Event Diary: InMobi InDecode - Decoding Mobile Fraud Jakarta 2017

InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the InMobi InDecode workshop held on “Decoding Mobile Fraud” in Jakarta, Indonesia.

While marketers are aware of the threat that ad fraud poses, building an advanced understanding of fraud and PREVENTING it, is quite the road less taken. Decoding Mobile fraud aimed to help advertisers understand the evolving nature of mobile ad fraud, safeguard and protect valuable budgets, and more importantly, be the guiding light for marketers to ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS!

Presenting insights from InMobi’s research on fraud were Krishnendu Majumdar, SVP & Global Head, Products - Performance Advertising and Praveen Rajaretnam, Product Marketing Manager at InMobi. Following it up, Rishi Bedi, Head - Performance Advertising, APAC hosted Haikal Bekti Anggoro, Head, Online Marketing at Lazada, Indonesia for a fireside chat on the role of advertisers and the future of the anti-fraud crusade.

Advancements in Mobile = Advancements in Ad Fraud

As mobile technology evolves to create value for advertisers with advanced targeting capabilities, high customization and precise measurement, the mobile ecosystem continues to be threatened by an ever-expanding and evolving web of ad fraud. The fraudsters of yore have evolved to be able to mimic post-install user behavior than merely simulate click-behavior. App-install campaigns are largely affected by two types of fraud:

1. Stolen Organics: Fraud where the advertiser’s organic installs are stolen through means of click spamming or ad stacking, and
2. Misattribution: Fraud where a network’s installs/events are stolen through click injection or click sniping

The Fallacy of Detection

85% of all fraud happens way upstream in the ad lifecycle - before the app install. As sophisticated and complex fraud mechanisms take over, marketers are still reliant on downstream metrics and associated reactive measures to tackle fraud. Even worse, downstream metrics such as Mean Time Taken to Install (MTTI) are inconsistent and can vary according to app size, app category and the country. A 10 MB app would have a lower MTTI than a 100 MB app, MTTI for a retail app would be very different from that of a gaming app and the network speeds in Singapore and Indonesia will definitely affect the download time of an app.

Driving Prevention - Adopting Upstream Indicators

Measuring full-funnel metrics that identify fraud at each touchpoint in the ad lifecycle - from the time a publisher is on-boarded to app install, is the need of the hour. Mobile users are exposed to a multitude of ads on a daily basis, and are prone to become ad blind beyond 15-30 ads. Similarly, a network driving an install every 200-300 clicks is without doubt ‘suspicious.’ Hence, upstream touch points such as IMPRESSIONS and CLICKS are the strongest combinative indicators of fraud.

Measured as Mean Clicks to Install (MCTI), MCTI is defined as the number of clicks required by an ad network to drive an install from a specific user. Similarly, Mean Impressions to Install (MMTI) is defined as the number of impressions required to drive an install from a specific user. As part of the InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework, each point upstream - right from the time of publisher onboarding to the install event, is scrutinized for fraudulent activity.

Haikal, guest speaker for the day, stressed upon the need for such frameworks to analyze tons of data across platforms. As an advertiser, Haikal quipped, the way forward is to build such frameworks and leverage it across the ecosystem.

Building your 2018 Anti-Fraud Strategy

Most advertisers or networks today implement anti-fraud measures as an afterthought, merely reacting to the threat with a goal to minimise impact. Marketers should aim to invest in identifying fraud through a combination of upstream and downstream indicators, thereby preventing fraudsters from getting deeply entrenched into campaigns. Marketers can build their 2018 Anti-Fraud strategy by adopting the InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework.

To know more about the InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework and how you can make the most out of it, write to praveen.rajaretnam@inmobi.com or sign-up below.

InMobi InDecode is a series of workshops that brings together technology and industry experts to share, debate and discuss the latest trends in the mobile industry.