Bots, click farms and automation tools account for 18% of total clicks on the internet, an increase of 58% compared to the previous year, according to the global State of Fake Traffic Report survey, by technology company CHEQ. The use of artificial intelligence by digital criminals accelerated this growth, causing harm to business, compromising security and wasting digital campaign resources.
“Algorithms must be increasingly sophisticated to deal with more intelligent threats that cause serious consequences for advertisers by distorting real consumer behavior and wasting investments in PPC (Pay-per-Click) campaigns”, says Michel Bekhor from SmartClick, CHEQ partner in Brazil.
Specializing in identifying and blocking these threats, the company has solutions that perform up to two thousand tests in real time to distinguish between a click generated by a person and a machine and block it immediately if necessary, and offers a free measurement test fake traffic.
The sectors most affected by invalid traffic were Finance, Marketing, Manufacturing, E-commerce and Education in 2023, according to the CHEQ survey. Seasonal times are those with the highest incidence, especially at Christmas, due to the large movement. The survey also recorded a 32% increase in malicious bots and a 20% increase in the use of automation systems compared to the previous year, with 71% of fake traffic being made via desktop and 29% via cell phone.
The analysis used a base of 34 billion clicks received by thousands of domains to generate an accurate report of the digital landscape, with key trends, tools, operating systems and impacts on different advertiser segments. The complete and updated study can be seen on the SmartClick website.
4.1% of paid traffic clicks are fraudulent
The State of Fake Traffic Report revealed that 4.1% of paid traffic interactions are fake, draining resources that could be used to obtain concrete results.
“For every R$1,000 invested, the company loses R$41 if it does not have a solution like CHEQ, which is integrated with platforms such as Google, Meta and Bing, and can immediately block fake traffic. Combating this loss is at the top of advertisers’ priorities”, points out Bekhor.
Created in 2016, CHEQ is a global leader in go-to-market security, offering solutions against digital threats.
“By constantly refining their defenses, companies can protect themselves and mitigate the risks and losses associated with invalid traffic”, concludes Bekhor.
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