THE 3 MOST COMMON FRAUDS IN DIGITAL MARKETING

The internet has greatly revolutionized the corporate world and business environment in general. One of the impacts of more businesses going online is the emergence of digital marketing. Digital marketing simply refers to the efforts and steps taken by a business or corporation to market their goods and services using the internet as their preferred medium. It simply takes the advertising campaigns, be they videos, banners, or voice-overs and attempts to reach their target audience via digital platforms on the internet such as social media and affiliate websites.

However, the rapid growth of digital marketing has led to emergence of various forms of fraud in digital marketing. These scams can target not only the businesses wishing to advertise but also the target audience and search engine ranking algorithms. The scammers take advantage of the relative lack of knowledge of most people about how digital marketing works and the eagerness of many new entrepreneurs to jump onboard the digital marketing bandwagon without carrying out due diligence.

The following are some of the most common frauds in digital marketing that every online entrepreneur must be aware of before contracting a digital marketing company so as to avoid falling victim to them.

Categories Of Fraud In Digital Marketing

Fraud in digital marketing falls into 3 broad categories:

1. Placement Fraud
2. Traffic Fraud
3. Action Fraud

1. Placement Fraud

In this category of fraud, scammers often use underhand tactics to illegitimately place ads on a legitimate publisher’s website or user’s computer. This is done in order to artificially inflate the scammer’s clicks on these ads for the benefit of the scammer. The fraud is facilitated via a variety of mechanisms. They include:

1. Malvertising – This fraud involves the perpetrator exploiting weaknesses in a website or Content Delivery Networks to place malicious advertising software on the website without the publisher’s (owner) permission. This results in the users being bombarded by unwanted advertisements and pop ups which generate clicks (and therefore revenue) for the perpetrator.
2. Stuffing and Stacking – These involve unscrupulous advertisers hiding features such as ads and keywords on a page such that they are invisible to the human eye but sufficient to spoof ranking algorithms into ranking that particular webpage higher and fraudulently increasing revenue for the scammer.
3. Domain Spoofing – This is a common fraud in which fraudsters launch a domain name that looks very similar to a trusted domain. For example they may start a site called alibaba.co to take advantage of alibaba.com’s popularity. This falsely inflates the value of their ad space and they proceed to charge premium rates to place ads there making the business being advertized to pay way more than the ad space’s actual worth.
4. Ad Injection – This digital marketing scam targets computer users and involves scammers installing malware into an unsuspecting user’s computer or browser in order to display unsolicited ads whenever the user goes online. It may also involve your local Internet Service Provider inserting ads into the content you view when online. The best way to prevent this fraud is having an updated firewall and anti-malware system at all times and avoiding visiting shady and unsecured websites.

2. Traffic Fraud

Traffic fraud involves using illegitimate means to boost traffic to one’s site. Increased traffic means increased revenue for both the ad publisher and the business being advertised. It is therefore not surprising that traffic fraud is one of the most prevalent digital marketing scams.

Traffic fraud consists of two categories which are:

1. Impression Fraud (pay for rankings) – This scam involves artificially boosting the web page impressions through generating fake traffic to the site. Since most of the emerging online businesses tend to be desperate for quick traffic and high rankings, they are often lured by unscrupulous marketers who often use bots to illegitimately drive traffic to their sites. While it may seem enticing, this scam is very dangerous for the owner of the website since they could potentially get their ads demonetized and search engine ratings severely lowered when caught.
2. Click Fraud (paying for clicks) – This scam takes advantage of the pay-per-click model of digital marketing in which the marketer is paid for each click generated through their links. Like impression fraud above, the scam often targets new businesses that are willing to pay in order to get clicks to their website. The affiliate marketer then proceeds to employ the use of bots or click farm to artificially boost the number of clicks to the client’s site. The fraud is also highly frowned upon by search engine administrators and ad companies alike and carries harsh penalties if discovered.

3. Action Fraud

This fraud consists of actions taken by the fraudsters while pretending to be other users in order to benefit themselves. It may involve things such as signing up for a service, filling a form or simply making a download.

The fraud also takes on many forms which include:

1. Conversion Fraud – This fraud occurs when a scammer uses bots to fraudulently make conversions such as signing up for newsletters. The scammer then claims the conversions as his and pockets the money from it. It may also happen when a scammer uses stolen personal details to sign up or purchase items for themselves without the knowledge of the real owners of the information.
2. Affiliate Fraud – This scam basically involves affiliates engaging in fraudulent activities with the aim of collecting revenue that they do not deserve. A dishonest affiliate marketer may set up a specialized website with the aim of attracting users interested in a specific product. The aim is to bombard the user’s devices with the affiliate’s cookies. This means that when the user eventually visits the actual website even on their own the affiliate can then claim revenue for generating the lead when in the real sense they didn’t contribute in any way. A robust tracking system on the part of the business contracting the affiliate marketers is the best way of avoiding being a victim to this scam.