Rise of the ‘bad bots’ puts advertisers’ finances at risk

As well as suffering from ads being placed next to or on potentially brand-damaging sites and posts, a number of new “bots” have emerged that are able to artificially inflate Web traffic data, which means advertisers are charged more than the actual traffic warrants.

But how can these bots be stamped out?

"The shocking fact is that around 50 per cent of Web traffic is generated by bots. However, not all bots are bad bots, you have good bots – such as bots that gather information from websites for the search engines or bots that check the availability of websites to name a few," Michael Maksoudian, a managing partner of the UAE and Qatar-based digital strategy firm Netizency, told The National.

“According to global estimates, bad bots represent around 30 per cent of website traffic. As a rule of thumb, the higher the number of ‘real’ visits your site receives, the lower the percentage of bad bots.”

Mr Maksoudian says advertisers should conduct due diligence on the websites they will be advertising on by first requesting access to the analytics platforms of sites, which could be via Google Analytics or Omniture.

“Suspicious behaviour can be deduced from abnormal metrics such as very high bounce rate or very high percentage of new sessions or very short visit duration. These are signs that you need to proceed with care and investigate further,” he says.

James Reynolds, the founder of the Dubai-based online marketing firm SEOsherpa.com, says this so-called “click fraud” does occur but the problem is not a new issue in the region. “My advice would be to stick to the major ad networks who have robust algorithms in place to weed out fraudulent traffic.”

Mr Reynolds also advises using of a variety of tools to audit Web traffic stats. He says: “A combination of something like Google Analytics and Clicky, cross-referenced against your servers’ own log files, should help you verify your traffic stats are legit.”

Dimitri Metaxas, the regional executive director for specialist companies at Omnicom Media Group (OMG) Mena agrees that fraudulent activities like these are not new.

“I would even argue that this problem was bigger in the past than it is today, as we now have stronger digital media booking practices and better monitoring and brand protection technologies,” he said.

“However, non-human traffic continues to be a concern and it is for this reason that all advertisers should employ reputable brand safety technologies that can protect them from that threat.”

Mr Metaxas says verifying website traffic is less important than stopping non-human traffic or bots from consuming your advertising investments in the first place.

“To do this, we employ brand safety technologies. Even without dedicated brand safety tools, simply downloading and analysing campaign data from your ad server, for example Double Click for Advertisers, can provide you with some level of fraud detection and monitoring.”

Austyn Allison, the editor of marketing news magazine Campaign Middle East, agrees that fake views must be stamped out.

“It will need more pressure from the advertisers themselves to get ad tech firms and media owners to put the right [preventive] measures in place.”

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