Fraud detection in digital contests

Effective measures to keep your promotions fair

One of the best aspects of digital contests and promotions is that users can enter easily and win exciting prizes. However, these two also make them quite attractive to people who want to take shortcuts, which leads to contest fraud. Maybe somebody wants to enter the contest 100 times, or maybe they want to manipulate your Spin the Wheel game for a big payout.

Besides awarding the prizes to undeserving winners, contest fraud can have many negative effects on your campaign. It gives you fake leads, and it can also be detrimental to your brand image.

When running online promotions, you need to implement strict contest fraud detection and prevention measures to ensure your campaign remains fair and yields the expected results.

What types of promotions are most vulnerable?

Naturally, different types of contests have different levels of risk. Here are the ones that are most appealing to fraudsters:

• Online voting contests – These can be easily manipulated with bots or fake accounts.
• Instant-win formats (such as Spin the Wheel or Scratch & Win) – Since the payout is instant, they attract fraud quickly. Fraudsters can spin more times than they are allowed to.
• Long-running sweepstakes with high-value rewards – The bigger prize is an incentive to cheat, and there’s time to come up with an elaborate strategy.
• Referral or “share to win” promotions on social media – You can get fake referrals or comments from bots. They look real, but they add no value.

You can’t really avoid these promotions, as they are still quite effective, so ensure you set up stronger contest fraud prevention measures.

Common fraud methods in digital contests

Overall, here are the most common fraud methods to look out for.

• Using fake accounts or impersonating someone else.
• Registering with fake email addresses or phone numbers.
• Using automated scripts and bots for registration.
• Manipulating votes with fake accounts.
• Exploiting weak or unclear contest rules.
• Manipulating the promotion’s gamified elements, like games and scores.

The fraudsters won’t use the same tricks every time, but they usually follow predictable patterns.

How to prevent fraud in your promotions

There are different ways to prevent fraud in your campaigns, and they don’t even mean that you need to make the entry process frustrating for participants. Most of them are actually run from the backend, so you only need a strong system and team behind your campaigns.

Below are several contest fraud detection and prevention measures you can implement.

Block temporary & disposable emails

When users want to fraudulently enter a contest multiple times, they don’t use their real email addresses. Instead, they rely on temporary email addresses, which allow them to verify their account after creation.

The good thing is these domains are usually well-known, so you can integrate filters that deny entry when a participant uses a disposable email address. This is an effective way of fraud prevention in giveaways, and it will help ensure that the data you collect has real marketing value.

Monitor suspicious IP activity

Every online activity leaves an IP address, which is the identity of that connection or user. And if you see dozens of entries from the same IP address or block, that’s a sign of abuse. The same also applies when there’s lots of activity from an unusual region or one where you aren’t even promoting the campaign.

Fraudsters try to beat this by using proxies and VPN services, but these use well-known IP address blocks you can add to your blocklist. You can get a promotions partner that offers anti-fraud tools for promotions, as it may not be economical for a single brand.

Add Bot Protection measures

Bots can do tasks like contest registration way faster than humans can, so fraudsters use them to join promotions. They can flood you with submissions or even play your games until they win a big prize.

One method of bot protection in contests is the use of CAPTCHA, although it’s no longer enough to ensure digital sweepstakes security when used in isolation. You can combine it with time-based checks that detect unnatural submission speeds.

Use a panel for final winner selection

When you shortlist potential winners and subject them to social media votes, participants can manipulate them with fake votes. So, instead of using votes or an automated system to select winners, only use these to narrow down on potential winners. You can then select the winners using a human panel.

Have clear anti-fraud Terms & Conditions

When a user sees that cheating will make them disqualified, they’ll think twice about buying fake votes. So, ensure your rules are clear against fraud. This way, you’ll discourage dishonest behavior and let potential participants know that they have a real chance.

Want to run digital contests that are secure, engaging, and fraud-free? At Promosfera, we can help you craft effective campaigns and achieve your desired marketing goals.