Are you spending on your ads but not getting a significant impact? Beware, you can be prey to ad frauds who would benefit from your ad budget. Digital marketing is a booming industry. Now, companies have started spending a massive amount on digital advertisements. Cybercrimes are rampantly making their grip over ads on digital platforms. Fraudsters always seek opportunities to make money from the budget spent on ads. Don’t worry, ad fraud protection is there for you. Take a look at this article to know all about ad fraud.

What is ad fraud?

The ads on digital media are pay-per-click ads or impression ads. It means that you will be charged only when the user clicks on the ad or you see the ad on a website. This way the revenue of the advertiser increases and the publisher gets some share of the money you spend on the ad. Revenue generation is automated with the help of bots. 

Fraudsters misuse the automated system. The advertisers or competitors can exploit the ads with fake clicks. You will not get any benefit but will pay a heavy price for those clicks. The scammers target the websites and siphon money because there is no transparency between fake clicks and authentic user clicks.

What are the different types of ad fraud?

Now you know how ad frauds work. There are various types of ad fraud that scammers perform on the internet. These are a few types:

• Click hijack- The user will be directed to another page rather than the intended page after the click. It means that the user will not be able to see your products and services.
• Hidden ads- The impression ads are targeted in this case. Your competitor may hijack the ad while the user will not see the ad on the web pages.
• Botnet- The fraudsters use malicious bots for fake clicks on the ad. The bots appear like real users as they have different IP addresses and go undetected. This way, they extract a lot of money from you. 
• Fake app installs- A group of people install an app at the same time. This way the advertiser will show ads to all these users and the value of impression ads will be increased. In such cases, you will be paying more on the ad budget but will get negligible results.

How does ad fraud protection save you?

Some agencies will help you to detect malicious activities around the ads. The agency takes the help of machine learning to manage bot activities. They track and judge malicious bot behaviour, contrasting it with normal user behaviour. Once detected, the bot’s access to ads is restricted and other users are allowed to access ads. 

Apart from bot detection, the ad protectors perform signature-based and credential-based verification to detect fake clicks. It helps you in achieving your targets and saving a lot of money. Protection from ad fraud is also necessary to create a positive impression of the brand.