With a rate of 62%, mobile ad fraud remains as one of the biggest challenges in India, says a recently released report by Mobile Marketing Association. A majority of marketers surveyed believe that ad fraud is only going to increase in the future. Nearly 95 percent of the respondents to the study feel that lack of penalties and transparency in industry regulations give rise to ad fraud
The report published in collaboration with a leading research firm Decision Lab, also highlights the rising and prevalent issues such as adware traffic, ad stacking, domain spoofing, that will help marketers understand organizational challenges and combination of various measures to tackle the problems effectively.
Moneka Khurana, country head, MMA India, said, "The awareness on ad fraud risks is very low with almost a fifth of the marketers being unclear of their ad fraud budget and majority of them believing that fraudulent activities will only increase."
"Brand safety on mobile is the biggest concern today and this benchmark report clearly demonstrates that this needs immediate addressal. Marketers will need to be extra cautious to attacks such as ad injections, data fraud, cookie stuffing, etc... Marketers must understand the potential of technologies such as Blockchain that can help solve issues related to fraud and create security and transparency in mobile marketing ecosystem," she added.
Indian marketers spend nearly 20 percent of their advertising budget on ad fraud and a whopping 90 percent of marketers feel that there is scope for improvement in ad fraud prevention methods.
Around 95 percent of respondents agreed that lack of data sharing and large number of middlemen are also a cause to ad fraud risks.
Among the major types of ad fraud in India cookie stuffing led the list with 74%, with adware traffic (65%), Data Fraud (61%), Ad Injection (54%) among other major frauds.
The study also exposed the low levels of awareness amongst marketers. Only 37 percent of respondents are aware of Blockchain and its application to fraud prevention.