In festive season, fraud app installations touch new high: Study

 Advertising frauds are not limited to apps and their numbers and usage

In October, installation frauds of e-commerce apps in the peak sale season accounted for half of the total downloads according to a study by the filter, a global digital ad and fraud detection, and protection company based in India.

The company handles sites accounting for over 50 percent of the country’s e-commerce customers which include top global players.

The share of app installation frauds – in which cheap human labor or automated tools are used to make fake installs that are never opened for use - hit 51 percent in October. The average between April to November 14th was 47 percent.

Even frauds involving keeping an app open and putting some products in a cart or removing them (but in which no transaction takes place) accounted for 63 percent of all downloads in October compared to an average of 56 percent.

These findings have serious repercussions for business because the number of app downloads – apart from active users - is considered to be one criterion for valuing and investing in a start-up. Fraudsters who indulge in this make significant income from advertisers.

However, established e-commerce players spend huge amounts by increasing their ad and sales budgets for performance marketing during these peak seasons which goes to waste as it does not bring in real consumers.

Amit Relan, co-founder and director in mFilterIt, said that during the festive season, a brand has a short serviceable window where almost 45 percent of the ad budgets are deployed to gain more than 50 percent of the yearly sales which leaves no room for correction.

“Brands need to strike a balance between optimization of ad spends and brand protection to insulate themselves from the bad actions plaguing the digital ecosystem,” said Relan.