Why should you leverage affiliate marketing? Detecting and avoiding hidden ad fraud risks – from Experts’ perspectives

CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Himanshu Nagrecha, Vice President, South Asia & India, TrafficGuard 

1. What is TrafficGuard & how does it help prevent ad fraud/ Services & offerings etc

Answer: Digital ad fraud is estimated to reach $100 billion in 2023, which not only affects ad spend but also causes opportunity costs associated with misdirected ad spend, data pollution, and wasted time. Traditional anti-fraud tools only detect ad fraud after it has occurred, which doesn’t address these indirect costs.

TrafficGuard is a global advertising verification company, helps advertisers to avoid wasted spend and unlock the best outcomes. We address all the impacts of ad fraud, protecting ad budgets as well as the integrity of performance data used for optimization. The platform designed by us verifies all ad engagements in real-time, offering prevention of both General Invalid Traffic (GIVT) and Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) across mobile and web advertising. Its full-funnel approach helps marketers to get the most reliable fraud prevention informed by the entire advertising journey, mitigate SIVT that evades early-stage detection, and placate Invalid Traffic (IVT) as early as possible, reducing wasted ad spend and misattribution among sources.

TrafficGuard helps to measure and verify several campaign types from CPM, CPC, CPI to CPA, across channels, giving marketers a unified view of performance without the influence of IVT. By virtue of its full-funnel coverage, we offer reliable IVT prevention, helping brands, mobile apps, ad networks, and agencies drive a 20-25% higher advertising ROI.

With its advanced prevention capabilities, TrafficGuard is a formidable solution for anyone looking to address digital ad fraud’s rising costs and negative impacts.

2. What are the strategies followed by Trafficguard to eliminate affiliate ad fraud?

Answer: Research shows over 80% of advertisers* are using affiliate marketing in their channel mix; it’s an extremely popular strategy for good reason. Big money is being exchanged in the world of affiliate marketing—great news for publishers and vendors alike. However, fraudsters too try to take a piece of these earnings. And affiliate networks are not immune from their attacks, quite the opposite…

With more money being spent on affiliate marketing, fraudsters and spammers follow.

On average, 25-35% of affiliate programs clicks are invalid which typically leads to between 15-20% of conversions being either fraudulent or misattribution. TrafficGuard’s Affiliate Ad Fraud Prevention follows a strategy of verifying advertisers’ affiliate activity to prevent misattribution caused by invalid traffic. With us, the brands will never reward an affiliate for a click delivered by a fraudster again, and they can enjoy complete trust in affiliate platforms’ advertising data.

Our full-funnel, multipoint solution measures the end-users engagement, intent, and propensity to convert to give them the most transparent view of their advertising activity, enabling the best possible return on ad spend.  The only way to fully detect and prevent ad fraud within affiliate programs is to take a full-funnel approach of not just looking at one point in isolation but taking click data, conversion data,, and behavioral data to ensure we are picking up all signals of potential fraud. For this reason, the platform integration is crucial as we need the click data and conversion data from the AMP and the site tag is crucial as we need to pick up signals of abnormal behavior on the landing page itself. This process then also allows the automation of the invalidation of conversions in the AMP, meaning advertisers can spend more time on growing revenue rather than manually correcting conversions that are then found to be fraudulent.

3. How does Trafficguard protect its customer & brand?

 Answer: By continuously strengthening its full-funnel approach powered by machine learning models using the intelligence gained from processing over 3 trillion data points a month, TrafficGuard enables:

• Cost-saving and growth: We see ad fraud draining almost 30% of every new client’s advertising spend. By mitigating these non-converting clicks and ensuring ads are only shown to relevant users, our clients can squeeze more potential from the same ad spend as before.
• Early-stage detection against IVT for PPC: TrafficGuard’s ability to track engagements beyond impressions enables it to mitigate SIVT, which evades early-stage detection. This protects the integrity of performance data in the face of increasingly sophisticated ad fraud. By gathering intelligence across the full advertising journey, TrafficGuard’s protection can also be applied to pre-bid optimization efforts, providing comprehensive protection for programmatic advertising.
• Mitigation of fraud as early as possible: Many other solutions to mobile ad fraud typically detect IVT after attribution. The problem with this approach is that the source has already been notified about the conversions and that positive signal can lead the advertiser to re-invest in this source, which is inflated by IVT. The TrafficGuard solution integrates with these third-party ad networks and prevents fraudulent clicks from going into mobile advertising campaigns. Detection is also run across all channels, with visibility across the advertising journey. TrafficGuard prevents invalid clicks before they reach the mobile measurement platform, significantly reducing misattribution by shrinking the pool of clicks eligible for attribution. Additionally, TrafficGuard also changes the attribution journey in real-time.
• Enhanced campaign transparency: unprecedented visibility enables informed decision-making to drive superior campaign results. Marketers are often running different types of advertising campaigns (CPM, CPC, CPI, and CPA) on various channels. Monitoring the entire advertising journey means TrafficGuard can verify any type of digital advertising campaign on any channel, giving marketers a unified view of performance without the influence of IVT.
• Instant quality control: utilizing a combination of anomaly, classification, and predictive machine learning algorithms enables us to analyze traffic and determine validity in real time.

4. What are some of the key trends in ad tech?

Answer: Several key trends in ad tech are shaping the industry and transforming the way advertisers reach and engage with their target audiences. Here are some of the most important trends:

• Personalization: The importance of personalization cannot be overstated. In the wake of the cookie limitation, brands/advertisers will need to rethink personalization
• Programmatic advertising: Programmatic advertising is a method of buying and selling ad inventory through an automated system. This approach allows advertisers to target specific audiences with precision and efficiency, resulting in improved ad performance and ROI.
• Data-driven advertising: Data has become a critical component of advertising, with advertisers using data to identify and target specific audience segments. This data includes demographic, psychographic, and behavioral information, which is used to create more personalized and relevant ads.
• Mobile advertising: With the rise of mobile devices, mobile advertising has become an essential component of any ad tech strategy. Mobile ads are designed to be visually appealing and highly interactive, making them an effective way to engage users on the go.
• Artificial intelligence: AI-powered ad tech solutions are becoming increasingly prevalent as they offer advertisers greater insights and efficiency in ad targeting and delivery. AI can help optimize ad campaigns, identify new audience segments, and personalize ad content to drive engagement and conversion.

Overall, the ad tech industry is constantly evolving, with new trends and innovations emerging perpetually. Advertisers who stay on top of these trends and adapt their strategies accordingly are likely to achieve greater success in reaching and engaging their target audiences.

5. What are some of the biggest challenges facing the ad tech industry?

Answer: The ad tech industry faces several challenges, including:

Ad fraud: Ad fraud remains a significant challenge for the industry, with fraudsters using increasingly sophisticated techniques to generate fake traffic and ad clicks.

Privacy concerns: The growing focus on data privacy and protection has made it more challenging for advertisers to gather and use data for targeted advertising.

Ad-blocking: The rise of ad-blocking software has made it harder for advertisers to reach their target audience as users become more adept at avoiding traditional ads.

Transparency: The lack of transparency in the ad tech industry, particularly around programmatic advertising, has created a level of distrust among advertisers and publishers.

Brand safety: With the increasing prevalence of fake news and hate speech online, advertisers must be vigilant to ensure their ads don’t appear next to inappropriate or offensive content.

Fragmentation: The ad tech ecosystem is highly fragmented, with a wide range of platforms, technologies, and vendors involved. This fragmentation can make it challenging for advertisers to manage and optimize their ad campaigns effectively.

Overall, these challenges require ongoing attention and innovation from the industry to ensure that ad tech continues to deliver value for advertisers and publishers alike while maintaining user trust and privacy.