No fraud? That doesn’t mean you stop looking

Knowing that you don’t have invalid traffic is as valuable as knowing if you do.

TrafficGuard has been protecting ad spend across thousands of global campaigns for over 3 years. Over this time, we have made some keen observations of the often undervalued role of verification to answer the question, if I am no longer seeing fraud, what value am I getting from my anti-fraud solution?
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Before we discuss the importance of verification, let’s dive into some of the reasons you might not be seeing as much fraud:
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• The big brother effect: If a traffic supplier knows it is being monitored, it will be more rigorous in its measures to protect quality. Sometimes just the perception that they are being watched is a deterrent in itself
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• Ad fraud will likely decline in a short period of time as fraud is optimised out. By blocking fraud in real-time, TrafficGuard helps traffic sources optimise towards genuinely higher performing sources, optimising out poor quality traffic
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• Working with a TrafficGuardian: TrafficGuardians are integrated partners dedicated to combating digital ad fraud and restoring the integrity of the mobile advertising ecosystem. We see a significant increase in fraud mitigated from traffic sources that are not TrafficGuardians
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• New traffic sources: No-one gives a massive budget to an untested traffic source. Usually a new traffic source runs with a test budget before they are able to optimise and then scale. Knowing that they are under higher scrutiny as a new traffic source is likely to result in better quality traffic… in the beginning at least
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If you happen to be in the favourable and rare situation where you see low levels of fraud in your campaigns, you may be asking yourself, why am I paying for fraud mitigation? Here’s why:

• Protection when scaling: If you decide to onboard other traffic sources, or scale with existing sources, you can do so confidently knowing that fraud will be mitigated
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• Verification: Knowing that you don’t have invalid traffic is as valuable as knowing that you do. Without verification, on either the positive or the negative, you do not know whether fraud is taking your ad spend or impacting your campaigns
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• Future proofing: If a supply source is influenced by the big brother effect, removing fraud prevention will allow them to safely re-introduce low-quality traffic. Are you confident that your supplier’s fraud responses will keep up with fraud as it evolves?
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So just because your instances of fraud are low, doesn’t mean the value of fraud mitigation has declined.
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Different traffic sources take different approaches to fraud. Some use in-house or third-party tools to prevent fraud before inventory is sold, others will work with you to optimise through data analysis, and some leave the burden of fraud to the advertiser to manage. Regardless of which approach is taken, it is important to verify quality to ensure your ad spend is protected.

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