Enabling mobile apps to supercharge their user acquisition efforts and become unicorns

‍Ad fraud is hampering apps’ scaling efforts and inhibiting the chance of reaching unicorn status - we’re doing something about it.
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TrafficGuard’s on a mission to pull down the barriers to fast and effective scaling. We’ve studied the actions of unicorn apps who have ‘been there, done that’ and reached the top of the user acquisition mountain, and we’re bringing these findings to smaller businesses at the start of their journeys. Our award winning fraud prevention is ready and raring to go.
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Invalid traffic and ad fraud is the silent foe that skews metrics, drains budgets, and makes it impossible to grow user acquisition or scale at speed. When invalid clicks are present in ad campaigns it makes it unclear which channels are delivering what traffic, inhibiting the ability to correctly assign ad budget.
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This leads to unoptimised ad spend, wasted marketing opportunities and poor channel performance—all factors which make ambitious user acquisition and scaling efforts impossible.
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“So many apps implement incredibly intense and considered marketing strategies in their fight to reach the unicorn download and usage status, and we know there are some huge ad budgets underpinning these pushes. But so few consider the effects of ad fraud and invalid traffic on their digital campaigns, pretty much rendering these efforts wasted. We want to highlight to app businesses the importance of protecting their digital campaigns from the word ‘go’, it’s the only way to safeguard their budgets and give themselves the best chance at that rapid scale everyone wants to achieve.”

Matt Sutton, TrafficGuard COO

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The catch 22 faced by apps like you

Leveraging multiple advertising channels is the key to boosting user acquisition and driving scale. To get the best chance of boosting user numbers you’ve got to invest in multiple channels, including social media, UAC (Google’s Universal App Campaigns), and advertising networks. Using a combination of channels helps improve UA, and also lowers CPI and CPA.
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But, (there’s always a but), the more channels engaged by an app, the higher the risk of fraud. The more fraud, the worse results. The worse results, the more money thrown at the problem. And we soon find ourselves in a cycle of investing large amounts of money into channels delivering poor results because of IVT. This puts a lot of marketers off scaling their marketing efforts, capping their growth and making rapid scaling impossible.
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Misattribution within those channels is another hurdle on the scaling sprint. It occurs when fraudsters make it appear a channel is delivering more value than it really is, and this has a snowball effect on your performance. A single install attributed to the wrong source will inflate the value of that source not just by one install, but by the value of all the subsequent events of that new user. You may think your mobile measurement partner (MMP) is protecting you from these attribution errors, but they can be easily fooled by ad fraud. You can’t rely on your MMP alone to protect you from fraudsters, who use intelligent techniques to fool MMPs into attributing sham clicks to them, resulting in a pay out.

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User acquisition managers, this one’s for you.

Keeping your traffic clean and fraud-free from the start is the best way to keep install numbers high and ensure consistently engaged users. By stopping invalid traffic from reaching your campaigns you are freeing up ad budget to target more relevant users, and guaranteeing those who are clicking through campaigns and installing your app have genuine intent. With cleaner traffic and more optimised ad spend, you’re guaranteed to see your CPI plummet. Great news for your bottom line, and a big gold star for you.
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So if you’ve got your eyes on the unicorn prize, big scaling ambitions, or just like sticking it to the bad guys, start protecting your ad budget today.
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“What we’re doing is removing barriers to scale. The effects of ad fraud are a massive block to these ambitions as they limit budget and mess with metrics—without confident data and money in the bank acquisition managers have no chance of reaching their high targets. Remove fraud from the situation and you’re given a huge leg-up against competitors who remain hampered by its effects, allowing you to power campaigns with optimised budget and pin-point accurate data. Stopping fraud should be priority number one for app businesses.”

Chad Kinlay, TrafficGuard CMO

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There’s never been a better time to protect your ad budget and start scaling the app store mountain. Learn more here.

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