Anura.io

Detecting fake traffic before it drains an ad budget

Anura.io sells software that identifies fraudulent web traffic, covering automated bots, malicious software, AI-assisted fraud and people working click farms. The company describes its platform as the most accurate ad fraud solution available and says it is trusted by over two million domains. It claims a very high accuracy when it labels a visitor as bad, and it supplies a dashboard with detailed analytics so a marketing team can see which traffic is real.

Why the problem matters

Anura's pages argue that fraud is widespread. It says programmatic advertising carries the highest rate of fraud, and that a large share of affiliate traffic is fraudulent. Wasted ad spend is one cost; others are skewed campaign data, which leads to poor decisions, and damage to a brand's reputation. By identifying fraud correctly, the company says, marketers get a truer picture of campaign performance and can improve their return on ad spend.

Where the software is used

• Advertising campaigns: protecting spend against bots, competitor fraud and click farms, and hiding ads from fraudulent visitors on major platforms and social media sites so only real people see them.
• Lead generation: spotting invalid traffic that fills in forms with real information to avoid detection, so bad leads are identified before a sales team calls them. The firm links this to reducing risk under telephone marketing rules in the United States.
• Affiliate programs: finding fraudulent activity that cheats a business and honest affiliates out of commissions.
• E-commerce: reducing chargebacks, which carry risk for a merchant account.

How it fits in

Anura says it works with any platform and any industry or marketing channel. Free up the sales team, the company says, to spend more time with prospects who will convert. It also offers a traffic quality audit, an ebook guide to ad fraud, and a blog covering mobile in-app fraud, social media bots, IP masking and residential proxies, and ticket-buying bots.