Click injection

Imagine someone sneaking in the back door just before you take a bow on stage, stealing your spotlight. Click injection is that digital party crasher. It's a sneaky ad fraud tactic where an app secretly registers clicks just before an app install to take credit (and payment) while you scratch your head wondering why your marketing budget went AWOL.

Click injection is a sophisticated form of mobile ad fraud where a fraudulent app detects the installation process of other apps on a device and generates a simulated click at the exact moment an app installation is complete. This fraudulent activity manipulates attribution models by making it appear as if the fraudulent app was responsible for driving the app download, ultimately allowing cybercriminals to claim attribution and subsequently earn undeserved advertising revenue. Click injection primarily targets cost-per-install (CPI) campaigns and exploits the delay between the app download and its first launch. To detect and prevent click injection, marketers can utilize advanced attribution solutions capable of identifying suspiciously high click-to-install times and other anomalies indicative of this type of fraud.