Fraud: a real cost, not a footnote
Post-install: the only useful metric
SKAdNetwork: on iOS

Mobile Advertising

Mobile inventory is cheap, abundant and the most fraud-prone environment in digital advertising. Managing it well is mostly about measurement discipline and exclusion lists.

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PPC & Paid Marketing

Bought demand, coordinated with organic so you stop paying twice.

Reality: Budget for it explicitly.

Fraud is the default condition

Click injection, click spamming, SDK spoofing and device farms are ordinary features of open mobile inventory. Estimates of the affected share vary widely and are consistently high enough to matter to your budget.

The defences are unglamorous: a fraud detection layer, aggressive publisher exclusion lists maintained continuously, and measuring to post-install behaviour rather than installs. Fraudulent installs never activate, which makes retention the most reliable fraud detector available.

Any agency reporting mobile campaign success in install counts is either not looking or not telling you.

7 areas: One body of work, not a menu.

All services

What’s included

Campaign management

In-app and mobile web inventory across networks and DSPs, with placement-level control.

Fraud prevention

Detection tooling, continuous publisher exclusion, and pattern monitoring on install-to-event timing.

Post-install measurement

Optimising to activation and retained users rather than installs, which is also the strongest fraud defence.

SKAdNetwork and iOS

Conversion value schema design and campaign structure that works within Apple’s privacy framework.

Creative for mobile

Format-appropriate creative, since desktop assets resized for a phone perform predictably badly.

Retargeting

Re-engaging lapsed users, generally the most efficient mobile spend available.

Incrementality testing

Establishing what your campaigns actually caused, since attributed installs and incremental installs differ substantially.

Common questions: Asked on most first calls.

Questions

How much of our mobile spend is lost to fraud?

Impossible to state precisely without auditing your data, and consistently more than clients expect. Retention analysis by source usually reveals it quickly.

Is mobile advertising worth it given the fraud?

Yes, with proper controls and post-install measurement. Without them, you are largely buying noise.

How does iOS measurement work now?

Through SKAdNetwork, with limited and delayed data, plus incrementality testing to fill the gaps. Less precise than before, and anyone claiming otherwise is misrepresenting it.

Should we use a network or a DSP?

Depends on scale and how much control you want. Networks are simpler; DSPs offer placement transparency, which matters considerably for fraud control.

Can this drive app installs and web conversions?

Both, though they need separate campaigns and separate measurement. Mixing them produces reporting nobody can act on.

Related: Often scoped alongside this.

Next step: We look at your site before the call.

Start with a free audit

An automated crawl plus a 30-minute walkthrough of what we can see from outside your site. If what you need isn’t something we do well, we’ll tell you.

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