LONDON—New research from the fraud protection and privacy analytics platform Pixalate indicates that invalid clicks and fraud remain a major problem for programmatic ad transactions.
Pixilate’s new Q2 2023 Global Click Fraud Benchmarks Reports for desktop web, mobile web, and mobile app advertising examined billions of open programmatic ad transactions and over 10 million clicks to see how many clicks on open programmatic advertisements were invalid or fraudulent - i.e., generated by invalid traffic (IVT) - in June 2023. Advertisers often optimize their campaigns for clicks. Fraudsters take advantage of this by generating fake clicks in an attempt to make their supply appear more valuable.
The study found a 17% invalid click rate for all open programmatic advertising across desktop web, mobile web, and mobile in-app in June 2023, with the highest rates (a 21% invalid click rate) for desktop web open programmatic advertising.
The report found a 16% invalid click rate for mobile web open programmatic ads and a 13% invalid click rate for mobile app open programmatic ads. About 20% of all invalid clicks on mobile apps are generated by click farms - sophisticated fraud schemes solely designed to generate fake clicks.
The study also found that the 729x90 Leaderboard ad size had an invalid click rate of 26% on mobile apps—2 times higher than the total mobile app invalid click average (13%)
“The sophisticated schemes deployed by ad fraudsters are not just generating fake traffic but fake clicks as well,” said Amit Shetty, vice president of product, ad fraud, at Pixalate. “Advertisers are willing to spend more for higher click-through rates. But this mindset should come with a heightened sense of scrutiny, as fraudsters always follow the money.”
The free reports are available for Desktop Web, Mobile Web and Mobile Apps.
