In an increasingly AI-optimised marketing ecosystem, performance is no longer just about reach, impressions, or conversion rates, it’s about the integrity of the signals that drive enterprise decisions. As digital investments scale across channels, platforms, and partner networks, CXOs are beginning to confront a deeper challenge: how much of the reported performance truly reflects real customer engagement versus automated noise or manipulated attribution.
In this exclusive interaction with CXO Digital Pulse, the conversation with Amit Relan, CEO & Co-Founder, mFilterIt explores how compromised data quality, evolving AI-driven fraud patterns, and delayed response mechanisms are quietly impacting ROI confidence, governance frameworks, and brand trust, shifting marketing performance from an operational metric to a boardroom concern.
CXO Digital Pulse
What kind of hidden digital waste quietly drains value and makes it harder for boards to trust marketing ROI and forecasts?
Mr. Amit Relan
If you ask me, the biggest hidden waste in digital today isn’t media inefficiency — it’s paying for outcomes that never truly happened.
A large part of digital spends is still being optimized on signals that look like growth but are actually bots, incentivized traffic, or just manipulated conversions.
So brands think they’re scaling performance, when in reality they’re scaling noise. That’s where trust breaks. Because when revenue doesn’t match reported ROI, the board doesn’t question marketing effort; they question marketing credibility. Until you validate traffic quality first, every ROI conversation is built on shaky ground.
CXO Digital Pulse
Which data-quality problem most often causes CXOs to make confident decisions that later turn out to be wrong?
Mr. Amit Relan
In my experience, it’s attribution contamination. Fraud doesn’t delete data; it inserts fake success. When affiliates hijack organic conversions or bots inflate installs, your best-performing channels look even better.
Naturally, CXOs double down on them. But later they discover poor retention, low LTV, or zero business impact. So, it’s not a bad strategy — it’s a good strategy based on compromised inputs. And even the smartest leadership team can’t win with distorted attribution.
CXO Digital Pulse
At what point does poor data integrity stop being an IT issue and become a risk to compliance and brand reputation?
Mr. Amit Relan
The moment it starts affecting payouts and reporting. If you’re paying partners for fake leads, showing inflated growth to stakeholders, or placing ads in unsafe environments, it’s no longer a technical hygiene issue.
It’s a financial leakage. It’s governance risk. And its brand damage waiting to happen. Today, traffic validation isn’t just a marketing metric — it’s a risk and compliance function.
CXO Digital Pulse
How has AI changed fraud from isolated attacks into large-scale, repeatable operations?
Mr. Amit Relan
AI has fundamentally changed the economics of fraud. Earlier, fraud was manual — small groups, limited scale. Now it’s automated and programmable.
Fraudsters can create synthetic users, simulate real behavior, and launch millions of fake interactions at a fraction of the cost. They test and optimize performance marketers. So, fraud isn’t occasional anymore — it’s continuous. It’s no longer a few bad actors. It’s an organized, scalable system.
Which means brands can’t fight it with manual checks or periodic audits. They need real-time intelligence and source level transparency along with a tech powered by AI-ML capabilities.
CXO Digital Pulse
As fraud becomes faster and more automated, where do organizations lose the most time and why?
Mr. Amit Relan
Detection isn’t the real issue anymore. Most brands can see something is wrong.
The delay happens between insight and action. Teams investigate, escalate, debate with partners, and wait for approvals — while the fraud keeps running. Fraud operates in minutes. Enterprises operate in weeks.
That gap is where money disappears. From my perspective, the future isn’t just better visibility — it’s instant enforcement. Because if you can’t act fast, you’re simply measuring losses after they’ve already happened.
