Lead gen fraud
Unapproved network syndication
When advertisers' demand for granular audience targeting goes beyond their scope, publishers buy traffic to meet these overstated commitments. Unapproved traffic syndication can be difficult to untangle, especially because traffic brokers and ad networks often sell back and forth to each other in a larger arbitrage network. This means that traffic can be bought and sold a number of times before it reaches a publisher.
How they do it
- Malicious publisher registers for advertiser’s affiliate program and commits to deliver 1,000 clicks that month for a designated cost-per-click (CPC) buy
- Unable to fulfill that order with their organic traffic, network buys supplementary click volumes from a third-party vendor
- Third-party vendor’s click volumes include invalid bot traffic
- Advertiser unknowingly pays original ad network for traffic including invalid clicks that provide no value.
