Advertisers and affiliate networks focus on increasing profit margins and building strong partnerships. Yet this can be hampered by a serious challenge that dates back to the early 90s— digital advertising fraud. And it’s still on the rise. Globally, the costs associated with digital ad fraud are projected to increase from 35 billion in 2018 to 100 billion by the end of 2023.
Fortunately, performance marketing software and the tools dedicated to stopping fraud at the source have come a long way. To enhance CAKE’s existing fraud detection capabilities, we’ve partnered with IPQualityScore (IPQS), a leader in fraud prevention.
We caught up with Dennis Weiss, the CEO of IPQS to discuss the new partnership and the benefits to existing CAKE customers, plus advice for affiliate marketers when it comes to preventing fraud.
Here are some highlights from our conversation:
Who is IPQS?
IPQS is a real-time fraud solution for businesses of all sizes. Our solution is designed for bot detection and user screening to prevent fake accounts, chargebacks, and malicious behavior without interrupting the user experience. Additionally, IPQS owns and operates the largest cyber threat network and partners with many Fortune 500 companies in various industries. IPQS detects over 1 billion new threat reports each day and our fraud prevention solution is leading the industry in accuracy and performance.
CAKE customers leveraging the IPQS API integration get access to Fraud Scores, which are derived from our VPN/Proxy Detection, Device Fingerprinting, Email and Phone Validation, and User/Payment Scoring tools.
How does IPQS work to detect fraud?
Marketers are enabled to detect fraud through our deep understanding of the affiliate industry, complex research, and algorithms maintained by our internal security teams which consist of former National Security Agency (NSA) agents. IPQS research and analysis never stops. We’re always up to date on the most sophisticated fraudulent trends troubling the industry and enhance our cyber threat network and tools for optimal detection in real-time.
IPQS offers API endpoints for proactive protection plus a bulk .csv upload feature for smaller, retrospective operations and an advanced user portal for reports, custom scoring setting adjustments, and more.
IPQS users can also choose from a variety of premium blacklists to supplement their analysis, each providing increased accuracy for the response data. For example, IPQS Dark Data improves fraud and risk score accuracy for our Phone Validation, Email Validation, IP Reputation tools and enhances all lookups with greater detection and accuracy on stolen or leaked user data, compromised IPs, and more.
Does IPQS have specific fraud detection tools available for affiliate marketing and lead distribution? If so, what are they?
Yes! IPQS has a vast array of tools that generates our fraud scores. Data from tools like Device Fingerprinting and IP Reputation/Proxy/VPN makes it possible to only send quality clicks verified by IPQS Fraud Scoring services to an advertiser’s tracking link.
Leveraging our fraud prevention tools enables marketers to completely eliminate abusive affiliate traffic including residential proxies, bots and non-human requests, automated lead generation completion, and similar types of software employed by fraudulent publishers.
How does the CAKE and IPQS integration help marketers prevent fraud?
The CAKE and IPQS integration allows marketers to merge their existing CAKE setup with the sophisticated IPQS traffic filtering system. With the integration, IPQS anti-fraud tools automatically assign a fraud score and filter out traffic in real-time. This is done by using smart algorithms that learn from each affiliate’s traffic quality and the audience’s behavior patterns. Riskier affiliates can be set to stricter filters, while affiliates with mostly clean traffic can be filtered more leniently.
CAKE customers that sign up with IPQS unlock this functionality directly in the CAKE platform. The seamless integration makes the setup convenient, especially for larger traffic volumes.
To learn more about the CAKE and IPQS integration, join our webinar taking place Wednesday, April 13 at 10:00 am PDT.
Do all performance marketers need fraud protection in place?
1,000% yes!
Bots and non-human traffic are responsible for billions of dollars lost per year due to advertising click fraud. With fraudsters exploiting every type of payment method from ISP and mobile carrier billing to credit card fraud these numbers continue to rise each year. Some fraudsters are even targeting surveys, market research, and cost per lead programs.
Over the past few years, fraudsters have expanded their tactics to generate fake software and mobile app installs and even automate the submission of fake user information in CPL lead generation campaigns.
These trends have contributed to the popularity and success of IPQS bot detection filtering with clients in the ad industry. As affiliate fraud continues to waste billions per year in advertiser budgets, IPQS estimates that affiliate fraud can affect between 20% to 60% of an advertiser’s total conversions.
What advice would you offer to marketers when it comes to selecting the right fraud prevention solution?
Better quality control would certainly result in higher success overall, with more advertisers, bigger ad budgets, and easier conversion points. Having a reliable process in place to effectively eliminate fraud is essential for growing a performance marketing program and ensuring the integrity of your partnerships. IPQS empowers marketers to achieve this through a flexible system that:
- Builds smart business logic that can automatically flag or suspend affiliates with average fraud scores over a certain threshold.
- Automatically pauses affiliates on specific campaigns that affiliates are abusing.
- Uniquely adapts to any type of ad fraud without impacting legitimate traffic.
- Detects affiliate fraud in real-time. Now with the IPQS and CAKE integration, users can detect affiliate fraud before it even begins.
If you are looking to put an end to affiliate fraud, sign up with IPQS today.
