What is mobile ad fraud? 

Mobile ad fraud is a criminal attempt to exploit mobile advertising systems by defrauding advertisers, publishers, or their supply partners. The goal of committing mobile ad fraud is to steal from mobile advertising budgets.

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Mobile ad fraud examples

There are different techniques fraudsters use to commit fraud, including: 

• Click spam. Artificially inflating click-through rates through repetitive clicking. 
• SDK spoofing. Manipulating SDKs to generate fake interactions in apps. 
• Click injection.  Triggering ad clicks to claim credit for app installs. 
• Fake app installs. Boosting app download numbers through bots or other methods. 

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How to prevent mobile ad fraud

Mobile ad fraud can be detected and prevented in many ways. The most important step is to continuously monitor ad campaigns for signs of fraud like abnormally high CTRs, conversions, and install rates. Different ad networks and ad formats have different levels of ad fraud.