Types of Ad Fraud

7 Types of Ad Fraud and How to Prevent or Stop Ad Fraud?

Ad frauds have many negative impacts on the website. Ad fraud is an activity by cyber fraudsters to manipulate the online advertising system and leads to false or misleading results. The dishonest practices aimed at the exploitation of the online advertising industry for financial gain, which impacts both advertisers and publishers. 

It is one of the biggest challenges in digital advertising and with the ad fraud as per speculation there is supposed to be a 100 billion loss in this industry in 2025. Magic-Shield comes as a boon for the same as through the cutting edge ad fraud prevention solution and the utilization of the new technology. MagicShield analyses every user coming on your website and apps with 100+ parameters in real time to create a secure and trusted advertising environment.

Types of Ad Fraud

Types of Ad FraudThere are the following types of ad fraud, Major points:

1. Pixel Stuffing

A technique which is used in computer graphic and image processing that modify the images is known as pixel stuffing. When more than one ad is placed into one single 1×1 pixel area. Fraudsters generally use these type of fraud in ad set up and make money on the impression of the ad from this kind of pixel. 

This is associated with ad fraud in the digital advertising context and you don’t even need to see the ad as it also gets counted as an impression that is viewed and it is repeated more than once in a single webpage. 

2. Ad Stacking

Pixel stuffing and Ad stacking can be used synonymously. Multiple ads can be  placed in the pixel stuffing which can be placed on the same area of the page. Ad stacking on the other hand involves the placement of the multiple ad that is unviewable ad. The users only get to see the ads that are on the top. 

3. Domain Spoofing

When you quirk your publisher or advertiser who has a premium domain and disguise your real URL for them that is called domain spoofing. This is a very serious concern and is proved as a threat and it lets the fraudster sell publishers for the ad space for their desired price but leave the publisher without revenue. 

Domain spoofing is a deceptive technique that is used by the fraudsters to exploit the advertisers place in the established website or an app. 

4. Ad Injection

When the ad is displayed on the publisher website without the permission then this is called ad injection. This type of ad fraud has a negative impact on the website of the publisher. 

5. Click Injection

Click injection is one of the types of mobile ad fraud. When the malicious app tries to manipulate the attribution of the advertising process by the injection of fake clicks for taking the credit for the legitimate installation. Therefore, click injection leads to bad performance of metrics and financial loss. 

6. Geo Masking

When a low quality traffic appears and seems to be of a high quality, it is being sold to the advertiser for a good price and this is called geo masking by the fraudster. This kind of traffic usually depends on the countries as well. This traffic from countries like Australia and USA has a higher CPM and CPC than the traffic from Tier 2 countries like India and Tier 3 countries like India.

7. Bot Fraud

A kind of AD fraud which is linked to bot traffic. This is non-human traffic which is generated on the website and application by the robots. Bot fraud is not safe for the publishers and brings out a significant risk as it clearly has an interference with the usage of the website and redirects to a malicious source. Therefore it turns out to be a complete danger for the website and it also might hide the website from the Google search label. 

How to Prevent Ad Fraud?

How to Prevent Ad FraudMagicShield gets the insights from the page ad and validates the conversions by acting as a one stop solution for the prevention of ad fraud.

  • Use Fraud Detection Service: The fraud service detection uses the advanced algorithm and the machine learning  that helps in identifying the block fraudulent activity in the real-time. 
  • Viewability Measurement: You may use the viewability measurement tool that clearly ensures ads are being actually viewed by the user and are not hidden or placed in a non visible area. 
  • Bot Detection And Filtering:  The bot detection technology filters out non human traffic. 
  • Using Anti-Malvertising Software: Anti malware software protects the page from performing bad and this prevents malware from real time attack. 
  • Working with a Trusted Monetization Platform: The trusted monetization helps to set up a strong anti malware solution and therefore protects your website with any upcoming threats. 

Conclusion

Ad frauds have got many negative impacts on the website that affects the publishers and the website. Different types of ad fraud brings in financial losses damaging your reputation and draining your resources. This also impacts the SEO in a negative way which also negatively impacts the experience for genuine users. Magicbid comes as a MagicShield for the investigation of ad fraud instantly and protects the ad spamming. Therefore, the publishers and website work together for the establishment of the industry standards and apply the best practices to combat ad fraud in a collective way.