Ad Fraud Detection

Before you can defend against fraud, you must first be able to detect it.

Ad fraud is the practice of viewing, clicking, converting, or generating false interactions with any web asset for the sole purpose of earning money directly or indirectly.  Ad Fraud can be committed by bots, malware, or humans. 

What is a Bot?

Short for “robot,” a bot is an automated software program built to carry out a specific task that most people would find too repetitive or time-consuming. Fraudulent bots usually mimic normal activity such as clicking an ad, placing items in shopping carts, commenting on social media, or filling out a form.  Bot fraud usually involves the use of bot farms or large collectives of bots that act in unison usually referred to as a botnet.  

What is Malware?

Malware is malicious software installed on an unsuspecting user's computer, either desktop or mobile, that is designed to mimic a real user to perform tasks that steal advertising dollars. Tasks like viewing or clicking on ads, watching videos, filling in forms, and other unsavory activity unbeknownst to the user.  

What is Human Fraud?

Human fraud is the hardest form of ad fraud to detect as it relies on a network of humans, instead of using bots or malware, to interact with ads and create false transactions. Because actual humans are interacting with the ads, there are no obvious signs that can differentiate normal traffic from  human fraud. 

Classifications of Ad Fraud

General Invalid Traffic or GIVT 

IVT comes in a few different forms, including General Invalid Traffic, or GIVT. GIVT refers to bots, crawlers, spiders, or any of the kind of non-human traffic typically routed from a data center IP address. GIVT can also apply to activity-based filtration or browsers that pre-render pages. Most of the time, GIVT is easy to identify and exclude from results.

Sophisticated Invalid Traffic 

SIVT stands for Sophisticated Invalid Traffic. SIVT techniques are far more challenging to detect. This can include advanced bots that closely mimic human traffic, hijacked devices, malware, invalid proxy traffic, cookie manipulation techniques, like cookie stuffing or human fraud farms.

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Common Signs of Ad Fraud

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You’re getting a lot of clicks, but you aren’t getting many conversions.

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Your best-performing campaigns are suddenly generating little to no ROI.

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You’re getting a lot of traffic on unexpected pages of your website, like your privacy policy.

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Your campaigns have extremely high bounce rates.

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Your leads are confused why you’re calling - they never filled out a form.

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You’ve put together a great campaign, but nobody is engaging.

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You notice a lot of traffic originating from unfamiliar sources.

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Your visitors' time on site is extremely low.

Common Methods of Ad Fraud

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Domain Spoofing

Domain spoofing is the act of driving fraudulent traffic to a "look-a-like" domain and making it appear as if that traffic comes from a trusted domain.

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Cookie Stuffing

Fraudsters tag visitors with cookies without their consent or knowledge in order to receive commissions when that visitor makes a purchase.

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Pixel Stuffing

An ad is reduced in size and placed in a single pixel on a site. Individual pixels aren't visible to the human eye making it impossible for the visitor to see.

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Ad Stacking

Ads are stacked on top of one another so that only the top ad is visible. While all of the ads register impressions when click, the visitor only sees the top ad.

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GeoTargeting Fraud

Fraudsters send ads from different locations by masking them to look like they came from the location the advertiser targeted.

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Click Fraud

Click fraud or Pay Per Click Fraud is when fraudsters click on ads to increase site visitors or to deplete a competitor’s advertising budget.

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Ad Injection

Unauthorized ads are placed on legitimate websites. When these ads are clicked on, the visitor is redirected to other sites.

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Non-Human Traffic

Any form of web traffic that is derived from a non-human source such as bots and malware. Also known as IVT or invalid traffic.

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Device Hijacking

Fraudsters hijack a unique device, mimicking a real user to click on ads, watch videos, fill out forms and steal your personal information.

Do these sound familiar?

Anura can help!

Let Anura Work for You

Good news! You don’t have to detect ad fraud manually. Let Anura do the work while you focus on growing your business.

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Validate Traffic in Real-Time

Our solution runs in the background and lets you know when visitors are fraudulent. Armed with that information, you can then determine the best course of action for your business.