What is more, ADEX managers are always willing to go the extra mile and dive into your reports to investigate further.
Don’t want your ad campaign to appear in news as a victim of fraud? Welcome to ADEX and we will keep you protected.
