Performance Marketing: How to Maintain Control in the Face of Fraud

Fraud exists across all digital marketing methods and has continued to rise in popularity over the past decade as bots and fraudsters have consistently become more innovative. As global ad spend has increased year over year, the risk of fraudulent traffic has grown right alongside it. Although fraud is more prevalent in digital marketing than ever before, there is a digital channel that by its very nature lowers a marketer’s risk of fraud: performance marketing.

Traditional marketing campaigns typically employ CPM campaigns, where users convert on views or impressions, which are much easier for fraudsters to simulate given the lack of transparency on the conversion. Performance marketing comes with a built-in fraud shield, as marketers run on a cost-per-acquisition model (CPA), wherein affiliate partners are only paid once genuine sales or conversions are completed. Since publishers won’t get paid for fraudulent traffic, this elevated level of accountability on the affiliate partners’ behalf is one of the marketer’s greatest defenses against fraud.

When ad fraud started to take hold in the 90s, it was nearly undetectable given marketers didn’t know exactly what to look for. These days, the impact of digital ad fraud has been felt near and far, and the majority of marketers are on high alert for any sign of fraudulent traffic within their campaigns. Industry giants such as Google have felt the weight of fraud’s consequences ring throughout their networks, and in 2013, over $6B in ad spend was stolen from advertisers within the U.S. alone. With an estimated total loss of $42B to ad fraud from 2019 to 2023, the question remains, how can marketers regain control of their ad spend? A good place to start is to ensure your network or agency partner is experienced with and committed to proactive fraud prevention.  

Perform^[cb] supplies marketers with unparalleled brand assurance and proactive marketing compliance, in addition to combating fraud as a whole across our industry. In an effort to equip digital marketers with better compliance resources, our industry-leading in-house compliance team has developed Ad Fraud and Compliance: A Guide for Performance Marketers to provide a transparent view into the fraud marketers are up against and the real-life measures we employ to combat it. This guide is a comprehensive overview of the fraud-types we face today, the statistics surrounding them, and exclusive case studies for a real-life look into how fraud is caught and eradicated. Download it now!

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