Thirty-six per cent of all web traffic comes from computers controlled by viruses, according to leading online ad fraud detectors Telemetry.
This follows the relevation that a section of a recent Mercedes-Benz online ad campaign was viewed more often my automated computer programmes than humans.
The Financial Times reported that digital ad units were inadvertently placed on fraudulent websites by ad tech company, Rocket Fuel. As a result, Telemetry discovered of the 365,000 ad impressions received over three weeks 57 per cent were viewed by computer ‘bots.’
Anthony Rushton, co-founder and chief executive officer of Telemetry, explained: “The fraudsters erect sites with phony traffic and collect payments from advertisers through the middlemen who aggregate space across many sites and resell the space for most web publishers.
“The widespread fraud isn’t discouraging most marketers from increasing the portion of their ad budgets spent online. But it is prompting some to become more aggressive in monitoring how their money is spent. The Internet has become so central to consumers, that advertisers can’t afford to stay away.”
