Ad fraud might hit $100B, advertising companies worry

Ad fraud has become a very big issue for both users and the advertising agencies. Different forms of it might reach a cost of $120 billion, until 2023, in the U.S. only. This means up 21%, from 2021.

High growth of different forms of ad fraud

The ad fraud varies a lot, from app install farms, SDK spoofing, click spam and ad stacking, to click injection. Let’s see what each of them means.

An app install farm uses hundreds or even thousands of low-cost workers. They use their phones to download and install apps of advertisers. The reason is to get rewards for partners, on a cost of installation basis. Then, they lunch the apps, and afterwards uninstall them. Ad farmers repeat the process many times. Thus, the app appears to be installed by many people, which is, in fact, a fraud.

Another method is the SDK spoofing. Although it has the same purpose as the app install farms, it works differently. Thus, villains create legitimate-looking installs, using data of real devices that hey hijack, without any real install. Specialists also call the method spoofing and replay attacks.

Click spam, or organics poaching, is an advertising fraud which happens when a fraudster executes clicks for users who have not made them.

Ad stacking is just another method, in which fraudsters hide different ads in layers, on top of each other. Only the top ad remains visible to the users. Still, a click or impression is registered for every ad in the stack. Thus, advertisers have to pay for every fake impression and/or clicks.

Researchers estimate an increase of advertisg fraud

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) in the U.S. estimates that ad fraud costs advertisers $51 million a day, according to a Juniper Research analysis. Thus, the losses “are likely to increase to $100 billion annually bu 2023.” The estimates are based on studies published by HubSpot, Forbes, and others.

Josch Chodakowsky, ANA Senior Manager of Research and Innovation says that 18% of internal traffic in the industry comes from “nonhuman bots.” He explained that those are engaged in ad fraud. Moreover, he said that digital media professionals recognized the issue, “alongside third-party cookie deprecation.”

In order to avoid being used as a mean of fraud, use one of the best Windows native ad blockers on the market. Download Ad Guardian Plus and give it a try. Thus, you protect your personal data and keep villains away.