Stopping Mobile App Fraud with AppMetrica

Partnered with AppMetrica to bring Fraud Prevention to App Developers

Mobile App Fraud Impact for Mobile-App Developers

As mobile devices become more and more prevalent, so does mobile app fraud. It increased by 40% over the past two years. Industry experts estimate that as many as 31% of iOS apps and 25% of Android app installs are fraudulent.

The types of mobile fraud evolve and become even more sophisticated. The increasing complexity of mobile devices also makes it harder to detect fake installs, clicks and impressions. In the end, the advertiser loses $1 for every $3 spent on digital ads, which leads to low conversion rates.

In 2023 the in-app advertising market is predicted to reach US$314.50bn. How can advertisers protect themselves from losing a third of this money to fraud?

Common Types of Mobile App Fraud

Bots and Fake Devices

Bad Bot Report from Imperva attributes 47% of all internet traffic to bots.

Bots are automated programs designed to imitate real user actions such as clicks, installs and in-app activities. They impact marketing campaigns directly by draining advertising resources on fake users with zero value. Most often bots are run directly off servers, but they can also run off fake devices in click farms.

A click farm is one of the older types of mobile fraud. This is a physical location where fake devices are stored to mimic various user activities: clicks, installs, mobile engagement, social media followings, app store ratings and reviews etc. Click farmers use various tactics to hide their activity, like resetting their device IDs with each install.

Click Flooding / Click Spamming

Click spam happens when a fraudster spreads a code which generates numerous fake clicks on the ad. When some unrelated install after those clicks happens, the fraudster attributes it to those fake clicks to get the reward.

Click spam can occur in background mode. This means that the illegal code fake-clicks on the ads when the app is run. Most often the user doesn’t even see the ad that is clicked on. The code can also present views as clicks. Or it can be produced via fake devices on click farms.

Click Injection

Click injection is an advanced version of click spam. In this case the fraudster uses an infected app to see when the user starts downloading a new app on the device. The fraudster creates a fake click and attributes the installation to it to get a reward.

Unwanted traffic sources

This kind of traffic is usually called invalid rather than fraud. Despite the name, it still steals advertising budgets. It uses traffic sources that are beyond the advertiser’s rules or expectations, like adult websites or incentivized campaigns.

The Problem with rebrokered traffic

Traffic rebrokering happens when an Affiliate receives his traffic from another source than his own. This a common practice in the industry creating a traffic chain where each participant takes a percentage of the commission. At the end of the chain (which can often be as long as 3-6 rebrokers) the commission for the install becomes very little making it only attractive to low quality and fraudulent traffic sources to promote.

When the advertiser blocks a specific SubID the traffic sources and traffic rebrokers will try to find the same offer promoted by another Affiliate network or agency. Since the industry operates on IDs and not clear names it turns this into a monthly cat and mouse game. To counter these tactics is proposing a privacy friendly Fraud Database which allows real time prevention of known fraudulent sources across advertisers.

Appmetrica and 24metrics Partnership Integration

AppMetrica + 24metrics Partnership Integration

What makes AppMetrica unique is its ability to merge data on user in-app experience and ad channel metrics. That means you can analyze installs and purchases for each channel and focus on the most efficient ones. You can detect channels with the highest LTV from the very beginning of the campaign. Accurate data and high quality reports via AppMetrica yield a better setup for growing your app.

Daniil Vostorgov, AppMetrica Product Owner:

“We realized that AppMetrica users can’t wait to have an anti-fraud tool within their MMP. After studying the market, we came up with 24metrics – a perfect solution to detect bad traffic sources. We developed a simple and efficient integration and are proud to present AppMetrica’s bundle with 24metrics – a cost-effective and affordable solution for keeping your analytics fraud-free”.

24metrics is the only solution provider on the market that offers impression, click and conversion screening in a single product. That makes AppMetrica + 24metrics integration the optimal solution for marketing and product analytics. You can also optimize your advertising campaigns via Appmetrica’s A/B tests, make personalized offers to your users via push notifications and manage your app’s stability by monitoring crаsh & error reports.

Sven Hezel – CEO of 24metrics

“This alliance underscores our dedication to protect advertisers from fraudulent tactics in the mobile app market allowing advertisers a clearer vision of their marketing ROI.

Through our collaboration with AppMetrica, we leverage their vast mobile analytics network to expand our market presence.”

You can get started with AppMetrica for free: standard reports and basic events are unlimited. The basic free functionality includes A/B tests with 2 simultaneous testing modes. You also get configuration of up to 100 flags at the same time, in-app subscription tracking, tracking for basic events, revenue reports, all standard reports and API access.

For companies that need more custom data and advanced functionality, AppMetrica has custom plans and new features that will help drive your mobile app’s metrics skyward.

Every new AppMetrica client receives a free 250k Conversion Scan from 24metrics. Use the promo code AppMetrica250.