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How to Combat Digital Bandits the OLG Way

By Elise Rappoport - Posted on 27 April 2011

According to a special report on online fraud by CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service, the first nine months of 2010 saw almost 80,000 instances of online fraud and the problem is set to rocket through 2011.

Digital fraud has many guises and is now prevalent in almost every aspect of digital media these days including online advertising. So, how does online lead gen. (OLG) fare in this and how can we take the necessary precautions to protect consumers and our industry as a whole?

Fortunately, frauds are highly detectable within the OLG space but only if you know what to look for. Typically, OLG fraud takes the shape of spam lead applications, which are submitted through an advertiser’s lead capture form by individuals or web bots. The overall aim is to make money via cash-back sites or affiliate networks and the frauds themselves can range from fairly simply lead forging to very sophisticated high volume attempts.

A simple fake lead could carry an erroneous email address such as xxyyy@hotmail.com or using a fake postal address but many of these leads are eradicated using real-time validation software, which is programmed to detect combinations of nonsense letters and by matching leads against PAF (Postcode Address File), respectively.

More sophisticated lead forgery, which can bypass many of the filters that software validation uses, can be combated by doing the following checks.

Eye-ball your data manually
When it comes to validation, the human eye can detect more complex forgeries than computers ever will. While it can be a time consuming business and somewhat pricier than automated methods, the process can be undertaken in batches and it stops you paying for dummy leads.
Smarter media planning
You really do get what you put in. Low quality media attracts more questionable traffic, which will result in an unreliable and inconsistent lead gen. campaign.
Better web-form validation
If you can stop rogue leads ever reaching your database you are effectively bulletproofing it. Kick out as many suspicious leads as possible at the capture stage by using a tool like CAPTCHA, which asks users to manually type in a displayed code. It is worth noting that CAPTCHA will increase the form completion time and some genuine consumers might be put off, which could suppress lead volumes.
Double opt-in
The double opt-in process is an extremely powerful way to combat fraud in online lead generation campaigns. For those of you who don’t know what I’m on about, consumers are asked to provide their contact information when they fill in lead capture forms – the consumer will confirm that the details provided are correct by clicking on a link supplied in a follow-up email. However, double opt-in will make your OLG campaign twice as expensive to run (i.e. if only 50% of consumers double opt-in) but the long term benefits are clear.
Traffic trends
Paying close attention to the frequency and volume of traffic your OLG adverts attract can pay dividends. For example, if you see thousands of applications coming through at 2amin the morning, they are unlikely to be genuine. Look for unusual patterns in lead volumes before undertaking a thorough investigation.