What is Invalid Traffic?

Invalid Traffic (IVT) is generated when malicious bots view and click on ads in order to inflate conversion numbers, resulting in wasted advertiser spend.

These bots take hold when publishers pay third-party audience extension companies to artificially boost traffic numbers to meet impression goals. Although the third-party sources may not themselves deploy bots, these user acquisition companies often bring on additional fourth- and fifth-party sources, which can be breeding grounds for cybercriminals looking to inflate traffic numbers with malicious bots—and cash in on the clicks. As these networks expand, the likelihood for invalid traffic increases, as does the probability for disruptions in impression quality.

While simple bots are easier to detect, sophisticated bots closely mimic human behavior and generally require companies to employ advanced bot detection to detect them in a crowd.

Usually originating from data centers, general invalid traffic is created by simple bots that are not meant to be malicious and are easier to spot with basic bot detection solutions. There are a few different categories of GIVT:

• Data center: When the IP address associated with non-human ad traffic traces to a server in a data center, it is considered bot traffic.
• Known crawler: Associated with automated scripts or programs—often called bots or spiders—that are coded to identify themselves as non-human, known crawler traffic is generally thought to be good and legitimate, although not for the purposes of counting ad impressions.
• Irregular pattern: Some invalid traffic comes from impression-skewing occurrences like duplicate clicks or a webpage automatically refreshing. When traffic exhibits one or more of these attributes, it’s categorized as irregular pattern traffic.

• Automated browsing: When a program or automated script requests web content (including digital ads) without user involvement and without declaring itself as a crawler, it’s considered automated browsing. These programs and scripts are generally used for malicious purposes.
  – Ex. Botnets
• False representation: Ad requests in which the actual ad is rendered to a different website or application, device or other target (such as geography)—in other words, a request for inventory that is different from the inventory being supplied—is considered false representation.
  – Ex. Spoofed measurement, domain spoofing, emulators masquerading
• Misleading user interface: Traffic from ads that render without being visible, trick users into clicking, or are otherwise modified to falsely include one or more ads in an unintended location qualify as misleading user interface.
  – Ex. Stacked ads, hidden ads
• Manipulated behavior: When a browser, application, or other program triggers ad interactions without a user’s consent—such as an unintended click, an unexpected conversion, or false attribution for mobile app installation—it’s considered manipulated behavior.
  – Ex. Pop-unders, aggressive pop-ups, forced new window
• Incentivized behavior: Traffic driven by explicit incentives driving user interaction with ads—solely to receive the incentive, and without the advertiser knowing—is known as incentivized behavior.
  – Ex. Financial incentives