Ad fraud, also known as click fraud, is a type of online fraud affecting advertisers and marketers that involves creating and/or manipulating false ad activity in order to deceive the advertiser into paying for fraudulent impressions or clicks. Ad fraud commonly affects online advertising, with the majority of ad fraud focusing on the production of invalid or fake impressions.
Ad fraud is a particularly difficult type of fraud to combat as its perpetrators often utilize sophisticated technology to mask their activities. Ad fraud can cost marketers millions of dollars and, given its sophistication and relative secrecy, often goes undetected by the advertiser.
Ad fraud is a broad term that encompasses a variety of fraudulent activities. The most common forms of ad fraud are ad stacking, click stuffing, cookie stuffing, ad stacking, impression fraud, and click fraud. Ad stacking is a technique used by fraudsters to hide language or other content in an ad, in order to deceive consumers into clicking on the ad and driving up the ad impression rate. Click stuffing is the practice of stuffing invalid clicks into an ad to inflate clicks and impressions, thereby fraudulently increasing the cost of the ad. Cookie stuffing is the process of manipulating cookies to inflate impression numbers.
Impression fraud is a situation in which an advertiser pays for impressions that do not originate from genuine users. Click fraud occurs when someone artificially inflates the number of clicks on an advertisement by fraudulently clicking on it or by using automated programs to click. For example, a fraudster may create a bot to automatically click on the same ad for hours on end, which would artificially inflate the click count and drive up the revenue generated from the ad.
Ad fraud is a serious issue and can have destructive long-term consequences. Not only does ad fraud damage the credibility of an advertisement, it also has the potential to hurt an advertiser’s brand image, as well as lead to lost revenue. As such, advertisers should employ ad fraud prevention measures, including regularly conducting audits, conducting frequent reviews of their advertising campaigns, employing click verification technologies, and purchasing impressions from trusted sources.
