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A Marketer’s Guide: How to Build an Effective Programmatic Ad Fraud Free Campaign

With brands shifting a large amount of their budgets to digital platforms, programmatic advertising plays a crucial role in how brands optimize their budget at each stage of the funnel. 

The programmatic advertising market in India is still considered to be at a nascent stage; however, it has taken a steep curve and is not going to stop. 

According to the Dentsu-e4m Digital Report 2025, programmatic advertising contributed 

₹20,c8c crore, accounting for 42% of India’s digital media expenditure by the end of 2024, reflecting a 21% growth over 2023. The report further projects this momentum will continue, with programmatic expected to represent 44% (₹30,405 crore) of the digital advertising market by 202c, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.24%. 

With the power to automate media buying and provide real-time data, programmatic campaigns offer unmatched scalability and precision. But with great opportunity comes significant risk. If not handled carefully, programmatic campaigns can fall prey to inefficiencies and ad fraud, draining budgets and damaging brand reputation. 

This article will guide you through the fundamentals of programmatic advertising, key strategies for success, and how to safeguard your campaigns from programmatic ad fraud. Whether you’re a marketer, advertiser, or decision-maker, this comprehensive guide will help you run campaigns that are both effective and safe. 

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Why You Need to Protect Your Brand on Social Media?

On social media, brand protection goes beyond just brand monitoring. It is essential for a brand to ensure that its assets are being used properly by affiliate partners and to identify any misuse of its brand name or logo. So, when your social media accounts and presence are abused, your brand becomes a tool for any risks with your customers via links claiming to be from the company, compromising your brand integrity. This happens because these social media profiles might imitate the brand, posing a direct danger to your business. As a result, if your brand is abused on social media and used for phishing attacks, your products and services become less appealing to potential customers, and you lose their trust.  

 Social Media Protection in USA ,  Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India. click here to read more : Why You Need to Protect Your Brand on Social Media?

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Pop-Under Fraud: The Hidden Leak in Your Ad Budgets

Pop-under fraud is a deceptive advertising practice where fraudulent ads appear behind the main browser window. These ads generate fake clicks and attract low-intent users who have little to no engagement with the website.

Key Signs of Pop-Under Fraud:

High impressions but low engagement (no clicks or conversions).

Traffic spikes from low-quality placements or unknown publishers.

Ads appearing in hidden windows or background tabs.

Sudden rise in bounce rates and bot-like activity.

Pop-unders can be further exploited for cookie stuffing, allowing unauthorized tracking without the user’s knowledge. This also raises brand safety concerns when the pop-under displays content unrelated to the user’s intent or triggers without any direct user action, such as a click.  We recently analyzed a campaign where pop-under traffic was unusually high, with most users coming from odd screen resolutions, a clear mismatch compared to the organic traffic trend.

Pop-Under Fraud in USA , Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India.

click here to read more : Pop-Under Fraud: The Hidden Leak in Your Ad Budgets

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Affiliate & Incent Fraud In MENA: Are Your Marketing Dollars At Risk?

Affiliate marketing in the MENA region is growing exponentially as a result of the region’s growing digital connectivity and e-commerce environment. As brands and advertisers realize the effectiveness of affiliate campaigns in driving ROI and engaging with digital-savvy consumers, they are investing more in it to reach wider audiences and increase app downloads.

According to Cognitive Market Research, the global affiliate market size was estimated at USD 18,512.2 million, out of which the Middle East and Africa region held a significant share of around 2% of the global revenue, with a market size of USD 370.24 million in 2024. The region is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.7% from 2024 to 2031.

But with this growth comes greater risk. As the affiliate ecosystem scales rapidly, so do opportunities for fraudsters to manipulate metrics and quietly drain your ad budgets.

On the surface, your campaigns could be performing great, with installs pouring in, but when you dig deeper, user engagement is weak, uninstall rates are high, and your conversions don’t quite match the traffic volume.

This could be a sign of incent fraud and other app install fraud activities, which affiliates often use to drive fraudulent traffic to their app campaigns.

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What Happens When You Eliminate Click Spamming – Know With Proof?

Ever celebrated a spike in installs, only to realize no one’s using your app? 

You’re not alone. For every marketer chasing performance metrics, there’s a nagging truth: not all installs are created equal. In fact, a growing chunk of them might be fake, incentivized, or just plain useless. 

According to our analysis, there has been a significant rise in ad fraud in apps at each level of the funnel, the highest being at the install stage. There are various sophisticated methods used by fraudsters to manipulate app installs. This includes junk installs, click spamming, and affiliate fraud—all quietly inflating your numbers while your actual ROI flatlines.  

Kuku FM, one of India’s fastest-growing audio platforms, ran headfirst into this challenge. Massive install numbers. Minimal post-install activity. Skyrocketing costs with little to show for it.  

But they didn’t just accept it. They fought back with the right partner and the right data. 

This is the story of how Kuku FM turned fake installs into real engagement, leveraging a mobile ad fraud detection tool with their current tech stack, and reclaimed their growth narrative. 

Click Spamming in USA , Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India.

Click here to read more:

What Happens When You Eliminate Click Spamming – Know With Proof?

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Ad Fraud on Performance Programmatic Platforms? Need For Protection at Impression Level

The Myth of Fraud-Free Performance Programmatic Platforms

With the sophisticated technology behind performance programmatic advertising, these platforms are propagated to be fraud-free. This misconception arises from the belief that advanced algorithms and data-driven strategies can fully protect against fraudulent activities.

However, fraudulent activities such as click fraud, impression fraud, and fake installs continue to plague the programmatic advertising ecosystem. Fraudsters constantly evolve their tactics to exploit system vulnerabilities.

Many programmatic platforms claim to have robust ad fraud detection solution mechanisms, but these measures often fall short in practice. That’s where a third-party independent validator is needed. The sheer volume of transactions and the complexity create numerous opportunities for invalid traffic to slip through the cracks. Ad Fraud in USA , Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India. Click here to read more:

Ad Fraud on Performance Programmatic Platforms? Need For Protection at Impression Level

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Affiliate & Incent Fraud In MENA: Are Your Marketing Dollars At Risk?

Affiliate marketing in the MENA region is growing exponentially as a result of the region’s growing digital connectivity and e-commerce environment. As brands and advertisers realize the effectiveness of affiliate campaigns in driving ROI and engaging with digital-savvy consumers, they are investing more in it to reach wider audiences and increase app downloads.

According to Cognitive Market Research, the global affiliate market size was estimated at USD 18,512.2 million, out of which the Middle East and Africa region held a significant share of around 2% of the global revenue, with a market size of USD 370.24 million in 2024. The region is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.7% from 2024 to 2031.

But with this growth comes greater risk. As the affiliate ecosystem scales rapidly, so do opportunities for fraudsters to manipulate metrics and quietly drain your ad budgets.

On the surface, your campaigns could be performing great, with installs pouring in, but when you dig deeper, user engagement is weak, uninstall rates are high, and your conversions don’t quite match the traffic volume.

This could be a sign of incent fraud and other app install fraud activities, which affiliates often use to drive fraudulent traffic to their app campaigns.

This discrepancy raises a critical question: Are you truly paying for performance, or are you being misled by fraudulent metrics?

Incent Fraud in USA , Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India.

click here to read more : Affiliate & Incent Fraud In MENA: Are Your Marketing Dollars At Risk?

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Is Your Fintech App Marketing Losing Money to Affiliate Fraud? Here’s What You Need to Know

Why Affiliate Programs Matter for Fintech Lending App Marketers?

Fintech lending apps offer instant credit solutions, personal loans, and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) options to millions of users. With an extensive range of services, these apps rely heavily on affiliate marketing programs as one of the primary acquisition channels to achieve rapid user growth in a highly competitive environment.

Affiliate marketing enables fintech apps to partner with third-party publishers, influencers, and ad networks who promote the app through their owned assets like websites, social media, etc. These programs typically operate on Cost Per Install (CPI) or Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) models, where affiliates are rewarded only when a specific user action, like an app install or registration, is completed. This performance-driven approach makes affiliate marketing an attractive, scalable, and seemingly low-risk strategy for customer acquisition.

To maximize reach and conversion, fintech lending apps frequently run targeted campaigns such as:

· Referral-based promotions with sign-up bonuses for both parties

· Cashback offers upon completing the first transaction or loan disbursal

· Limited-time loan offers marketed through affiliate push channels

· Influencer-driven traffic from content creators in personal finance and credit niches

Therefore, this channel demands substantial investment. According to Juniper Research, the average CPI for fintech apps ranges from $2.50 to $6.00, reflecting the high cost of acquiring quality users.

With large-scale campaigns often spanning multiple geographies, fintech advertisers end up spending millions monthly on affiliate-driven traffic, making them a prime target for sophisticated affiliate fraud schemes that exploit these high-payout campaigns.

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Contextual Ads: Find the perfect Ad placements with AI-ML powered contextual relevancy checks

The challenge isn’t just about reaching an audience — it’s about reaching the right audience in the right context. It’s about ensuring ads are placed in settings that resonate with users and amplify engagement. Contextual advertising offers a powerful way to do this leveraging AI and machine learning (ML) to elevate contextual ad targeting to new heights. It allows highly relevant and brand-safe ad placements that are strategically aligned with brand goals.

Contextual Ad Targeting with AI–ML

Context Matters! Users today are more receptive to ads that fit seamlessly into the content. They engage with relevant placements while irrelevant placements can feel intrusive. Contextual relevancy ensures that an ad appears alongside content that complements the ad’s message.

With AI-ML-powered contextual targeting, brands can go beyond basic keyword matching to place ads at relevant spots and engage seamlessly across web, video, OTT, or social media platforms.

Ensure the placement aligns with brand campaign goals and is contextually relevant for the audience covering multiple aspects to ensure relevancy.

Keyword search with contextual understanding: Discover optimal ad placements across digital platforms. AI-ML-powered tools help ensure that each ad appears in a relevant context and reaches an audience more likely to engage. Contextual targeting AI goes deep into page content, identifying keywords, themes, and semantics to ensure the ad aligns well with the page’s overall subject matter. That’s where text analysis isn’t enough without contextual understanding evaluating the meaning and sentiment behind keywords to ensure the ad placement fits with the page’s context.

Contextual Ads in USA, UAE, India, Saudi Arabia

Click here to read more: Contextual Ads Find the perfect Ad Placements with AI-ML powered contextual relevency checks.

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How Top Brands Are Winning with Programmatic Advertising

In this competitive digital environment, brand messaging reaching the right audience at the right place has become imperative. To boost the brand’s success rate, programmatic advertising is the best way to ensure high accuracy and high turnover in depth. In 2023, programmatic advertisements accounted for 90% of the total ad spending. However, the big question is how brands and businesses are leveling it up to remain relevant in the market. Let’s discuss how programmatic advertising can be used the right way by implementing the right strategies.

Why Brands are Embracing Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising has transformed the way brands interact with their target audiences by automating the buying and placement of ads with the help of powerful algorithms that provide precision, efficiency, and scalability. to increase the success rate which is lacking in traditional advertising.

Precise Targeting: Using precise targeting in programmatic ad marketers use data to identify target audiences. It allows brands to send modified messages based on demographics, activities, and even real-time intent.

Real-Time Optimization: Programmatic campaigns help in delivering real-time analytics, allowing brands to monitor performance and adjust the campaign according to their need. This enables marketers to optimize ad creatives, placements, and budgets in real-time, resulting in better results.

Scalability Across Platforms: Programmatic advertising connects people to a wide range of platforms, including social media and display networks, as well as connected TV and audio streaming services. This enables marketers to maintain the presence across several touchpoints without having any extra burden on managing individual channels separately.

Cost Efficiency: Traditional processes of buying and placement of ads can be time-consuming as they require negotiations and manual adjustments. With programmatic systems marketers can process millions of transactions in milliseconds, enabling brands to swiftly launch and adjust campaigns to close potential opportunities.

Programmatic Advertising in USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, India.

Click here to read more: How top brands are winning with programmatic advertising.

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What Happens When You Eliminate Click Spamming – Know With Proof?

Ever celebrated a spike in installs, only to realize no one’s using your app? 

You’re not alone. For every marketer chasing performance metrics, there’s a nagging truth: not all installs are created equal. In fact, a growing chunk of them might be fake, incentivized, or just plain useless. 

According to our analysis, there has been a significant rise in ad fraud in apps at each level of the funnel, the highest being at the install stage. There are various sophisticated methods used by fraudsters to manipulate app installs. This includes junk installs, click spamming, and affiliate fraud—all quietly inflating your numbers while your actual ROI flatlines.  

Kuku FM, one of India’s fastest-growing audio platforms, ran headfirst into this challenge. Massive install numbers. Minimal post-install activity. Skyrocketing costs with little to show for it.  

But they didn’t just accept it. They fought back with the right partner and the right data. 

The Growth Ambition vs. Ground Reality 

Kuku FM had one goal: grow fast and grow big. With a rich library of audiobooks, podcasts, and audio courses, the stage was set. So the marketing team did what any growth-hungry team would do—they fired up the ad engines and watched the installs roll in. And roll in they did. Like, a lot. 

At first, it felt like a win. The charts were climbing. Campaigns looked like they were crushing it. High fives all around. 

But then… nothing.

Users weren’t sticking. They weren’t signing up, subscribing, or even poking around the app. It was like throwing a party and no one showed up—except a bunch of bots and bounty hunters chasing rewards. 

Digging deeper, the red flags started waving. Installs were pouring in from shady APK sources. Click counts were exploding, but actual engagement? Flatlined. And a whole chunk of traffic came from “incent walls”—users downloading the app just to score a freebie, not because they cared about the content. 

Click Spamming in USA, UAE, Saudi, India

Click here to read more: What happens When You Eliminate Click Spamming-Know the Proof.

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Brand Safety Solution

Brand safety is non-negotiable in today's digital advertising landscape. mFilterIt’s advanced Brand Safety solutions empower advertisers and marketers to protect their brand reputation from harmful, inappropriate, and non-contextual placements, maintaining brand relevancy. Leveraging AI-driven context analysis, real-time monitoring, and sentiment detection, mFilterIt ensures your ads appear in environments that align with your brand values. Our tool safeguards your media investments against fraud, fake news, hate speech, and other brand-damaging content across channels -  programmatic, display, video, or social media. With granular visibility and actionable insights, mFilterIt goes beyond traditional brand safety metrics, giving you the control to define, monitor, and enforce your unique brand standards globally. Stay ahead of reputational risks and ensure that every impression reflects trust and authenticity. Choose mFilterIt to build consumer confidence and maximize campaign performance - securely and responsibly.

Brand Safety Solution in USA , Saudi Arabia , United Arab Emirates , India.

click here to read more : Brand Safety Solution

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Ad Fraud Detection

Combat ad fraud with precision using mFilterIt’s advanced Ad Fraud solution - Valid8. Designed for brands, agencies, and publishers, our solution offers real-time protection against invalid traffic (IVT), bots, click fraud, and impression fraud across mobile, web, and CTV environments. With full-funnel coverage, we ensure every marketing dollar is spent on genuine user engagement, not fraudulent activity. Backed by proprietary AI and ML models and various fraud detection parameters, we provide transparent reporting and actionable insights to optimize campaign performance. Our solution can seamlessly integrate across all ad channels to protect brand ROI. From identifying sophisticated bots to filtering malicious sources before damage occurs, mFilterIt empowers you to stay ahead of evolving fraud tactics. Trust Valid8 to safeguard your ad spends and enhance campaign integrity in a complex digital ecosystem.

Ad Fraud Detection in USA , Saudi Arabia , United Arab Emirates , India.

click here to read more ; Ad Fraud Detection

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Smart Marketer’s Guide to Combating Brand Bidding Violations during Peak Sale Season

Every time your top-of-funnel campaigns drive branded search traffic, affiliates and ad networks are watching. Some quietly bid on your brand name, intercept clicks meant for your site, and take credit for conversions they didn’t create. You pay once to generate the intent. Then again, as a commission on your traffic.

During high-demand seasons, this problem scales fast. CPCs rise, ROAS drops, and budget burns faster than it should. Most marketers chalk it up to increased competition. But the real threat is invisible: brand bidding by partners you’re already working with.

Why High-Demand Seasons Invite Brand Bidding

Top-of-funnel campaigns aren’t just good at driving awareness. They spike branded search queries. As performance teams push seasonal offers through social ads, influencer drops, or email blasts, users start googling the brand directly. That’s the window affiliates and ad networks wait for.

They target your brand name because these aren’t rivals or fakes. They’re your own affiliate partners, coupon sites, or arbitrage platforms.

Here’s how it happens:

· Coupon aggregators bid on your brand plus terms like “discount” or “promo” to catch deal-hunters. Even if you don’t work with them directly, many ride through indirect affiliate links.

· Automated bidding tools used by partner platforms use dynamic scripts to spot trending queries — your brand being one of them during a big campaign.

Brand Bidding in USA, UAE, India, Saudi Arabia.

Click here to read more: Smart Marketer’s Guide to Combating Brand Bidding Violations during Peak Sale Season

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Essential Signs to Detect Affiliate Fraud 

Affiliate marketing presents a lucrative opportunity for brands and publishers alike. That’s perhaps why the industry has grown at such an incredible pace, being valued at $17 billion, according to an affiliate marketing survey.

In a survey, 20% of marketers reported sales through their affiliate programs as their biggest source of revenue. The story of publishers and content creators is a similar one, with 31% reporting affiliate income as their biggest source of income.

Considering how valuable affiliate marketing is for all involved parties, it is no surprise that the space is now infested with scammers and fraudsters. Affiliate marketing fraud is one of the most prevalent forms of ad fraud. Some experts estimate that nearly 17% of all clicks on affiliate offers are fraudulent. This number translates to billions of advertising dollars lost to affiliate marketing scams.

This also means that marketers who use affiliate programs to make sales must fend for themselves and employ affiliate monitoring methods to ensure they are not losing their marketing budget to fraud. However, before you can effectively monitor affiliates and be sure that you have prevented yourself from falling victim to fraud, you must first understand affiliate fraud in depth. That’s exactly where this article will help.

In the upcoming section, you will learn everything you need to, to protect yourself and your affiliate programs from fraud. Let’s start with the necessary basics.

Affiliate Fraud in India, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia.

Click here to read more: Essential Signs to Detect Affiliate Fraud

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Apps Running on Incent Walls: A Hidden Risk for Advertisers

Imagine that you onboard affiliates to market your newly launched app. They commit performance, and you start seeing thousands of new installs overnight. You’re at peace that you’re getting a good return out of your marketing investments.

But within a few days, the users start uninstalling your app, engagement drops to near zero and you’re at the same spot where you were on Day 1. Are you thinking what went wrong?

The answer could lie in Incent walls.

A deceptive method used by affiliates to deceive advertisers into thinking their app campaigns are performing. Here users install apps only to earn rewards, not because they genuinely care about the app itself. While this tactic might appear to boost performance metrics, it creates a dangerous illusion of success, leaving advertisers with inflated numbers but little real value.

In this blog, we’ll uncover the risks of incent fraud, how fraudsters manipulate soft KPIs using incentivized traffic, and, most importantly, how advertisers can protect themselves from wasted budgets and misleading campaign results.

Incent Fraud in India, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia.

Click here to read more: Apps Running on Incent Walls: A Hidden Risk for Advertisers

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The Hidden Cost of Instinct: How Ecommerce Pricing Intelligence Drives Smarter Decisions

Most brands are still pricing based on instinct, internal costs, or outdated competitor scans. And it’s costing them, sometimes without them knowing. A 5 percent gap in your average selling price compared to the market can quietly bleed revenue week after week. Miss a category-wide discounting trend by even a few days, and you’re left reacting while others are gaining share.

Winning on price today isn’t about dropping rates. It’s about knowing exactly where you stand — by SKU, by platform, by geography — and acting before competitors force your hand. Without that visibility, pricing becomes reactive, inconsistent, and risky.

This article breaks down what marketers miss without doing an in-depth pricing analysis and how to fix it with real-time data.

Most brands are still pricing based on instinct, internal costs, or outdated competitor scans. And it’s costing them, sometimes without them knowing. A 5 percent gap in your average selling price compared to the market can quietly bleed revenue week after week. Miss a category-wide discounting trend by even a few days, and you’re left reacting while others are gaining share.

Winning on price today isn’t about dropping rates. It’s about knowing exactly where you stand — by SKU, by platform, by geography — and acting before competitors force your hand. Without that visibility, pricing becomes reactive, inconsistent, and risky.

This article breaks down what marketers miss without doing an in-depth pricing analysis and how to fix it with real-time data.

The Hidden Risks of Operating with Pricing Blind Spots

Here are the risks that arise when you don’t have full visibility into their pricing environment and competitors’ moves:

1. Limited Visibility into Average Selling Prices (ASPs)

Without tracking ASPs across marketplaces, brands risk flying blind. A price that seems competitive internally can be completely off when placed next to real-time market dynamics.

Take this example. Your brand launches a product at $50, feeling confident in its positioning. However, the ASP for similar products across key platforms has quietly dropped to $42. Without that visibility, your brand unknowingly overpriced itself, losing both traffic and conversions. Pricing too low can hurt just as much, eroding margins without gaining meaningful volume.

2. Discounting Trends That Quietly Erode Margins

Competitor discounts don’t always show up in obvious ways. Flash sales, time-limited offers, and bundle pricing often fly under the radar, but their impact adds up. If you’re only tracking list prices, you’re missing the real picture.

Say a competitor has been quietly running 10% discounts every weekend. On paper, their list price matches yours. But their actual selling price is lower, and you’re unknowingly losing share — or worse, matching that price later and cutting into your own margins just to keep up.

Pricing Intelligence in USA, India, Saudi Arabia, Dubai.

Click here to read more: The Hidden Cost of Instinct: How Ecommerce Pricing Intelligence Drives Smarter Decisions