In the ever-evolving digital landscape, where online advertising thrives, advertisers and publishers face a pervasive and persistent challenge: botnet attacks. According to a recent study by Imperva, an estimated 27.7% of online traffic is generated by bad bots, and clickbots are among the most notorious culprits. These malicious bots artificially inflate ad impressions and manipulate click-through rates, posing a significant threat to digital advertising campaigns.
To effectively combat botnet attacks, understanding the types of bots and their distinct characteristics is vital. From spambots to clickbots, we'll delve into the diverse world of bad bots, empowering digital advertisers and publishers to protect their investments and maintain the integrity of their campaigns.
How does a bot work?
Bots function over a set of networks and are created based on algorithms that guide their specific behaviour. This behaviour can range from scraping data over the web, conversing with humans or clicking ads at periodic intervals. Since these are programmed by humans, their behaviour highly depends on the intention of the person behind the scene. This is where the classification between good and bad bots comes into the picture. While good bots are not intended at defrauding web users, malicious bots can rob an advertiser’s budget to unimaginable levels
Difference between good and bad bots
Not all bots are created equal. While good bots play constructive roles, bad bots can wreak havoc on the digital advertising ecosystem. Good bots, such as search engine crawlers, serve legitimate purposes like indexing web pages and providing valuable information to users. These bots adhere to industry standards and respect website owners' guidelines.
In contrast, bad bots are designed to exploit vulnerabilities and engage in malicious activities. Their actions can lead to ad fraud, compromise user experiences, and undermine the credibility of digital advertising. Our aim through this article is to make you cautious about the bad bots that might be existing in your campaigns currently and if not acted upon immediately, you might be inviting a lot of trouble
Types of Bad Bots
1. Spambots: Spambots are a relentless nuisance, flooding comment sections, forums, and social media platforms with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant content, or malicious links. These bots use automated processes to disseminate spam messages on a massive scale, diminishing user engagement and diluting the quality of online conversations.
2. Scrapers: Scrapers are bots that systematically extract content from websites, often with the intention of republishing or misusing the stolen information. These bots can cause significant harm to content creators and publishers by stealing copyrighted material, undermining SEO efforts, and distorting organic traffic patterns. In an e-commerce platform, such bots also fill their carts with a limited quantity of highly demanded products thereby leading to early stockouts.
3. Credential Stuffing Bots: Credential stuffing bots pose a grave threat to user accounts and online security. These bots automate the process of using stolen login credentials across multiple websites, exploiting users who reuse passwords. By gaining unauthorized access to user accounts, credential-stuffing bots enable fraudulent activities and compromise personal data.
4. Malware Distribution Bots: Malware distribution bots are responsible for spreading malicious software and infecting devices. They often disguise themselves as harmless files, links, or ads, tricking users into clicking and unknowingly downloading malware onto their devices. Infected devices can then be recruited into a larger botnet, amplifying the reach and impact of the malicious activities.
5. Clickbots: Clickbots are particularly detrimental to digital advertisers and publishers. These bots mimic human behaviour by generating fraudulent clicks on digital ads. Clickbots manipulate click-through rates (CTR), inflate ad impressions, and deplete advertising budgets, resulting in a diminished return on investment for advertisers and compromising the accuracy of ad campaign analytics.
How can we avoid bad bots?
The battle against botnet attacks is a constant challenge for digital advertisers and publishers. By understanding the differences between good and bad bots, as well as the various types of malicious bots like clickbots, industry professionals can fortify their defences and protect their campaigns from fraudulent activities. To effectively combat the threat of bad bots, digital advertisers and publishers must implement comprehensive bot detection and mitigation strategies. Leveraging advanced technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, ad fraud management platforms can analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns indicative of bot activities. Real-time monitoring and analysis enable prompt detection and prevention of bot-driven ad fraud, safeguarding advertising investments and ensuring genuine user interactions.
How can ClearTrust help?
As an ad fraud and invalid traffic mitigation platform, our 130+ filters provide wide options to choose from while deciding the type of protection that a programmatic player is seeking. From Click Spam to Bot Networks, these traps are designed to immediately flag any traffic that does not match the criteria of a good bot. Once flagged, we can also block these bots from infiltrating your campaigns and provide real-time reports to measure the impact.
