Bot traffic continues to be a global problem, says Solve Media in its latest Bot Traffic Market Advisory update. In Q2, activity deemed “suspicious” grew to 49% of all traffic for the web advertising ecosystem, up from 43% in Q1, 40% in Q4 2012 and 26% in Q3. Confirmed bot traffic was in the range of 24-29%, fairly consistent with prior quarters, but still up significantly from 10% in Q3 2012. Suspicious mobile traffic, while not quite on the same level as the web, is also on the rise.
During Q2, suspicious activity grew from 29% to 35% for mobile advertising, with confirmed bot traffic in the 11-14% range.
The US’ level of suspicious web activity was slightly below the global average, at 42%, with suspicious mobile activity also below-average at 22%.
The top 3 countries for suspicious web activity were: China (92%); Venezuela (80%); and the Ukraine (77%). For mobile traffic, the countries with the highest share of suspicious activity were: Singapore (86%); Macau (82%); and Qatar (81%).
Solve Media also warns of a “new threat targeting the video ad marketplace.” Recently, Vindico suggested that 30-40% of video ad impressions could be fraudulent.
Overall, Solve Media estimates that current levels of bot traffic put the digital advertising industry on pace to waste up to $9.5 billion this year advertising to bots.
About the Data: Solve Media releases a monthly average of more than 230 million human verifications across 6,500 global publishers.
