Click Bots and Fake Traffic Cost Online Advertisers $35 Billion a Year

john: 00:00:10

So this is a really costly problem that I was starting to feel

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like I was the only person in my little echo chamber talking about this.

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This is such a problem, and the problem is being exacerbated by the fact that

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we're being forced into an ecosystem that has more and more fake traffic.

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It's so frustrating because they're selling us poisoned traffic and that,

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but none of this works, by the way.

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It doesn't work.

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These bots in these click farm, They know how to hurdle these issues.

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Really amazing.

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Article came out from Search Engine Journal an hour ago.

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Shout out to Moham de Boston on our team for finding this, and shout out to

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Brian Frederick over at s scj published.

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One hour ago, click bots and fake traffic cost online advertisers $35 billion.

john: 00:00:58

Here's the thing, y'all, I was starting to feel like I was the only person in my

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little echo chamber talking about this.

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This is such a problem.

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And the problem is being exacerbated by the fact that we're being

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forced into an ecosystem that has more and more fake traffic.

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Because as a Google advertiser for a very long time we were drinking

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from a specific well, and that specific well was inbound traffic.

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And the inbound traffic well was actually relatively clean.

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Well, and all of our safeguards, tools, tactic strategies were built around this.

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Well, Google started selling us inventory from a brand new Well, and it's much.

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I mean, by many multiples, the display based traffic compared

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to inbound search based traffic.

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I'd have to look it up.

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I should honestly, But I bet you it's hundreds of times the size, right?

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Like, how could it not be?

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Especially given, and that's, I guess, maybe the point that I should be

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making certain points of analysis.

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the number of people that are currently shopping to buy a car

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versus the number of potential people that would buy a car at some point.

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it's.

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Immense the differences in proportions.

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And that's important to know because it's actually really.

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Powerful to think that, Oh, okay, we're gonna open up this whole new

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to continue the analogy, we have this whole new wealth from which we can draw,

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and we finally have the AI mechanisms necessary in order to identify who these

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prospects are, what they're interested in, what they'll buy, when they'll

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buy, how to sell to them, et cetera.

john: 00:02:16

Great.

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But this well is poisoned.

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This is a poisoned Well, and that's the point that the article makes.

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Goes on to talk about the percentage of fake traffic how much this fake traffic

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is costing businesses, and the fact that Google is refusing to acknowledge

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that there is a freaking problem.

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it's so frustrating because they're selling us poisoned traffic but none

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of this works, by the way, I mean, I'm not trying to bash Frederick.

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I really appreciate him or Brian, excuse me.

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I really appreciate him, Voicing this, but the ip, like, if, this stuff

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worked, we wouldn't have a problem.

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It doesn't work.

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These bots in these ClickFORMs, they know how to hurdle these issues.

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It's like playing Red Rover against an NBA player.

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You're just not gonna do anything.

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Another couple really interesting issues, by the way, just on a side note goes on to

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say almost 40% of all web traffic is fake.

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Okay, that's cool.

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Great data point.

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How do you know that?

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So then you go and, and incidentally, this is something

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I'd encourage everybody to do.

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If you see a data point referenced with a citation, go check out that citation.

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This should be a habit.

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We're forced to cultivate if you're gonna use the internet, because so many

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of us, all of us, you read something, you hear something, you take that data

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point away, and then you share it.

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You become a mouthpiece for it.

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You're a note in a network, and this information is propagating

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to everybody else in your network.

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And if you don't go and, look at where the data came from, how it was

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compiled, what the methodology of the data collection was, who these people

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are, the context from which they're approaching the data collection.

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Like all that's really, really important.

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Here's why I say that.

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Check this out.

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So this is check.ai, which by the way, it's within their

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interest to make this point.

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And so you view their data through that lens.

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They own click use, by the way.

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But that doesn't mean that it's invalid.

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and the defined methodology that they provided is actually really good.

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And this is somehow associated with the Israeli Cyber Company's Forum,

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which I didn't know what that was.

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And so I went and looked it up and I found this guy.

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I couldn't find a website,

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The Israeli cyber tech form seems like it's a part of the

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Manufacturer's Association of Israel.

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So like, seems, all I'm saying is, How much can I trust this data?

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And then I went and I looked at their methodology.

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Well, hold on, let me show you this first.

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Today, IVT makes up 40% of all web traffic.

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IV t by the way, is invalid traffic.

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So according to check.ai, IVT makes up 40% of all, all web traffic.

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And here's their methodology, which is really smart, by the way.

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It's simple, it's basic, but elegant.

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10 months.

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Across 10,000 check customers, and they're looking at funnels, websites, you know,

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like look, digital infrastructure, and they're defining what invalid traffic

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is, which I agree with all of this.

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But malicious, suspicious, okay,

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this is the part that's, To determine the traffic's validity, we performed over

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2000 real time cybersecurity challenges to every site visitor's browser.

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That's genius.

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Each visit was analyzed by our intelligence engine, so they're

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using AI or something like it.

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Woo.

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This is not a glitch.

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john: 00:05:06

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john: 00:05:10

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john: 00:05:13

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john: 00:05:20

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john: 00:05:33

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john: 00:05:37

And then they segment them into invalid, invalid segment.

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Now again, because it's to their benefit to have more

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invalid users than valid users.

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You could start to see.

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This breaks down because it's a value judgment and they're the

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ones defining the values that said, that feels as sound as it could be.

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Right?

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And they go on to discuss what they found.

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27% of organic and direct traffic is invalid.

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Cool.

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32% of that traffic from mobile is invalid.

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32% of that traffic in the retail sector is invalid.

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Here's what's interesting.

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Never once did they use the 40% number again, ever.

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And if I go to the summary they say 20% of all organic and direct traffic

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is invalid within certain industries.

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Like retail, I b T can go as high as 32%.

john: 00:06:21

Well, that's not 40%.

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As a matter of fact, that's a significant margin off of 40%.

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So here's this data point.

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I don't fault Brian for this because he just trusted the source that he

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cited, but here's this data point that actually has no citation.

john: 00:06:35

it's frustrating because when you're trying to make these points, when

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you're trying to argue this point, and you want to be able to argue

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it from a position of impenetrable unimpeachable integrity, right?

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And when things can be dismantled by kind of picking apart your argument because.

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, they're not carefully crafted.

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that's dangerous.

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It's a dangerous place for all of us to be.

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That said, the study still has a lot of really interesting things.

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Harvard Business Review says that bad data is extremely prevalent,

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costing us over 3 trillion per year.

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And then again, here's a value judgment.

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Our analysis suggests that 10% of that bad data is indirect result of I B T.

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Feels reasonable.

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That's $697 billion annually.

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Looking at the US.

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So this is a really costly problem that Google refuses to acknowledge.

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The other thing bugs me a little bit about this report is that it

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shows organic and direct traffic.

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It Here's the thing with what we're seeing when I run Performance Max,

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90% of the leads that we're getting are spam, fake bullshit leads,

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which that doesn't mean that 90% of the traffic is spam, fake or

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bullshit because the fake traffic has a higher propensity to convert.

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But it's definitely the majority.

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When they do this study, I don't think that they're

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using PAX or outbound display.

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I could be wrong.

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I'd be really interested in finding that out.

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Here's what pisses me off about Google, Okay?

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This methodology of identifying fake and spam users makes all the sense

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in the world, and it works for.

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So, and here's what's really cool.

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Check this out.

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I looked separately, or check.ai is a $1 billion company, okay?

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Billion dollar value.

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they're a $1,420 billion company.

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They're 1400 times the size of check.ai.

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There's no way they don't have the technical wherewithal

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to do that exact thing.

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You know what I mean?

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Like there's ways for Google to identify this spam traffic.

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They just don't want to, because they've been selling us the poison.

john: 00:08:16

Well, and, you know what, I really think it is too, and actually Brian

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makes this point in the article.

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It's not that they're trying to profit from fake traffic.

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It's that they're terrified.

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So they almost have to keep the problem going because if they solved

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the problem overnight, it's an instant recognition just how bad this was.

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now you have the opportunity for like, where reparations here.

john: 00:08:37

anyway, super important article.

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I'll link to this in the description of this video.

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I'd love to know what y'all.

john: 00:08:43

finding ways to fight bot traffic, but it's hard, it's pain and it inhibits

john: 00:08:47

our ability to use Performance Max.

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Like we're still having a hard time with PAX for Legion, and every sales

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call I do with the lead gen and client is like, Well, it can work.

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Here are the problems.

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Change your entire conversion stack.

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I just wish that we had more help from Google.

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I wish they're actually on our side, but if enough of us get together and start

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bitching about this, maybe they will be.

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So, that's all I got for you.

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Appreciate y'all.