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how to prevent mobile ad fraud

Mobile Ad Fraud Costs Advertisers Billions. Protect Your Ads Now

  • October 23, 2025
how to prevent mobile ad fraud
Jump to Real-life examples of mobile fraud
Jump to Real-life examples of mobile fraud

Mobile ad spend has grown 12% annually since 2021 and will hit $228.11 billion in 2025, but scams are rising just as fast. As advertisers pour money into in-app and mobile web campaigns, fraudsters use automation and spoofing tactics that are harder than ever to detect.

Large-scale operations like Vastflux, and more recently, SlopAds have exposed how organized and profitable mobile ad fraud has become. Together, these rings funneled hundreds of millions in fake ad impressions and installs across thousands of apps before being shut down.

So what exactly is mobile ad fraud, how much does it really cost advertisers, and what can you do to stop it? That’s what this guide covers.

What is mobile ad fraud?

Mobile ad fraud is fake or manipulated activity that targets mobile advertising to steal budget or game attribution. Fraudsters use bots, emulators, and spoofed data to create fake impressions, taps, and installs that look legitimate to ad networks and MMPs, draining spend and corrupting data.

Because many mobile campaigns pay on clicks, taps, and installs, and rely on last-touch attribution, this fake activity can look legitimate to ad networks and Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs), siphoning spend while corrupting your data.

The more engagement fraudsters are able to successfully fake, the more revenue they earn. Advertisers lost 22% of spend ad fraud 2023 to ad fraud. And even though this number is spread across all types of digital advertising, it reveals just how big the mobile ad fraud problem is.

What industries are most exposed to mobile ad fraud?

These industries are most affected by mobile ad fraud:

  • Gaming and mobile apps
  • Retail and e-commerce
  • Finance and fintech
  • Health and fitness
  • Travel and delivery services

Common types of mobile ad fraud

  1. Click fraud: In click fraud, fake or automated taps inflate click counts on mobile ads, wasting CPC budgets without delivering any value.
  2. Click injection / click hijacking: Fraudsters trigger fake clicks right before installs to steal last-touch attribution credit, making legitimate sources lose credit for real users.
  3. Click spamming / flooding: Large networks of bots or click farms send massive volumes of fake clicks so some appear to convert by coincidence, polluting attribution data.
  4. SDK spoofing: Attackers manipulate SDKs or forge postbacks to simulate installs and in-app events, tricking ad platforms into counting fake conversions.
  5. Bot traffic & click farms: Automated bots or low-cost human workers simulate clicks, installs, and sessions that look authentic but drive no real engagement.
  6. Device emulation and ID reset abuse: Fraud networks use virtual devices and repeated ID resets to mimic thousands of unique users, faking large-scale app installs.
  7. Ad stacking and hidden ads: Multiple ads are layered or hidden in a single placement, generating impressions and clicks for ads that users never actually see.
Read more: Types of click fraud

Real-life examples of mobile ad fraud

Here are two examples of ad fraud that show how fraudsters manipulate the mobile ad space.

SlopAds (2025): Android apps turned into ghost click farms

how the slop ads scheme

In 2025, researchers uncovered a massive fraud campaign called SlopAds operating through 224 malicious Android apps. One of the tactics fraudsters used in this scheme was hidden WebViews in the apps.

The apps loaded fake sites in the background and simulated ad clicks and impressions without the user’s knowledge. Overall, unsuspecting users downloaded the malicious apps more than 38 million times and generated up to 2.3 billion ad bid requests per day across over 228 countries and territories.

VASTFLUX (2022-2023): Stacked video ads and bid-volume fraud

Another major case is VASTFLUX, which spoofed over 1,700 apps and 120 publishers in 2022 and 2023. Before it was finally shut down, the operation impacted nearly 11 million devices, and peaked at about 12 billion ad bid requests per day.

Here’s how the VASTFLUX operation worked: Fraudsters injected malicious JavaScript into ad creatives that allowed multiple invisible video ads to stack behind a single visible ad slot.

So advertisers ended up paying for dozens of ad impressions or clicks when only one (or none) were actually visible to a real user.

How to detect mobile ad fraud

how to detect mobile ad fraud

Detecting mobile ad fraud starts with knowing where it happens and what red flags to look for. Every fraudulent action, whether fake installs, clicks, or events, maps to a specific layer in the mobile ad ecosystem.

Here are a few ways to detect mobile ad fraud:

Check Click-to-Install Time (CTIT)

Real users take seconds or minutes to install apps. When installs happen instantly, it’s usually click injection or spoofed activity.

For example, imagine that you’re running ads on two networks. Network A shows 40% of installs with CTIT under 3 seconds, and Network B’s CTIT is centered around 90 seconds. Network A likely has a problem because of the brief CTIT.

Look for suspicious traffic clusters

Clusters of identical devices, IPs, or user agents often indicate bots or VPN traffic. Pay attention to geographic concentration or identical device models for suspicious similarities.

So, constant installs from a single ASN or data center or identical device models and OS versions in bulk are usually a red flag as it’s unlikely to be real human users.

Compare engagement and retention rates

25% of apps are used only once after downloading, but absolutely zero engagement could suggest SDK spoofing or bots. Compare post-install metrics across networks to find inconsistencies.

How many users come back after 1 day of installing your app? Compare this with your other traffic sources. Bot and click farm installs will have much lower retention.

Cross-check analytics data

If an ad network reports installs that don’t appear in your MMP data, they may be inflating results through click spamming, SDK spoofing, or spoofed postbacks.

A red flag is a partner claiming large install volumes that your MMP or backend can’t verify. Watch for inconsistent timestamps or missing device details that make installs impossible to confirm.

Map anomalies to the correct layer

Mobile ad fraud doesn’t happen in one place. Instead, it spreads across the entire ad delivery chain and fraudsters exploit weaknesses at every layer, from fake devices and spoofed apps to corrupted attribution signals.

Most fraudulent activity here falls into four key layers of the mobile ad ecosystem:

  • Device/user
  • App/SDK
  • Network/Supply
  • Attribution
Here’s a table showing how mobile ad fraud tactics are used across each of these layers.
Layer Example of fraud What to look for
Device / User Bots, emulator farms, VPN clusters Repeated device IDs, identical user agents, no touch gestures, unnatural click frequency
App / SDK SDK spoofing, event forging, hijacked callbacks Installs with no opens, mismatched SDK signatures, activity logged without foreground sessions
Network / Supply App or domain spoofing, ad stacking, hidden placements Bundle ID mismatches, off-screen rendering, impressions from unknown sources
Attribution Click spam, injection, timestamp manipulation Spikes in clicks before installs, repeated last-touch credit from one network
Connecting suspicious behavior to the right layer is key to detecting exactly where mobile ad fraud is occurring.

Why mobile ad fraud detection is so challenging

Privacy updates like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT), SKAdNetwork (SKAN), and Meta’s Conversions API (CAPI) have made it harder to detect mobile ad fraud. While these frameworks protect user data, they also hide many of the signals we once used to verify real clicks and installs.

  • Less user-level data: You can no longer track device IDs or IPs for most users.
  • Aggregated reporting: SKAN and CAPI return anonymized data, so you can’t see which specific clicks or installs were fake.
  • Delayed postbacks: Fraud can’t be caught in real time because conversion data arrives hours or days later.
  • High ATT opt-out rates: In some regions, over 70% of users refuse tracking, leaving huge gaps in visibility.

Fraudsters take advantage of these gaps by spoofing identifiers, resetting device IDs, and faking installs that appear normal in aggregated data.

5 steps to prevent mobile ad fraud

  1. Monitor ad performance closely

    Prevention starts by spotting patterns that don’t make sense and acting quickly:

    • Sudden spikes in clicks or impressions
    • Low engagement rates despite high traffic
    • Heavy activity from one IP, device type, or region

    These signals often mean fake traffic is slipping through. Real-time monitoring helps you react before a small issue turns into wasted spend.

    Set up automated alerts in Google Ads or your analytics tool to notify you when click-through rates, impressions, or conversions deviate significantly from your baseline.

  2. Work with trusted ad networks

    Stick to partners that are transparent about traffic sources and verification processes. Reputable networks use strong pre-bid screening and third-party validation, helping reduce the risk of bots, spoofed inventory, or hidden placements.

    Also, ask partner networks for documentation or reports from independent verification bodies (like IAS, DoubleVerify, or Moat), especially before running high-budget campaigns.

  3. Audit campaigns regularly

    Frequently review your ad placements, audience reports, and traffic sources. Look for mismatched geographies, unrealistic click-through rates, or missing engagement data. Scheduling routine audits can make it easier to spot when fraud starts creeping in.

    You can also create a recurring monthly audit checklist to compare traffic patterns, conversion data, and ad placements across all channels.

  4. Train your marketing team

    Human oversight is still one of your best defenses when it comes to preventing digital ad fraud. Teach your team what common fraud patterns look like, how to interpret analytics, and when to flag suspicious activity.

    Systems and regular training sessions can be helpful here. For example, a quarterly 30-minute training session to review fraud case studies and discuss how to identify unusual campaign behavior.

  5. Set traffic rules

    Cap clicks per IP or device, monitor suspicious ASN ranges, and flag traffic spikes that exceed your daily averages. Fraud protection tools can also help you automatically block repeated invalid clicks and enforce IP-level limits in your mobile ads.

Protect your campaigns with Fraud Blocker

protect your ad campaigns with fraudblocker

Mobile ad fraud is just one piece of a much bigger problem. Whether it’s fake clicks on search ads, bots inflating social campaigns, or automated traffic draining remarketing budgets, ad fraud affects every type of campaign.

Fraud Blocker helps advertisers detect and block invalid traffic before they waste ad budget. While our protection doesn’t currently extend to mobile in-app fraud, the same automated and bot-driven tactics often overlap across ad platforms. Stopping them at the source protects the rest of your campaigns from inflated costs and misleading data.

Start a 7-day free trial of Fraud Blocker and see exactly how much of your budget is being lost to fake clicks.

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