Indian marketers spend nearly 20% of their advertising budget on tackling ad fraud: MMA's Ad Fraud Benchmark Report

• Mobile Marketing Association's ‘Ad Fraud Benchmark Report' reveals interesting facts about the level of fraud, and its awareness in the country and aims to help marketers benchmark their exposure to various kinds of fraud.
• The report revealed that 90% of businesses are using or planning to use anti-fraud solutions.
• Only 37% respondents are familiar with Blockchain.
  

Mobile Marketing Association, a global non-profit organization, has released an ‘Ad Fraud Benchmark Report' that gives a perspective into the state of mobile ad fraud in India. The report reveals some interesting facts about the level of fraud, and its awareness in the country and aims to help marketers benchmark their exposure to various kinds of fraud.

The report has been published in collaboration with a research firm -- Decision Lab, with the objective of understanding the current industry practices around ad fraud and the methods adopted by marketers. It 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.

Highlighting why we need more awareness around ad frauds, Moneka Khurana, Country Head, MMA India, said, “In India, 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.”

Key highlights from the report:

• With a rate of 62%, mobile ad fraud remains as one of the biggest challenges in India
  
• Indian marketers spend nearly 20% of their advertising budget on ad fraud
  
• 9/10 marketers feel there is scope for improvement in ad fraud prevention methods
  
• 95% respondents feel that lack of penalties and transparency in industry regulations give rise to ad fraud
  
• 95% respondents agreed that lack of data sharing and large number of middlemen are also a cause to ad fraud risks
  
• Major types of ad fraud – Cookie Stuffing (74%), Adware Traffic (65%), Data Fraud (61%), Ad Injection (54%)
  
• Only 37% respondents are aware of Blockchain and its application to fraud prevention