How to Choose an Antifraud Tool

Let’s start with some statistics: according to international forecasts, global ad fraud might cost advertisers at least $150 billion by 2025. Ad fraud is here, it’s real, and it’s a part of the global online advertising environment. There are fewer and fewer opportunities for companies to operate without any kind of protection against fraud, or without a deeper understanding of the issue.

Only one in five advertisers acknowledges the problem of fraudulent traffic and deals with it directly with some antifraud tools. Some advertisers are so afraid of fraud that they stop working with a source the moment ad fraud is detected. But the issue of malicious traffic and protection against it is way more complex.

So FraudScore has decided to dig deeper and explain how to select a provider of an antifraud tool, why it is important to research a developer, and why it is recommended to work with independent solution providers.

Do I Really Need an Antifraud?

We all know that when it comes to ad traffic demand and supply, there is always an issue of good traffic quality. Good traffic meets the requirements of an advertiser, and the campaign’s statistics are booming:

● only real events (and users) are paid for;

● campaign’s statistics is real, all the insights and outcomes are true;

● future campaigns are planned based on real data, and trust between partners is strong. Everybody is happy =)

But what if, in reality, the picture is not as bright as it seems? Fraud infiltrates good sources and damages campaigns’ results. Even if at the moment the statistics are showing great achievements, it doesn’t mean that real users are reached by the ad.

According to FraudScore’s statistics for 2021, 31.8% of global online ad traffic was fraudulent. So it’s as simple as that: if you are working with online campaigns and traffic buying, you do need an antifraud tool. But how do you know which solution to go with, and how do you know your business partners can be trusted?

Go For an Independent Solution

When you are looking for a solution to protect your business and reputation, you definitely don’t want to be blind-sided when making a decision.

FraudScore offers you a detailed explanation of why it is important to work with an independent solution provider. You can use it as a checklist to verify the integrity of your current solution, or to check the new one:

● Non-biased results of traffic quality analysis. An independent solution, like FraudScore, doesn’t take anyone’s side when it comes to traffic quality. FraudScore performs fraud detection and reports on every fraudulent activity that has been discovered. It doesn’t matter whether the client of FraudScore is an advertiser, an agency, a marketing platform, etc. FraudScore has one simple but sophisticated task: detecting malicious traffic, and reporting it (or preventing/blocking it, depending on the product that a client is using).

● An independent antifraud solution has been developed by one independent company. What does it mean? It denotes that the developer is the sole proprietor and is not associated with any other company in the industry. It’s very common when an antifraud tool is developed under one separate brand, but the company is a part of a big conglomerate, or an alliance with an agency, or a DSP, or a marketing platform. It’s hard to provide independent decisions if your parent company is interested in providing good traffic, and it’s more convenient for you to detect less ad fraud.

● Data security. To illustrate, imagine that you are an ad network or an affiliate marketing platform. Your traffic sources and combinations of creatives are crucial for success. It’s vital information, top-secret, and it cannot be disclosed to competitors. But when an antifraud tool that you are using is developed under the parent company of your competitor (i.e., another ad network), your data can be mysteriously leaked. An antifraud tool has access to all the campaigns and their parameters and settings. And if an antifraud tool provider is “related” to another ad network, then how can you be sure that your commercial data is safe?

● Founders and C-level managers are not affiliated with any other company in the ad industry. The same goes for CEO’s and top management. When a CEO is a partner in both — a marketing platform and an antifraud tool that checks that traffic for ad fraud — how can an advertiser be sure that the results are real?

● Results of traffic quality analysis must be recognized by the industry players. There are always two or three sides to the conflict when ad fraud is detected — an advertiser, a platform, and traffic sources (or others, depending on the situation). All three have to respond to the detected ad fraud accusations, and it’s highly recommended to have traffic quality analysis done by someone with a trustworthy reputation, and reliable technology.

Take smart steps, and choose wisely

● Do a little research — search for the information about antifraud solution providers: history, parent companies and headquarters, founders, etc.

● Read the reviews and check who gave those reviews — real clients and real reviews are the best evaluation of the solution.

● Use LinkedIn — check for the connections and job history of the developers of the solution.

● Talk to the solution development team — you can simply learn about the story of the solution by talking to the developers, and learning their story.

● Ask for a trial of the system — you need to check the abilities of a tool and learn more about the options. Moreover, a trial will help you compare different tools and their results on the same traffic.

In conclusion, let’s say it again: trust and transparency are key. Online advertising is becoming a standard, and more and more businesses are seeing online ads as the easiest and most efficient way of promotion. According to WARC, advertisers are about to spend more than one trillion dollars on online ads up to the end of 2025.

The more money goes to the industry, the more lucrative it becomes for fraudsters and the more dangers appear every year. And we believe that transparency and reliable fraud detection technologies can only benefit the development of the industry.

If you want to learn more about FraudScore, you can check some cool features of our solution here, or read a couple of our case studies: with ActionPay CPA Network, or with 101XP Mobile Developer, or read the story of our co-founders.

And there is always a free trial of the system. Register here and you’ll get 14 days to test all the options that FraudScore has to offer. Or contact us at sales@fraudscore.mobi and let’s talk about your business goals.