Invalid traffic & fraud
Attribution fraud
Attribution fraud is manipulating how conversions are credited, so a fraudster claims payment for installs, sales or leads it did not actually cause, often by faking or timing clicks.
Attribution decides which ad or partner gets credit for a result, and often who gets paid. Attribution fraud does not necessarily fake the result itself; it fakes the path to it. The customer and purchase can be completely real, but the credit goes to someone who had nothing to do with it.
Key techniques include click injection (a precisely timed fake click just before an install), click spamming (mass fake clicks hoping to catch organic users), cookie stuffing (hidden affiliate cookies) and fabricated view-through impressions that claim credit under view-through rules. It thrives wherever last-click attribution with long lookback windows decides payment.
The damage is double: advertisers pay for customers they would have got anyway, and their data wrongly shows that fraudulent channels work, so they shift more budget there. Defences include shorter windows, click validation, click-to-conversion time analysis, incrementality testing with holdout groups and MMP fraud tools. If turning off a source makes "organic" conversions rise, it was probably stealing credit.
Think of it like this
It is like a stranger jumping into the team photo after the final whistle and then asking for a share of the prize money.
An example
A food delivery app in Brazil pauses one network credited with 15% of installs; total installs barely change while organic installs jump by the same amount, revealing the network was claiming organic users.
Related terms
Click injection
Click injection is mobile ad fraud where a malicious app detects another app being installed and fires a fake ad click just before the install completes, stealing the credit.
Click spamming
Click spamming, or click flooding, is sending huge numbers of fake ad clicks for devices that never saw an ad, hoping some later install organically so the spammer gets attribution credit.
Cookie stuffing
Cookie stuffing is secretly placing affiliate or tracking cookies on a person's browser without a real click or referral, so a fraudster gets commission if that person later buys something.
Attribution
Attribution is the process of assigning credit for a conversion, such as a sale, sign-up or install, to the ads, channels or touchpoints that a customer encountered beforehand.
Incrementality
Incrementality is the extra result, such as sales, installs or visits, caused by advertising that would not have happened without it, usually measured by comparing exposed and unexposed groups.
Sources: AppsFlyer glossary: click injection, AppsFlyer glossary: click flooding, MRC Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Guidelines Addendum (2020 update)