How to Combat Malware & Traffic Fraud When Buying Traffic

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How to Combat Malware & Traffic Fraud When Buying Traffic
Stop Fraud Sign
Stop Fraud Sign

AdTech companies buy traffic from hundreds, sometimes thousands of different sources by way of publishers or agencies specializing in driving internet traffic which can significantly increase the amount of customer to a business thus, making them large amounts of revenue, however; if they end up buying the wrong sort of traffic it can cost an AdTech business greatly.

For publishers, sending traffic for a payment (usually per thousand impressions or CPM) is what they do best and most of them do this legitimately. However; according to a report published by the New York Magazine back in late 2018, up to 40% of internet traffic is fraudulent.

What is malware / fraudulent traffic?

Advertisers expect that all their online content is viewed by actual humans. In other words, ‘real consumers that have potential to purchase a product or service’.

By a short definition:

Traffic fraud is fake / non-human traffic directed by fraudsters so that they can exploit their advertisers and fraudulently profit from them.

Malware / fraudulent traffic is usually generated by two types of bots, ‘Ad Fraud Bots’ and ‘Malware Bots’ which mimic human behavior. These bots are very hard to detect and use sophisticated algorithms to create mass amounts or impressions which have no actual value to the advertiser because they’ll never generate actual leads or sales. This dilutes the value of the advertiser’s inventory and tricks the advertiser into believing that an impression of their ad was served on a premium publisher’s website. Therefore, an advertiser would have spent a vast amount of their budget for advertising for their products that were never seen by humans.

Negative Impacts of Traffic Malware / Fraud

  • Brands wastevast amounts of their advertising budgets on fraudulent impressions.
  • Complicates campaigns performance analysis.
  • Inventory is inflated artificially which reduces the value of legitimate publishers.

For top players in the AdTech industry, buying vast amounts of traffic is the driving force behind their businesses So, it’s important for them to recognize and stop malware/ fraudulent traffic in their advertising campaigns to avoid high costs, bloated impressions and so that they can accurately analyze their campaigns activity. This ensures that they only pay for advertising for the audience that they want.