I’ve been in online business for quite a while. Drove traffic from various sources – ppc, social, - you name it. Of course, I’ve also been lured by the lucrative traffic from ad networks.
What I’ve been noticing is that almost everywhere you go for traffic these days – you’re bound to get a few bots. Google and Facebook are no exception here, although with them at least you get some decent anti-bot filters to minimize the amount of budget you spend on purchasing fraud or bot traffic. With ad networks the situation has been different so far (at least from what I’ve seen in my analytics).
I’ve recently discovered an in interesting article on MOZ disclosing the amount of bot traffic in online advertising. For a moment I was left speechless when I saw the figures - «Google has disclosed that 56% of its digital ad impressions are never actually seen. Only 8% of impressions that have the opportunity to be seen by a real person. Let me clarify: That does not mean that 8% of impressions are seen. That means only 8% have thechanceto be seen».
It seems to me that bot traffic is a huge problem no one’s actually addressing. It’s especially huge when we’re talking about ad network traffic, regardless of how you’re buying it – CPM (which I believe to be the biggest rip off for advertisers), CPC or CPA/CPL. I’ve tried all of them and I’ve seen bot traffic in each one. Try asking them about it and you’ll get a response like “we have advanced bot filters” at best. Otherwise your claim will most likely to be ignored.
I’m well aware of how lucrative it is for publishers and that a lot of affiliate marketers out there will knowingly purchase bot traffic, but would like to address those of you who care, at least to some extent for the quality of your website’s audience.
So how do you fight bot and fraudulent traffic from ad networks? Yes, there are filters and all that stuff, but those don’t always work.
I’ve found heat mapping to be extremely helpful in detecting bot views and clicks (tested it on a CPC banner ad campaign). But that is only good when you’re working with relatively small amounts of traffic. Obviously, you’re not going to review every single heat map if you have hundreds of visitors per hour.
Then there’s another – device fingerprinting technology. The research I’ve found on this topic proves it to be an extremely effective technology for tracking fraudulent visits and bots. Essentially, it’s a move forward from traditional cookie-based tracking that is so widely exploited by everyone these days, including fraudsers (I believe such thing as Cookie Stuffing needs no introduction). There are a few fingerprinting solutions out there, like Fraudhunt or Redware's tool. I’m about to try the former to see if it can help. Will give you an update as soon as I gain any decent data.
So how do you track bots and what is your stand on fingerprinting? Which are your favorite fingerprinting and anti-fraud solutions? Your comments are much appreciated.
What I’ve been noticing is that almost everywhere you go for traffic these days – you’re bound to get a few bots. Google and Facebook are no exception here, although with them at least you get some decent anti-bot filters to minimize the amount of budget you spend on purchasing fraud or bot traffic. With ad networks the situation has been different so far (at least from what I’ve seen in my analytics).
I’ve recently discovered an in interesting article on MOZ disclosing the amount of bot traffic in online advertising. For a moment I was left speechless when I saw the figures - «Google has disclosed that 56% of its digital ad impressions are never actually seen. Only 8% of impressions that have the opportunity to be seen by a real person. Let me clarify: That does not mean that 8% of impressions are seen. That means only 8% have thechanceto be seen».
It seems to me that bot traffic is a huge problem no one’s actually addressing. It’s especially huge when we’re talking about ad network traffic, regardless of how you’re buying it – CPM (which I believe to be the biggest rip off for advertisers), CPC or CPA/CPL. I’ve tried all of them and I’ve seen bot traffic in each one. Try asking them about it and you’ll get a response like “we have advanced bot filters” at best. Otherwise your claim will most likely to be ignored.
I’m well aware of how lucrative it is for publishers and that a lot of affiliate marketers out there will knowingly purchase bot traffic, but would like to address those of you who care, at least to some extent for the quality of your website’s audience.
So how do you fight bot and fraudulent traffic from ad networks? Yes, there are filters and all that stuff, but those don’t always work.
I’ve found heat mapping to be extremely helpful in detecting bot views and clicks (tested it on a CPC banner ad campaign). But that is only good when you’re working with relatively small amounts of traffic. Obviously, you’re not going to review every single heat map if you have hundreds of visitors per hour.
Then there’s another – device fingerprinting technology. The research I’ve found on this topic proves it to be an extremely effective technology for tracking fraudulent visits and bots. Essentially, it’s a move forward from traditional cookie-based tracking that is so widely exploited by everyone these days, including fraudsers (I believe such thing as Cookie Stuffing needs no introduction). There are a few fingerprinting solutions out there, like Fraudhunt or Redware's tool. I’m about to try the former to see if it can help. Will give you an update as soon as I gain any decent data.
So how do you track bots and what is your stand on fingerprinting? Which are your favorite fingerprinting and anti-fraud solutions? Your comments are much appreciated.
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