The game Major on Telegram has attracted users’ attention; however, some are concerned about possible fraud involving fake player counts.
Here is what was found about inflated numbers from two advertisers who placed tasks worth $130,000 and $75,000:
1. Information from the first advertiser — @fadewalletbot:
The purpose of this message is to share the results of the completed task in @major. The task was to launch the miniapp @fadewalletbot. The payment was $130,000, and the campaign ran from October 15 to 30. This message will use data from the miniapp database, Google Analytics, and statistics provided by Telegram itself.
According to Google Analytics data, 55 million events were recorded related to interactions with @fadewalletbot. However, part of this traffic initially attempted to access @fadewalletbot via a desktop browser, bypassing @major. To prevent the use of bot farms, the option to open through desktop was preemptively blocked.
As a result, from October 15 to 25, 3.5 million “unique” users gained access to the app, with an average session time in @fadewalletbot of 1 second.
In total, the incoming traffic was 3.5 million, of which:
130,274 “users” clicked the button (subscribe on Telegram).
However, here are the statistical data provided by the Telegram channel @fwt_news.
763,912! Where did these subscribers in @fwt_news come from? I suggest verifying the traffic source.
On October 15, the primary traffic source was a “direct link click.”
On October 22, the source changed to “shared chat folders.”
The fake traffic in @fwt_news is unrelated to the tasks within @fadewalletbot. It is independent “incentivized traffic.” Since our app wasn’t advertised alongside @major, we are convinced that this traffic inflation was initiated by the @major team to showcase effectiveness. Users themselves have no reason to create such traffic, as we technically cannot track external clicks and reward them.
As a result, instead of the expected 130,274 subscribers in @fwt_news, we “magically” received 763,912. Of these, 2,200 were part of the group before starting work with @major, therefore:
763,912 – 2,200 – 130,274 = 631,438 subscribers added within 10 days. Naturally, this “audience” is inactive—no comments or actions from them. They are simply “zombies.”
A similar situation is observed on Twitter. Despite removing the subscription task to our Twitter account from @fadewalletbot, over 50,000 “users” joined afterward.
Let’s move on and review user statistics from the database.
The total number of accounts in the web app is 2,860,000 (this includes everyone who simply accessed the web app; this figure from the database differs from Google Analytics data but is not significantly relevant).
The number of users with a non-zero balance is 333,000 (those who performed any active action after accessing the app).
Of these, 248,000 invited referrals. However, almost all of these users became inactive within the first few days (they invited someone once, but didn’t return to the app, didn’t complete daily tasks, and their friends were removed).
As a result, the number of people who invited friends and remained in the program is 22,000.
The number of users who purchased a premium subscription is 53 (of whom only 2 came from the @major audience).
The number of users who paid to skip a task is 210 (analysis of their wallets shows that 99% are bots subscribed to all tasks within @major).
Summary: For 130,000 USDT, the @fadewalletbot project, in partnership with @major, gained 22,000 users, of which over 2,000 came from the original community.
130,000 USD / 20,000 users = 6.5 USD per user.
In response to concerns about traffic quality, @borz (also known as Roxman) replies with a standard phrase: “Your app is simply bad, I didn’t inflate anything; you did it yourselves.” Any form or amount of refund was declined.
2. Information from the second advertiser, RentTycoon:
My name is Alexey Zarya, and I am the founder of the RentTycoon project.
Through @RomaUkhanov, we purchased a task in @major for our mini-app @RentTycoon with placement for one week from October 18, 7:00 PM, to October 25, 7:00 PM Moscow time, for 75,000 USDT (links to transactions one and two).
The projected audience growth after the advertising campaign (based on data from other projects and analysis) was 4-5 million users. The projected increase in DAU after the campaign was 100-300 thousand users.
The actual audience growth was 2,786,192. The lower-than-expected growth is explained by the ban of @major from 5 to 8 million users (according to various sources) for multi-accounting and rule violations, which we were not warned about and which occurred mid-campaign.
Traffic analysis shows that 95% of your traffic is a botnet.
- Automated CAPTCHA completion
- Endless sessions in the game
- Botnet failures and drops in activity to zero during those moments
- Proxy pools, fingerprints, etc.
Metrics returned to pre-campaign levels after the campaign ended.
The following anomalies were also identified:
Anomalies in metrics:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hW66Svu-FXFl3FRrB72fe_THNITpZDg_/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115079883715972765303&rtpof=true&sd=true
Activity declines:
A detailed report was compiled.
Summary
- Traffic quality is unsatisfactory.
- Time was wasted.
Proposal
- Refund 100% of the payment within a week, plus a 10% penalty.
