The dark side of mobile traffic

    Especially for Habr, we interviewed a representative of the “dark side” of the mobile traffic market.
    “Do you think that when working with CPA agencies you get at least some live traffic? Do you believe in the CPI model? Guess the share of live traffic in such networks? In fact, the share of “gray” traffic is much more than you might think. "
    Interesting?
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    Hi Alex! First, tell me about yourself. What exactly are you doing, what are you earning?

    My business is based on traffic. I buy traffic very cheaply, I’m selling it very expensively, that’s basically the basic concept: to sell traffic expensively, you need to whitewash it and make it attractive.

    So that you understand what the figures are about: the purchase price can be equal to one dollar per thousand clicks, the sale price - one hundred dollars per thousand clicks. Naturally, traffic is not sold in thousands of clicks, rather in millions. That, in fact, is the basis of the business that I have been doing for quite some time.

    What was your first experience in the “gray” sphere, and how much are you already in this?

    I have been working in this field for 14 years. I started doing door construction. I bought 100 domains, wrote a simple engine and screwed a text generator to it. It all took literally two weeks. After the sites were indexed and traffic started to go to them, I installed banner twists. Turned a hundred sites into a thousand and two months later it was fixed on eight hundred dollars a day. For me it was absolutely space money, given both time and Russia.

    Then Umax appeared and there was a lot more money. So it all began ... Now, of course, all the algorithms wiser long ago, but the principles remained at the same level. And I'm still developing systems that allow me to collect and sell traffic.

    Tell me about the current mobile market, does it have any weaknesses?

    The mobile market is my “favorite” at the moment. The situation on the mobile market is the same as it was on the web 14 years ago - complete chaos. Just on the example of the mobile market, I will tell you about the principle of my work, which I partially apply on the web:

    Traffic whitening / laundering - this is turning bad traffic into good traffic. What is bad traffic? These are clicks from hacked computers, various click exchanges, in general, anything that costs a penny.

    How to wash it? We create him a set of characteristics corresponding to the reference, good traffic, namely:

    1. Sources of traffic. For the advertiser, this is almost the main characteristic. Advertisers believe that if traffic came from a “clean site”, then it will certainly be of high quality. They are wrong :)
    2. Traffic efficiency. If we are talking about the mobile market, then this is CPI (installation), on the web it is CPA (user action). In any case, the advertiser is interested in what the traffic will lead to after the application is installed (passing a certain level, internal purchases, etc.).
    3. Conversion percentage. Imagine you are buying traffic using the CPI model, and you see that everyone who clicked on your banner downloaded the application (with an average conversion rate of 20-30%)
      Of course, there is a chance that you made an ideal landing page, and the clicked user can no longer Do not download your application! Unlikely...

    That is, the advertiser will look precisely at these three indicators. What platform did the user come from, is the conversion from click to installation normal, and what did the user do next (did he leave the money, or delete the application right after installation).

    We just need to fake these three indicators. This is nothing complicated.
    As a result, the advertiser in statistics sees a very beautiful story.

    We have the 21st century, 2014, do they really not see in their powerful systems analysts replace “white” traffic with “black”?

    In fact, web analytics systems do not see the substitution. What can we say about the mobile market, which is very, very poorly developed at the moment. You can also deceive Google Analytics, however, this is a laborious and expensive work, because they already passed fire and water on the same doorways in the 2000s. But in the mobile sphere, a huge number of unfinished tracking systems, or rather, there is not one unfinished. Therefore, everything becomes much simpler.

    I must say that I, of course, do such things on the web. But there it is much more complicated, the work becomes much more elegant and serious.
    In mobile everything is much easier and more profitable.

    Source spoofing is the easiest method of cheating.

    It is necessary to show that our “black” traffic actually works, that is, it is converted into something, for example, into installations. There is such a thing as motivated and unmotivated installations. Motivated - this is when the user is asked to complete the installation for some kind of bonus, well, for example, for a bonus in the game or for a bonus in the form of a cash equivalent. Accordingly, there are sources of these motivated installations. Job exchanges, for example.

    There are a huge number of CPA networks where you can buy motivated installations. How do they differ in characteristics from unmotivated ones? Unmotivated istalls are users interested in the application who clicked on the banner and downloaded it. Motivated is when people get paid to download the application. Pupils earn, and advertisers get setup, everyone is happy!

    After that, the picture turns from motivated installations to unmotivated (“live”) ones. Traffic turns from black to white. By mixing black “traffic” with a motivated one, you can achieve “normal” conversion, give beautiful transitions from the search to your site and from your site further to the advertisement banner we need.

    Motivated installations can be bought at 20 cents and sold at $ 2. We talked about mobile installations, but the principle is the same on the web.

    Then you “merge” this traffic and transfer it to the affiliate program, right?

    Exactly. The bottom line is that now on the market there are a huge number of networks with payment for installation. These networks, in fact, exist on one single engine and use the same tracking systems.

    From another point of view, it is by no means advantageous for such grids to let people like me disappear from the market. As soon as we disappear, there will be very little traffic left. Thus, the main customer is a pay-per-action network that connects vendors like me without even asking for a last name.

    You want to say that all these pay-per-action networks that go to conferences and exhibitions are ineffective in terms of promotion and the lion's share of traffic from people like you?

    Yes, that is right. Of course, you can work with them, but you should be well aware that basically you are buying “black” traffic. You know what’s funniest, CPA networks even pretend to struggle with people like me. They write on their websites that the rules prohibit the sale of “non-living” traffic under the guise of “live” traffic. Well, thanks for writing!

    Indeed, at the very beginning, you can show some activity in the application, make several internal purchases, this is enough. They don’t think that someone will bleach the traffic manually, although this is not at all difficult. For me, the job exchange will do this.

    Do you work with click grids in a similar way?

    Of course, they are no different in essence. The system is the same, we give the traffic “normal” conversion rates from view to click, and it’s the end.

    What do you recommend to advertisers so that they don’t run into people like you?

    In order not to run into people like me, you must, of course, work with trusted sources of traffic, that is, with the final sellers of this traffic. These are sites like Facebook, Mail, or Google AdMob.

    Here the question is deeper. The advertiser wants to work on the CPI model, and wants at all costs. The reverse side of “I want to pay for the result” is obvious - they are laden with garbage. Until the advertiser digs deeper and realizes that there is no CPI on the market, the scheme I described will flourish. Well, think about where the CPI comes from. Large players account for 95% of the traffic, but they don’t sell installs, or they sell, but it’s very expensive.

    Now the web is the same "chernukha", and is it possible to make money there?

    Yes, there you can earn on the same CPA grids. I do all this too. The technological principles of traffic whitening are slightly different, but the methodology is the same. We are trying to sell all sorts of rubbish under the guise of good and white traffic.

    On the web, CPA nets sell the person who will buy something? How will you imitate this?

    In fact, in such grids, “actions” or actions are completely different. Such as registration, filling out profiles, sharinga in the social. networks and stuff. And robotizing 20-30% of the action is generally not difficult.

    In addition to virtual actions, there are so many ways to fool on the web on real purchases. Example: a CPA network initially generates orders for an online store, the store rejoices, and then product returns suddenly come ... Orders are left. The store turns to the grid, the grid blames the unscrupulous webmasters for everything, assures that the webmasters are banned and severely punished. But then you can’t return the money.

    The question that has stuck in the minds of our readers: why did you come to us? What is your motivation? You are firing schemes!

    Well, this is both easy to explain and difficult. By and large, of course, I am firing schemes, but they are very simple and lie on the surface. Unfortunately, they decently spoil the market.

    On the one hand, I just want to earn more, on the other hand, I want the work to be interesting and creative. After all, any changes and improvements will lead to the fact that there will be fewer students in the segment. This is useful for the market, it is useful for me and for professionals. We cannot be eradicated by such methods, and schoolchildren can be filtered out.

    How much do you earn?

    At least 25,000 dollars a day. At the peak, it happens that up to 50,000 dollars a day. In very different ways. Naturally, not only on one on mobile traffic.
    With a margin of less than 1000%, in general, nothing is leaving me. After all, I purchase traffic from spoilers and viruses. Only from them you can get 1000 clicks for $ 1.

    What do you recommend to our readers?
    Do not be fooled and work only with trusted sources.

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