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The EASY way run a bot test — Voluum Honeypot (11)

03-19-2019 10:28 AM #1 voluum (Veteran Member)
The EASY way run a bot test — Voluum Honeypot

We’ve all been there. The campaign is set up and we feel pretty optimistic. The offer was chosen carefully and targeted through a promising audience. We wait impatiently for the results, as more and more impressions and clicks are coming our way. We take a look into the stats, feeling excited and then… nothing.

No conversions. No profits. Big fat nothing.

What happened?

Bots happened.

Voluum has a solution for you - let me introduce Honeypot.
Using Honeypot is easy and requires minimal technical knowledge - I’ll walk you step-by-step through its setup.
Honeypot is designed to lure bots into clicking fake links and count traffic that they generated.

How it helps you?

You can identify heavily bot-infested campaigns and block them in your traffic source's platform setup. Honeypot gives you more control and helps you save some $$$ in the process.

How does it work?

When your LP loads, the Honeypot script you’ve implemented to the LP’s HTML creates a link that is not visible for a human visitor but can be scanned and activated by bots. Because this Honeypot link is typically scanned first, bots tend to activate it and not the actual link (click URL). The Honeypot link’s activation is counted as a click, but this click is also flagged and marked as suspicious, which can be seen in the Anti-Fraud Details view.

How to set it up?

Go to Voluum Settings → Anti-Fraud Kit tab.
In the Honeypot section, select the domain that you use in your campaign funnel with this landing page from the drop-down menu.
Copy the Honeypot script by clicking the Copy button.

Go to your LP and edit the page's HTML code. The Honeypot script has to be implemented right after the <body> tag. Your landing page's HTML code should look like this:

<body>
<script>AFKClickUrl="http://voluum_dedicated_domain.com/click";</script>
<script async src="https://script.com/script.js"></script>
.
.
.
</body>

**Double check if the link in the first line of the script is the same as your click URL to avoid domain mismatch.**

You’re good to go!

Once you save your changes, your bot test is running. You can go back to Voluum to observe the numbers of invisible clicks generated on your LP (in the Anti-fraud details pop-up window).

No more wasting money on bot heavy traffic sources.

Bye-bye bots

Karolina

03-19-2019 12:17 PM #2 justinzing7 (Member)

Perfect timing! Have been running my first few campaigns and realized I should run a bot test. I'll give this a try. Thanks Karolina!

03-19-2019 12:26 PM #3 voluum (Veteran Member)

Originally Posted by justinzing7

Perfect timing! Have been running my first few campaigns and realized I should run a bot test. I'll give this a try. Thanks Karolina!

Glad to hear that. Let me know your thoughts on it!

Karolina

03-22-2019 07:22 AM #4 vortex (Senior Moderator)

LOL!! I had been wanting to find time to write the bot test lesson for the 40-day tutorial...

Well now thanks to @Voluum I no longer have to!

Will just link to this tutorial!

Thanks so much Karolina!

Amy

03-22-2019 07:23 AM #5 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Question: This feature isn't available in the $69/month plan correct?

Amy

03-22-2019 11:12 AM #6 voluum (Veteran Member)

Originally Posted by vortex

Yes! Glad you want to add it to your lesson! Let me know if you need anything else, I can help you with the tutorial if needed.

We also have an even more detailed guide walking you step-by-step through getting the Honeypot script, implementing the script on your landing page, and viewing the number of invisible clicks here (+screenshots).

Question: This feature isn't available in the $69/month plan correct?

That's correct, this feature isn't included in the Entry plan, it's available for Basic and Advanced plans only.

But you can still have Honeypot turned on with the whole Anti-Fraud Kit tool for a trial period to test it out.

To do so, click the bulb icon (top right) in your Voluum panel and then Request trial for the Anti-Fraud Kit. The trial is FREE and is turned on for a 2-week period.

Karolina

03-22-2019 01:27 PM #7 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

I have a dream ... Next step would be to force traffic source to accept this data as grounds for refunds

03-22-2019 01:39 PM #8 platinum (Veteran Member)

The setup looks quite familiar

Great work guys!

03-22-2019 02:32 PM #9 voluum (Veteran Member)

Originally Posted by matuloo

I have a dream ... Next step would be to force traffic source to accept this data as grounds for refunds

Ahhh... tell me about it! Though I see things moving more and more in this direction (...slowly. ...very slowly).

06-27-2019 10:06 PM #10 janm82 (Member)

Originally Posted by Voluum

Once you save your changes, your bot test is running. You can go back to Voluum to observe the numbers of invisible clicks generated on your LP (in the Anti-fraud details pop-up window).

Karolina

Hi Karolina,

I'm already testing your awesome listicle tracking solution. A feature I have been waiting for! But the question is, how to use the anti-fraud kit and honeypot script with this feature. I noticed it still looks at clicks. but the clicks are on te second lander. On the first lander are the intermediate clicks. Can I just place the honeypot script at the first step lander?

06-28-2019 03:20 PM #11 voluum (Veteran Member)

Originally Posted by janm82

Sure, you can place the honeypot script on the first step lander. Once you check a report for this lander all traffic tracked as "clicks" will be bots because human-generated clicks on your first step lander should be accounted as "intermediate clicks" - under CTA buttons directing to second step landers you place intermediate click urls. And also, when you check anti-fraud details, bot-generated clicks will be marked under "invisible clicks".

Karolina

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