Pop bots (24)

Hi all -
Been hearing that some pop channels have bot traffic and should be blocked. How to identify? Are they:

- low ctr (i.e. sub 1% when average is 5%)
- high ctr (i.e. > 50% when average is 5%)
- both

Gut tells me that its low ctr, but bots might be clicking through LPs

enginefish

Hello! The rumors about it are greatly exaggerated. Yes, pop networks have bots but not a lot (depends on geo and network). I identify bots using CTR.
If my average CTR is 20%, I will block all sites that:
Have 30 clicks and:
1) Have CTR = Average ctr/3. So If I have 20% average CTR, I will block sites with CTR <6.6% (20/3=6.6);
2) have CTR = Average ctr*3. So If I have 20% average CTR, I'll block sites with CTR >60% (20*3=60).
Sometimes I'll find a good site with a very low or a very hight CTR, but it's often just 1 good site among 300 bad sites. I also block sites with 95%+ CTR after 10 clicks.

Originally Posted by mrbraun

Hello! The rumors about it are greatly exaggerated. Yes, pop networks have bots but not a lot (depends on geo and network). I identify bots using CTR.
If my average CTR is 20%, I will block all sites that:
Have 30 clicks and:
1) Have CTR = Average ctr/3. So If I have 20% average CTR, I will block sites with CTR <6.6% (20/3=6.6);
2) have CTR = Average ctr*3. So If I have 20% average CTR, I'll block wisest with CTR >60% (20*3=60).
Sometimes I can find a good site with very low or very hight CTR, but it can be 1 good site and 300 bad sites. I also block sites with 95%+ CTR after 10 clicks.

Originally Posted by simon_89

Do you use any scripts to measure this? I'm assuming your're using this on your initial testing phase.

Thanks guys - on a related note, whats a good CTR for a pop lander?

Originally Posted by enginefish

Thanks guys - on a related note, whats a good CTR for a pop lander?

Why not just run a bot test to find out?

These threads will tell you everything you need to know:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...n-Any-Campaign

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ut-Bot-Traffic

Good luck!


Amy

You can make your own solution, e.g. track all clicks on your website - you can integrate it with Google Analytics or just save it into a database. You can also try using things like mouseflow.com which can help to some extent.

Invisible 1px iframe to a generic lp or something with a call to action. If it get's click outs. Definitely bots.

Originally Posted by pain2k

Invisible 1px iframe to a generic lp or something with a call to action. If it get's click outs. Definitely bots.

<iframe src= "http://mytrackingurl.tld" width= "1" height= "1"></iframe>
</body>
</html>

I just made an excel spreadsheet that will analyze your placement data, and make suggestions on the minimum and maximum CTRs for optimal profits:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...t-Cutting-Tool

Basically, the tool will tell you that if had cut all placements below a certain CTR and/or above a certain other CTR, you would have achieved the maximum amount of profits. (In this sense it's kind of a back-testing tool.)

The more placement data you have, the more accurate the tool will be. Also, because CTR is dependent heavily on the lander and not just the percentage of bot traffic, make sure you only include placement data from a single lander (ideally your best lander).

If you want to give this tool a test, be sure to make a note of the placements you're cutting, so that if results are less-than-satisfactory, you can reactivate those placements.



Amy

On the same line as pain2k's suggestion, a close-to-invisible link will also show up bot traffic.

<a href="gohereifyou'reabot.com" style="font-size: 2px; color: #one_shade_off_background; position: absolute; left: -900px;">click here if you're a toaster!</a>

Originally Posted by caurmen

On the same line as pain2k's suggestion, a close-to-invisible link will also show up bot traffic.

Code:

<a href="gohereifyou'reabot.com" style="font-size: 2px; color: #one_shade_off_background; position: absolute; left: -900px;">click here if you're a toaster!</a>

Note - I always use a color slightly different to the background color, but not visibly different. That might be paranoia, but if I was writing a clickbot I'd definitely look for and avoid links with display:none or identical color to the background.

On that note: the best bot defences are in layers. Don't just use one detection trick - use four or five. Clever bots will probably get through a lot of detectors, so defence in depth is the best strategy.

Originally Posted by ahmdfawzy

excuse me , i didn't understand you , can you please explain what is the purpose of this code ? how does it let me know bots traffic ?

Originally Posted by il3n1n

Only bot can click in invisible link.

You need to analyze what placements this bot clicks are coming from. In case a placement is sending you a WAY TO HIGH % of bots, you cannot profit on it, no matter what you do. You want to pause such placements at the traffic source.

Something you guys failed to mention, is the use of fake ISPs aka datacenters, colocation companies, cloud hosting like Amazon, Digital Ocean, Linode and a tonne of others.

Check your ISP data and do a match up with the zone-id's to identify the fraudsters. I've managed to do so with native and pop. It's another method of identification.

For example, in France, OVH SAS is a common one, in Canada "Garrision Networks LLC" seems to be a favorable one for bots.

^^^ Yeah, if you have ability to do IP range targeting you can block these out as well if you know their ranges.

And if you don't know their ranges, you can find them on bgp.he.net

For example, for OVH here are all their declared ranges: http://bgp.he.net/AS16276#_prefixes

You will find a lot of datacenters, colocation and cloudhosting companies for sure on pops. I normally filter by ISP first for those then check the ip list I have on bots to see if I missed any. It's rough though because it's so much and there are new ones regularly. I think the best thing is to actually use a database like NoipFraud connected by API to validate those from your tracker and send a report to traffic source after.

Current self-hosted trackers should probably look at such an implementation.

Originally Posted by pain2k

HTML Code:

<iframe src= "http://mytrackingurl.tld" width= "1" height= "1"></iframe>
</body>
</html>

Replace tracking url to a dud campaign with a link out.

That's why it should be to a lp with a cta click out. The invisible link method by caurmen above is better too.