Click Fraud Statistics


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Click Fraud Statistics 2023: Facts about Click Fraud outlines the context of what’s happening in the tech world.

LLCBuddy editorial team did hours of research, collected all important statistics on Click Fraud, and shared those on this page. Our editorial team proofread these to make the data as accurate as possible. We believe you don’t need to check any other resources on the web for the same. You should get everything here only 🙂

Are you planning to form an LLC? Maybe for educational purposes, business research, or personal curiosity, whatever the reason is – it’s always a good idea to gather more information about tech topics like this.

How much of an impact will Click Fraud Statistics have on your day-to-day? or the day-to-day of your LLC Business? How much does it matter directly or indirectly? You should get answers to all your questions here.

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Top Click Fraud Statistics 2023

☰ Use “CTRL+F” to quickly find statistics. There are total 108 Click Fraud Statistics on this page 🙂

Click Fraud “Latest” Statistics

  • In 2022, it is estimated that click fraud would cost $44 billion and $35 billion were lost to digital advertising fraud in 2018.[1]
  • At the beginning of the pandemic, click fraud surged by 21% since more individuals were staying at home during lockdowns, increasing the possibility of fraud and bots affecting their ad marketing efforts.[1]
  • 36% of clicks on display ads are phony or invalid (Lunio, 2021), and 78% of marketers cite click fraud as their top concern (Adweek, 2016).[2]
  • Googles shopping ads drive 76% of retail search ad spend, and accounts for 85.3% of all Google ad clicks.[3]
  • According to Wordstream, typically, shoppers make a purchase within five days after their first search, 40% of all clicks on search searches go to the top 3 sponsored results, making visitors from PPC advertisements 50% more likely to make a purchase than organic visits.[3]
  • Applying the 17% click fraud rate we discovered to this figure, we may estimate that the ecommerce sector lost $0.91 billion to click fraud.[4]
  • We dug deep into the data at ClickGUARD to establish the extent of the click fraud problem and found that 17% of Google ads traffic is false.[4]
  • In 2016 it was estimated that around $7.2 Billion dollars (£5.4 Billion pounds) was lost to click fraud.[5]
  • The analysis projected that click fraud would rise by around 13% annually for the remainder of 2021, with linked TVs currently accounting for the majority of this growth.[6]
  • Similarly, according to a report from PPC Protect, 36% of display ad clicks are illegitimate or fraudulent.[7]
  • Comparing the same period in 2019 to the current one, click fraud in the health and medical industry increased by 53%.[8]
  • Only 11% of all clicks on search advertising were discovered to be fake, which was the lowest percentage of fraud.[8]
  • We expect that as CTV advertising grows in popularity, it will become an even more profitable channel for the click fraudsters, with a predicted rise of 31% to an overall rate of 22% for all CTV activity.[8]
  • According to Jean-Loup Richet, Professor at the Sorbonne Business School, click fraud is frequently one link in the large ad fraud chain, and can be leveraged as part of a larger identity fraud and/or attribution fraud.[9]
  • 42% of all ad fraud was caused by app install farms. Click injection (30%) and click spam ad stacking (27%).[12]
  • Click fraud affects 90% of all PPC ad campaigns on Google and Bing. While the Coronavirus epidemic was still in its early stages, click fraud rates increased by 21% source.[3]
  • Companies spending $10,000 per month on Google Ads are estimated to be losing approximately $12,000-$15,000 each year to click fraud.[3]
  • Industries with the highest rates of click fraud include photography (65%), pest control (62%), locksmiths (53%), plumbing (46%) and waste removal (45%).[3]
  • Plumbing and pest treatment are two on-demand service sectors that might experience up to 60% click fraud on their sponsored advertisements.[3]
  • Websites with ads.txt get 3.5% less ad fraud clicks than sites without ads.txt. (eMarketer, 2018).[4]
  • According to our study and estimates, click fraud will rise by 16% overall in 2021 compared to 2020, with CTV linked TV activity accounting for the bulk of this rise.[8]
  • In response, we forecast that app fraud will continue to increase at a startling pace, reaching new highs at over 40% of all click fraud activity.[8]
  • There is less competition in the ad auction since there are fewer advertisements running, which reduces the cost per click. As a result, the click fraud rate eventually falls below the industry average of 15.35% .[8]
  • According to our research, the education sector saw the greatest click fraud rates in 2020, with 31.14% of all clicks being fraudulent.[8]
  • Apps accounted for 19% of all fraudulent clicks in 2020 as several publishers used ad stacking, click injection, and background ad running.[8]
  • On the other hand, we forecast that click fraud on display advertising would climb by 12% to reach roughly 40% of clicks being fraudulent, while click fraud on search ads will decrease somewhat to just under 10% overall compared to 11% in 2020.[8]
  • Interestingly, in our recent study of 410 PPC marketers, more than 50% of respondents believed that at least 45% of all fraudulent activity was comprised of rival click fraud.[8]
  • Last but not least, according to our projections, competitor driven click fraud will drastically reduce from 17% of all click fraud to 11%, a 35% reduction caused by improved advertiser awareness of the problem.[8]
  • They account for the least amount of fraudulent activity among the three major categories, accounting for just 17% of click fraud now, down from more than twice that only a few years ago.[8]

Click Fraud “Fraud” Statistics

  • Ad fraud statistics like these show that it is absolutely worthwhile to purchase an advertisement on a search engine like google as 41% of users won’t even go beyond the first three advertisements, much alone the organic results that appear initially.[1]
  • In 2023, it is expected that digital advertising fraud would cost $100 billion. In 2021, more than 7 million businesses utilized Google Ads.[1]
  • This indicates that 24% of the bots are deemed to be bots that are employed just for fraud and theft.[1]
  • Compared to organic visitors, visitors through advertising are 50% more likely to make a purchase. According to data on advertising fraud, more than seven million firms used Google Ads in 2021.[1]
  • According to Andreas Naumann, Head of Fraud at Adjust, mobile ad fraud affects 90% of individual campaigns.[10]
  • The World Federation of Advertisers predicted that in 2016, the drug trade will overtake digital ad fraud as the world’s second largest industry for organized crime.[10]
  • Their survey of 27 billion ad impressions from 50 digital ad companies put the cost of ad fraud in 2019 at $5.8 billion.[10]
  • According to them, 10-15% of every dollar spent on digital ads online goes to businesses that make a valiant effort to shield advertisers from falling prey to ad fraud schemes.[10]
  • Within a two year period, there was an 11% drop in the total cost of advertising fraud from the $6.5 billion recorded in 2017.[10]
  • The methods and strategies used do not have a 100% accuracy rate primarily because con artists and fraudsters are always coming up with new schemes.[10]
  • According to ANA (2016), bot fraud is 39% more common in ads with a CPM of more than $10 than in ads with lower.[2]
  • $68 billion is expected worldwide ad spend lost to fraud this year.[11]
  • According to a Forrester survey, at least 20% of the budgets of firms spending $1 million per month were lost to digital ad fraud.[12]
  • Web fraud accounted for 28% of all website traffic in 2018, or $66 billion, according to Adobe. In-app advertising reduces fraud efforts by 25% compared to online advertising.[12]
  • According to a TrafficGuard whitepaper, fraudulent activity cost digital advertisers $39 million per day over the course of 2017.[12]
  • In a whitepaper issued by the ad fraud detection business TrafficGuard, Juniper Research provided statistics that indicated that one in 13 app installations worldwide in 2018 were not from legitimate consumers (7.7%).[12]
  • Again, the largest country in the APAC area, China, was in the lead with $11 million losses from digital fraud for every $63 million that were spent on digital advertising per user annually, or a staggering 17%.[12]
  • Appsflyer, a top mobile app analytics business, estimates that as of 2021, the leading sectors have the highest app install fraud rates. Food & Drink – 43%, Finance – 38%, Shopping – 17%, Entertainment – 15% and Gaming – 2%.[12]
  • Ad fraud and other phony internet traffic schemes were anticipated to overtake the drug trade as the second largest industry for organized crime by the World Federation of Advertisers in 2016.[12]
  • Based on this discovery, one commenter hypothesized that the entire cost of advertising fraud may reach $66 billion.[12]
  • Device farming, which accounts for 37% of all digital ad fraud in the commerce sector, is the most prevalent kind of mobile ad fraud.[12]
  • The first industry where SDK spoofing, a contentious topic, is found, accounts for 24% of all ad fraud, is the gaming industry.[12]
  • The TrafficGuard digital ad verification and fraud prevention technology and Jupiter Research once again collaborated in 2019 to provide a thorough picture of the proportion of digital ad fraud in total ad expenditure in various countries.[12]
  • In the United States, digital ad fraud accounted for 15% of the overall expenditure on advertising and squandered $62 million out of $407 million dollars each user.[12]
  • Interesting and concerning for those wanting to address the complete spectrum of issues, 22% of ad fraud on android shopping applications is also caused by unidentified other types.[12]
  • According to Interceptd, a mobile ad fraud detection and prevention startup, 31% of app traffic on Android is fraudulent, compared to 25% on iOS, making it somewhat more vulnerable to digital ad fraud than iOS.[12]
  • With 42% of respondents citing a difficulty related to their fear of fraud, it seems from the video that agencies and brands are more aligned.[12]
  • In the same time frame, online ad fraud using bots and malware created to mimic human users happened 74% less often.[12]
  • Over the second half of 2018, in app advertising reportedly saw 25% fewer attempts at fraud than mobile web advertising.[12]
  • However, social apps suffer the most from SDK spoofing, accounting for a staggering 38% of all ad fraud.[12]
  • Over the next several years, it is anticipated that the cost of ad fraud would rise across all areas, with APAC continuing to suffer the most, with losses more than tripling from $33 billion to $75 billion.[12]
  • Digital ad fraud is an issue that is especially severe in the APAC area, where it is estimated to cost $17 million per day.[12]
  • Those wanting to combat ad fraud for iOS game applications would do well to be aware of device farms (22%), bots/emulators (26%), and SDK spoofing (24%).[12]
  • A worldwide 2019 analysis by Juniper Research found that ad fraud costs the marketing sector an estimated $51 million dollars per day, with losses expected to reach $100 billion dollars annually by 2023.[7]
  • In reality, nonhuman bots that intentionally commit ad fraud account for almost 18% of all internet traffic in the marketing sector.[7]
  • Bots account for 72% of the damage brought on by fraudulent online traffic, while mobile devices account for 28%.[13]
  • Up to 37% of advertising were affected by bot fraud, compared to up to 22% in a comparable research in 2014.[13]
  • Did you know digital ad fraud takes $1 for every $3 spent on digital ads and online advertisers are estimated to loss $7.2 Billion globally to bots in 2016.[13]
  • According to data we directly collected from clients, 83% of advertisers had high levels of fraud in their accounts during the previous 12 months, compared to 13% of advertisers who had little to no fraudulent activity.[8]
  • A recent study has shown that proper ad fraud protection can lower fraud rates from 13% to under 1% for desktop ads and from 7% to nearly 0% for mobile.[14]
  • According to research from IAB UK, £7.3bn was spent on display ads in H1 2019 and they estimate at least £23 million of that UK spend was potentially intercepted by fraudsters.[15]
  • More than one in three US digital media professionals surveyed in December 2019 by verification firm Integral Ad Science (IAS) cited increasing levels of ad fraud as a programmatic challenge.[16]

Click Fraud “Other” Statistics

  • According to the U.S. authorities, Gasperini established and ran a botnet of more than 140,000 machines globally.[9]
  • This might be considered an amazing discovery given that worldwide digital ad expenditure increased by 25% during the same time periods of 2017 and 2019.[10]
  • Finance is the sector with the greatest bot traffic, with over 22% of all traffic being flagged as false.[2]
  • According to eMarketer, in 2022 programmatic display advertising, a whopping $15 billion business, covers 90% of all digital ads.[12]
  • Ads.txt had been adopted by 1.9 million websites by Q3, 2019, 48% up from the same quarter in the preceding year.[12]
  • Agencies as a whole are much more optimistic, with 36% seeing this as a worry, placing it joint-last.[12]
  • It has been estimated that as of May 2022, 27% of Android applications and 7% of iOS apps had already incorporated it.[12]
  • A conservative estimate based on projecting the rate of development at the time of the research would put the level at $50 billion by 2025, or 10% of the entire expected value of the digital ad industry.[12]
  • In an analysis of hundreds of client websites in 2018, Adobe discovered that maybe 28% of online traffic originated from bots or other non-human entities.[12]
  • In January 2018, Procter & Gamble announced it was planning to save $750 million by cutting its ad budget, and reducing the number of agencies with which it worked by 50% (from 2,500 to 1,250).[12]
  • But despite this, 70% of these businesses said that they truly intended to raise their advertising expenditure.[12]
  • In this case, agency professionals seemed to be more worried about the effects of false impressions than brand professionals, with 69% stating that they are, compared to 53%, which is still more than half.[12]
  • On the other end of the spectrum, in Africa and the middle east, just $1 million out of $19 million dollars were spent on digital advertising annually per user, or only 5% .[12]
  • Device farming (26%) and SDK spoofing are challenges in the travel area once again, but this time the latter is the most difficult.[12]
  • The situation with regard to video advertising is unchanged, with 57% of businesses seeing it as a difficulty.[12]
  • According to the same source, marketers that run a million advertisements in a day are likely to pay for more than 100,000 bogus advertising before a problem is noticed.[12]
  • Every day, GDN reaches 2.5 billion internet users, including 94% of those in the U.S. and 90% globally and 65% of SMES use Google ads campaigns.[3]
  • If customers know a product they desire or need is in stock, they are 80% more inclined to visit a physical site.[3]
  • We looked at how much money some of the highest spending businesses spend on digital advertising and applied the 28.9% revenue share that Google has in the advertising sector to those figures to determine how much money some of these companies are losing.[4]
  • 69% of companies that spend at least $1 million a month on PPC reported that 20% of all the traffic they receive each month is invalid.[4]
  • Given that Google Ads’ revenue share is 28.9%, the ecommerce sector will spend $5.41 billion on Google Ads over the next twenty years.[4]
  • It must be acknowledged that although VPN usage was reportedly about 5% or so in the UK in 2016, it was reportedly 25% or more internationally.[5]
  • This increased to $16.7 Billion dollars (£12.7 Billion pounds) in 2017 and it is estimated that $27.2 Billion dollars (£20.7 Billion pounds) will be lost by the end of 2018.[5]
  • Neil Andrew, PPC Protect founder and CEO, said: “Despite the impact of Covid-19, digital ad spend still increased by 2.4% in 2020 to a record $332bn as consumers turn to the web in their masses to stay informed, in touch and entertained.[6]
  • According to a recent forecast by Zenith, global digital advertising in 2021 was expected to grow by 15.6% over 2020, reaching $705 billion well above pre-pandemic levels.[7]
  • After analyzing more than 1 billion device identifiers sold in the U.S., BDEX found that 21% of hashed emails (MD5s) are linked to more than 10 MAIDs, which indicates potential nonhuman behavior.[7]
  • For instance, according to the results of research by my company, BDEX, up to 25% of all mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs) sold in the U.S. data market are invalid.[7]
  • 37% of those polled who advertise are willing to pay a premium of 11% or more for human trafficking certification.[13]
  • Fraud audits may help small firms cut their annual marketing spending by up to 21.2%.[17]
  • Bots account for 50% of internet explorer ad impressions.[17]
  • Germany had the lowest growth, at only 11% from 2019, while India and Australia tied for top with increases of 37% apiece.[8]
  • In order to do this, we have made the first steps in the sector to publicly reveal our false positive rate, which as of January 2021 stands at 0.14%.[8]
  • On other platforms, we’ve seen false-positive rates as high as 23%, which is really detrimental to both user trust and their marketing.[8]
  • Your marketing expenditure may be losing 70% to bots. Further supporting the assertion that up to 70% of your marketing expenditure may be wasted to bots, SmartyAds CEO Ivan Guzenko, wrote an article for entrepreneur.[15]
  • Only 12% of the 267 million ad impressions that marketers paid for to be shown on publishers’ websites could be accounted for or matched, according to the advertiser-funded Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency Study.[15]
  • Max read wrote on this in a 2018 piece for the New York intelligencer, which includes the startling fact that fewer than 60% of web traffic is made up of real beings.[15]
  • thisisbeacon- .[15]

Also Read

How Useful is Click Fraud

The inherent malicious intent behind click fraud raises critical questions about its utility and ethical implications. From a superficial standpoint, click fraud may seem beneficial to certain parties – fraudsters and competitors seeking to tarnish a brand’s reputation or deplete its advertising budget. However, this short-sighted view fails to consider the broader consequences of click fraud on the digital advertising ecosystem.

One of the primary concerns associated with click fraud is its impact on data integrity and campaign performance. By artificially inflating click-through rates, click fraud distorts the performance metrics that marketers rely on to assess the success of their online campaigns. This misinformation can lead to misinformed decision-making, where marketers base their strategies on faulty data, ultimately compromising the effectiveness of their advertising efforts.

Moreover, click fraud undermines the fundamental principles of online advertising – transparency and authenticity. In a digital landscape saturated with competing advertisements, consumers rely on the integrity of online ads to guide their purchasing decisions. However, click fraud erodes this trust by flooding the market with deceptive clicks, deceiving both advertisers and consumers alike.

Another critical aspect to consider is the financial implications of click fraud. Advertisers invest substantial resources in online advertising campaigns with the expectation of reaching their target audience and driving conversions. Click fraud unduly depletes these financial resources, as advertisers pay for fraudulent clicks that yield no tangible benefits. This wastage of advertising budgets not only hampers the ROI of ad campaigns but also discourages future investments in online advertising.

Furthermore, the prevalence of click fraud poses a significant challenge to digital ad platforms and technology providers tasked with detecting and preventing fraudulent activities. As fraudsters constantly evolve their tactics to evade detection, the ongoing battle against click fraud necessitates continuous innovation and investment in anti-fraud technologies. This ongoing arms race incurs additional costs for both advertisers and digital platforms, further exacerbating the financial burden of click fraud.

In conclusion, click fraud represents a detrimental force in the online advertising landscape, compromising the integrity of data, eroding trust, squandering financial resources, and posing significant challenges to industry stakeholders. As the digital advertising ecosystem continues to evolve, combating click fraud remains a critical imperative to uphold the transparency, authenticity, and efficacy of online advertising campaigns. Addressing this issue requires a multifaceted approach that encompasses advanced fraud detection mechanisms, collaborative industry efforts, and heightened awareness among advertisers to safeguard against the harmful effects of click fraud.

Reference


  1. earthweb – https://earthweb.com/click-fraud-statistics/
  2. lunio – https://lunio.ai/statistics/ad-fraud-statistics/
  3. clickcease – https://www.clickcease.com/blog/list-of-click-fraud-statistics/
  4. clickguard – https://www.clickguard.com/blog/2020-global-ad-ppc-click-fraud-statistics/
  5. clickguardian – https://www.clickguardian.co.uk/click-fraud-statistics/
  6. computerweekly – https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252495011/Click-fraud-levels-reach-new-heights-in-pandemic
  7. forbes – https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/02/14/why-combatting-ad-fraud-might-be-your-best-marketing-investment-in-2022/
  8. searchenginejournal – https://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-global-ppc-click-fraud-report-2020-21/391493/
  9. wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud
  10. interceptd – https://interceptd.com/how-much-do-companies-lose-in-digital-ad-fraud-each-year/
  11. martech – https://martech.org/a-statistical-picture-of-the-cost-of-digital-advertising-fraud/
  12. businessofapps – https://www.businessofapps.com/ads/ad-fraud/research/ad-fraud-statistics/
  13. invespcro – https://www.invespcro.com/blog/online-ad-fraud-statistics/
  14. statista – https://www.statista.com/topics/8503/ad-fraud/
  15. thisisbeacon – https://www.thisisbeacon.com/ad-fraud-facts/
  16. insiderintelligence – https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/digital-ad-fraud-2020
  17. powertraffick – https://www.powertraffick.com/click-fraud-statistics

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