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Glossary
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Ad Fraud
Ad fraud is a subset of invalid traffic that is generated with malicious intent. Perpetrators of ad fraud typically generate it in order to either sabotage the advertising efforts of another business or for financial gain. One example of ad fraud as a form of sabotage is when businesses… Read moreAd Stacking
Ad Stacking occurs when a fraudster layers or stacks multiple ads on top of one another so that only the top ad is visible to the user. When the user clicks the ad, they unknowingly click all the ads underneath the intended ad. Like Click Spamming, when the click’s fingerprint… Read moreApp Install Farms
App Install Farms use banks of physical devices to actually click on ads, download apps to devices, and then open them to trigger install events. The device ID is sometimes reset between app installs, making each install from the same device look like it is a new user. This tactic… Read moreAd injection
Perpetrated by a user downloaded browser extension or plugin, ad injection is the technique of inserting ads on a publisher’s site without their consent Read moreAuto-refresh
Some publishers set low (auto) refresh intervals to cram multiple ads in a single page view, as a result advertisers pay for valueless impressions. Read moreC
Hidden/stacked/covered or otherwise intentionally obfuscated ad serving
According to the Media Ratings Council, when multiple ads are delivered to the same page or app but are intentionally hidden – e.g, impossible for the user to see them – they are considered invalid ads. Classification Sophisticated Invalid Traffic TrafficGuard Indicators Registering multiple clicks from the same user… Read moreCompliance Fraud
According to the Media Ratings Council, compliance Fraud occurs when traffic is deliberately sourced from outside of the advertiser’s target audience or using means prohibited by the advertiser. Usually, the objective of the fraudster, in this case, is to maximise their ROI by misrepresenting cheap traffic as premium traffic. For… Read moreClick Spam
Click spam occurs when a large volume of clicks are faked on a mobile device, even though the user never clicked the ad. If the user or a user with a similar fingerprint later visits the target website and installs the app, the spammer receives credit for the install and… Read moreClick Injection
The Android operating system broadcasts to all apps on the same device that a new app is being downloaded. Fraudsters develop seemingly legitimate apps and tools that use this broadcast to trigger clicks to the app store. The click will occur after the new app is downloaded, but before it… Read moreCookie Stuffing
A type of affiliate marketing fraud, cookie stuffing or cookie dropping is the practice of surreptitiously attaching multiple third-party cookies to a user after they visit a website or click on a link. Read moreI
I-frames
According to the Media Ratings Council, I-frames are the sections of a website/webpage that display ads served from a third-party ad server that limits the access of that ad server solely to the code of the page. I-frames can be nested, essentially creating a “chain” of serving instances from serving… Read moreInvalid Traffic
According to the Media Ratings Council, invalid Traffic (IVT) is defined generally as traffic or associated media activity that does not meet certain quality or completeness criteria or otherwise does not represent legitimate traffic that should be included in measurement counts. Among the reasons why traffic may be deemed… Read moreInvalid Impressions
According to the Media Ratings Council, impressions that do not meet certain ad serving quality or completeness criteria, or otherwise do not represent legitimate ad impressions that should be included in impression counts. Among the reasons why an ad impression may be deemed invalid is it is a result of… Read moreS
Sophisticated activity-based fraud detection
According to the Media Ratings Council, Sophisticated activity-based detection or analysis refers to up-front or backend techniques using analytical review of traffic data or attributes but requiring multiple sources of information or inferences made from complex multi-data-point assessment of transaction sets (generally over more than one campaign). Often these are… Read moreSourced traffic
According to the Media Ratings Council, Sourced traffic is any traffic that originates from any means other than a direct URL entry/site search or app download and initiation (organic traffic). Sourced traffic can further be classified into Affiliate, Referral, Search and Purchased. Affiliate traffic is defined as traffic directed to… Read moreSophisticated Invalid Traffic
According to the Media Ratings Council, ‘Sophisticated Invalid Traffic’ or SIVT, consists of more difficult to detect situations that require advanced analytics, multi-point corroboration/coordination, significant human intervention, etc., to analyse and identify. These may include: Automated browsing from a dedicated device: Known automation systems (e.g., monitoring/testing), emulators, custom automation software… Read moreHidden/stacked/covered or otherwise intentionally obfuscated ad serving
According to the Media Ratings Council, when multiple ads are delivered to the same page or app but are intentionally hidden – e.g, impossible for the user to see them – they are considered invalid ads. Classification Sophisticated Invalid Traffic TrafficGuard Indicators Registering multiple clicks from the same user… Read moreSophisticated Bot Driven Installs
Seemingly legitimate apps are downloaded by unsuspecting users that run install bots in the background. These sophisticated Bots mimic human behaviour to download, open, and in some cases, engage with apps without the knowledge of the host. The clicks are occurring on real devices and apps are actually downloaded but… Read moreV
Viewable ad impression
According to the Media Ratings Council, a served ad impression can be classified as a viewable impression if the ad was contained in the viewable space of the browser window, on an in-focus browser tab, based on pre-established criteria such as the per cent of ad pixels within the viewable… Read moreViewable browser space
According to the Media Ratings Council, Advertisements and content associated with each page load can appear either within or outside the viewable space of the browser on a user’s screen—i.e., that part of the page within the browser that a user can see. This is similar to the concepts once… Read moreLet's talk!
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