Forget Fake News -- It's Fake Traffic You Need to Worry About - 0 views
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imontenegro on 03 Apr 19Fake news, fake marketing claims, fake influencers, fake customer service. So much of this fakery is funded through advertising, and biggest thing they sell is fake traffic.
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imontenegro on 03 Apr 19This fake traffic does more damage than just wasting the marketing team's time; the financial impact can be significant and lead to a major budget hit. According to AdAge, $1 out of every $3 spent on advertising is lost because it has been unknowingly spent on ad fraud. Just in 2017, there was $16.4 billion in ad fraud loss.
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imontenegro on 03 Apr 19When it comes to fake Internet traffic, the main culprit seems to involve bots. However, not every bot should be viewed as bad or harmful to marketing campaigns. In Imperva's 2016 Bot Traffic Report, research indicated that nearly 52 percent of online traffic involved good bots (22.9 percent) and bad bots (28.9 percent). That means Internet traffic is only 48.2 percent human.
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imontenegro on 03 Apr 19Marketers and other departments have realized time and money savings by using these good bots. Those interacting with these good bots also are aware that they may be talking to a chatbot for a service request or technical question.
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imontenegro on 03 Apr 19The same report named four types of these harmful bots. First, there are impersonators, which are made to mimic human behavior, including propaganda bots recently used on social media sites to sway public opinion.
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imontenegro on 03 Apr 19Second, there are scrapers that take original content from one site and put it on others as well as take customer lists, contact information, and other valuable data. Third, spammer bots are used to drive Internet traffic to spammer websites. Finally, marketers are most concerned with click bots. This is a relatively new type of ad fraud and that click on performance-based and PPC ads that drive up the cost of this type of advertising.
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imontenegro on 03 Apr 19SUMMARY: With the rise of Aritiial Intelligence and computer algorithms/programs it becomes more apparent that emarketing is under constant threat of fake traffic and analytics. Over half the internet traffic is being used by bots. Marketers must invest in tools to fight fraudulent traffic. Anti fraud and tracking platforms can be utilized to combat fradulent traffic. If there is money in fake traffic, the bad bots will constantly create problems creating fradulent traffic. Marketers have to stay vigilant and informed about new threats to their emarketing campaigns so money isn't being spent on bad bots/fradulent traffic.