According to various sources, from 11 to 26% of all internet users are bots. The real figure, of course, may be even higher. Ad fraud significantly impacts the performance and profitability of an entire advertising campaign.

DDoS attack statistics for 2023 according to Qrator Labs – most of them cover banks (28.31%), online advertising boards websites (15.04%), and online education (9.57%).

It is almost impossible to prevent attacks, but quickly identifying and defending yourself is quite possible. Today, we will figure out how to protect your advertising campaigns from bots together with our experts!

What are the risks that such fraud brings?

All of this seems very simple: your ads are clicked by bots that do not take the necessary targeted actions, and so fraud traffic eats up your marketing budget. But the consequences of this are much more than just wasting money.

Internet traffic according to Qrator labs data (59.5% – people, 23% – malicious bots, 17.5% – good bots)

The advertiser receives low-quality traffic, for which they are forced to pay. A small percentage of bots is almost always present in traffic, but it’s one thing when it’s 3-5%, and another thing when it’s more than half.

An affiliate can easily get banned from the advertiser’s network, even if they really didn’t know that the source was sending bots to their ads. And this means lost money and a damaged reputation.

There is another unpleasant category here: spy bots. They steal unique links and use them together with the selected offer and landing page as is, without any uniqualization or adaptation.

How to spot a bot

Luckily, these guys have a few distinctive features.

1. Incorrect GEO.

For example, you advertise an offer in Germany, but the clicks come from Italy. The likelihood that this is just a glitch is low, but to make sure, try uploading ads again with a really small budget.

2. Quick budget expenditure.

Say, you took an offer from a proven affiliate network and the statistics were good during the tests. Then you decided to scale, but there were no conversions. Or before that, your traffic was flowing in great, but then the budget began to decrease suspiciously quickly.

3. Low CR with high CTR.

Again, let’s say, the performance was good during the testing phase. But then, you keep getting your clicks, but very little to no conversions. There’s a high probability that your ads are clicked by bots.

4. Different indicators in metrics.

Bot attacks often cause sudden fluctuations and unusual spikes in traffic.

Bot programs are constantly learning, acting on new algorithms and finding ways to deceive even such giants as Google and Facebook. But methods of protection do not stand still.

Ways to protect yourself from bots

You can’t successfully do anything without a tracker

Without a tracker, it is problematic for an affiliate to work at all. There are many different options on the market now, you can choose the best one for yourself. With its help, you will quickly understand who clicks on your ads if you open statistics by country, platform, IP, or other indicators. A simple option is to search the internet and download a database of IP addresses that belong to bots, and then add them to the tracker. It’s better to spend 15 minutes doing this than to look at a wasted budget later.

Connect to analytics systems

Connect 1-2 landing pages/pre-landing pages to standard analytics systems such as Yandex Metrics or Google Analytics. And then compare the indicators.

A couple of landing pages will be enough to notice a bot attack even using standard tools:

– Time spent on landing/pre-landing page;

– Interval of clicks on banners;

– Interval and duration of actions (scrolling, clicking buttons, filling out forms, etc.);

– User-agent;

– GEO.

Make black and white lists

A black list is a list of sites where your ads will not be promoted. Before adding a site on this list, check the times when your audience is most active, measure the number of bounces, and add hidden fields. This is a convenient screening method that works like this: bots imitate the behavior of real users and fill out the fields in the application to appear human-like. An ordinary person will not see hidden fields, but a bot will fill them out. If you see a lot of them filled in, feel free to blacklist the site.

A white-list is a list of target resources where you should direct the majority of your advertising budget. Look at the cost per click, the number of transitions to your landing page, and conversions. If users are interested in the product and they actively go visit your landing page and leave applications, then you can safely work with the platform.

Segment your advertising campaign

Try launching several advertising campaigns for different audiences: male, female, age 45+ and others. It is better to set a daily budget, so the risk of losing all the money in the first days will be small. You will immediately understand which segment should be disabled and which can be scaled.

We took some recommendations from a market expert

Anna / CEO Cloud Filter

There’s a very simple and quick solution to get rid of bots. Namely, a cloaking service! Everything is simple here, cloaking is a method of traffic distribution, with the help of which bots and moderators will see a completely different page rather than your landing page and will not get through to your offer. There are many advantages that not only help you save money, but also help you avoid getting banned from your advertising company.

You will be able to protect your advertising campaign and save your budgets.

In a good cloaking service, you can set all the filters you can think of, for example: GEO, language, devices, browsers, you can even choose the OS or platforms, so you don’t have to worry about bots.

Conclusion

Even if you did absolutely everything correctly, this is not a 100% guarantee that bot clicks will not occur. New methods of fraud are becoming more cunning and intricate, but saving your budget is possible! It is enough to monitor the analytics of advertising campaigns, use special services, and try the recommendations from this article.

Hope your traffic stays pure of filthy bots!