Incentivized traffic

Incentivized traffic (often shortened to “incent” by user acquisition teams) is clicks, app installs, or completed tasks that people do to earn a reward, such as in-game coins, points, vouchers, or cash, rather than out of interest in the product. It is only legitimate when the advertiser knows about it and agrees to buy it.

What is incentivized traffic?

Three common forms:

• Offerwalls: a list of tasks inside an app or website, for example “install app X and reach level 10 to get 500 coins”.
• Rewarded ads: users choose to watch an ad to receive an item in the app they are using.
• “Earn money” apps or task groups: they pay cash or phone top-up cards for every install or sign-up.

What they share: people do it for the reward. Once the task is done, most of them abandon the app. For campaigns optimized for retention rate or revenue, this traffic drags every metric down.

When does incentivized traffic become fraud?

The line is whether the advertiser knows. The MRC classifies incentivized human activity aimed at manipulating measurement as sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT), a category of invalid traffic. Disclosed reward programs are not counted as IVT, but should be reported separately (MRC, IVT Standards Addendum, June 2020).

Google uses the same test. Campaign Manager 360 defines “incentivized behavior” as using an explicit incentive, often financial, to get users to interact with ads solely to receive that incentive, without the advertiser’s knowledge (Campaign Manager 360 Help, accessed October 2026). A typical case is a network mixing rewarded traffic into a campaign agreed as “non-incent” to hit its install target.

Google and Apple rules

• Google AdMob: rewarded ads may not offer cash, cryptocurrency, or gift cards. Rewards can only be used inside the app and cannot be transferred, and vouchers for physical goods are capped at 25% of the item’s value. Except for the rewarded interstitial format, users must actively opt in before the ad plays (AdMob Help, Policies for ad units that offer rewards, accessed October 2026).
• Google Play: bans inflating installs or ratings by illegitimate means, including apps whose main functionality is rewarding users for installing other apps (Google Play Console Help, User Ratings, Reviews, and Installs, accessed October 2026).
• Apple: apps must not force users to rate the app or download other apps to access features, but may reward in-app actions such as completing a level or watching an ad (guideline 3.2.2 (x)). Developers who inflate chart rankings with incentivized feedback may be expelled from the Apple Developer Program (App Store Review Guidelines, updated October 16, 2026).

Warning signs

• Day 1 and day 7 retention for one source is far below every other source.
• Users stop exactly at the task milestone, for example everyone reaches level 10 and then quits.
• Installs cluster in a few sub-publishers with almost no revenue.

Illustrative example (hypothetical)

A game spends VND 40 million at a CPI of VND 8,000 and gets 5,000 installs. Source A has 3% day 7 retention, so 150 users stay, and each retained user costs about VND 266,667. Source B, with the same budget and 20% retention, keeps 1,000 users at VND 40,000 each. On CPI alone, the two sources look identical.

How to prevent it

1. Write “non-incent” into the contract or IO, along with the right not to pay for traffic that breaks it.
2. Pay per deeper event (CPA), such as a purchase or completed registration, instead of per install.
3. Review retention by sub-publisher, not just by network.
4. If you buy incent on purpose, run it as a separate campaign so it does not pollute the optimization data of your main campaigns.

Frequently asked questions

Are rewarded ads fraud?

No, as long as they follow the policy: users choose to watch, and the reward is stated up front. It becomes fraud when rewards are tied to clicks or installs without the advertiser knowing.

Can incentivized traffic push an app up the store charts?

Do not use it for that. Google Play and Apple both ban manipulating rankings with rewarded installs or ratings.

This is one branch of ad fraud in the app group, close to install fraud. If you want to review install sources by user quality, see Adtek’s App User Acquisition page.