Controlling Mobile Advertising Fraud in India

Mobile advertising fraud is highest in India and Indonesia, and in terms of app categories, most frequent in the entertainment and news apps.

The issue of Advertising fraud is estimated tobe to the tune of $16.4 billion in 2017. Needless to say, with that huge a sum of money going down the drain, it is a cause of worry for majority of advertisers.

According to a study done byAppLift, India and Indonesia have the highest amount of fraud at 31.29% and 21.23% respectively. A part of the reason could be that both of these markets are still at a nascent stage, compared to the more developed markets.

An interesting point to note is that contrary to popular belief regarding the safety of different Operating systems– both Android and ios are equally unprotected from fraud. Still, there is a strong variation in the quantum of impression fraud between app categories. Entertainment and news apps see the most significant impression fraud on real-time bidding (RTB) at 22% each, followed by education apps (21%) and finance apps (17%).





Fraud occurs in many forms and patterns. Fraud can be linked to attribution, or to installs. Let’s explain this with an example – running an incent based campaign isn’t fraud, when the advertiser has agreed to it, however, when the network sends incentivized traffic to deliver a non- incent campaign, it is considered fraud, because more often than not, it will lead to poor quality of traffic, which means lower retention, which increases the cumulative cost of acquisition


There are several fraud detection measures to be explored. For example, delivery time pattern evaluation is one of the many ways to detect fraud. Hypothetically speaking, if majority of installs that are required to be delivered in a campaign are being achieved within the first 5 minutes of the click and the install time is less than 40 seconds, it is in all likelihood a fraudulent activity.

However, to be able to detect it, some investment both in technology and data is required. At the Friday code, we have created the following model to help our clients understand the various levels of fraud.


To control mobile ad fraud, it is important for the advertiser to know the root cause, so that he can take appropriate measures to combat it

However, to be able to detect it, some investment both in technology and data is required. At the Friday code, we have created the following model to help our clients understand the various levels of fraud.

It is to solve this need of advertisers, that we, at the Friday code have developed ourproprietary tracking tool, clock, which can unravel complicated patterns and help advertisers understand, detect and block fraud at every level of the campaign, and thereby increase the efficiency of their spends

Ad exchanges, ad networks, intermediaries, publishers, and everyone in the ecosystem has a huge role to play in fighting this together and mitigating this completely.

An interesting point to note is that contrary to popular belief regarding the safety of different Operating systems– both Android and ios are equally unprotected from fraud.