I agree with Wilson's viewpoint except for one problem: inadvertent ad clicks are much more likely on mobile devices than they are on computer browsers.
This must inflate click-thru rates and deflate return on advertising, and I suspect that mobile advertising rates are inflated right now because of this.
> An individual accidentally clicking on an ad, or clicking on an ad without been actually interested in a product is far from suspicious, we've all done it and we'll do it again. But that's not what this is about.
I have to admit that I was hoping that is what this would be about. I suspect that almost all ad clicks on mobile devices are "accidental" in the sense that those pages are optimized to ensure the maximum number of accidental clicks.
I think fraud is ubiquitous in advertising and often the publishers are to blame. Frequently on mobile devices the ads cover the content and you wind up clicking on the ad when you are trying to hide it.
Also I think it is not so accidental that mobile web sites have so many layout shifts because each layout shift is a chance you click on the wrong link and ka-ching!
I wonder how many of the clicks on online ads in general are just accidental clicks. Especially clicks from phones where it is extremely easy to accidentally load the ads. This question will probably never be answered because it is a vital business interest of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and every company that makes phone apps that it not be answered.
To comment on that: whenever I accidentally click a mobile ad because it pops up above what I was trying to click, I make sure to click it for another 2 minutes over and over again.
Hopefully someday all ad networks decide that they only get fraudulent clicks from me, and stop their practices.
Aside from bot traffic, a significant percentage of "legitimate" traffic seems, anecdotally, to be engineered accidental clicks -- the mobile site that is constantly pushing content around in the hopes that one of your screen interactions accidentally yields an ad click. As one of an endless number of examples, a well respected, major recipe site has a mechanism to change the servings, and first you have to click on a "servings" button, and then on the actual serving count. After clicking on the servings, several hundred milliseconds later an ad appears exactly where the count input is, and clearly considerable engineering effort went into designing this, and many other, accidental interactions.
For what? I can only speak for myself but my immediate reaction is to click back and feel annoyed, and consider ad blocker options. It has never led to engagement or a purchase. Ever. The end result is that the performance of ads simply collapses, and sites have to get even trickier to entice accidental clicks. Rinse and repeat.
If you work in the "trick click" space, you are just dooming yourself. It is a race to the bottom.
So what does this say then for all the free ad-supported mobile apps? I keep reading more and more of the success of ad-supported apps that would also face the same risks.
I do think however the flaw here is the writer informed users that clicking supports him - simple click fraud.
Virtually 100% of my clicks on ads are accidental - either the touchpad registered a tap when I didn't intend it, or, in the ever-increasing case of ads moving around on the page, because the ad popped in front of what I actually intended to click on.
To tell the truth, the ads may be working, insofar as sometimes I will go to find out more based on an ad. But you won't see it in your click-through rates. I'll get to your website by opening a new tab and searching in DDG, because at this point I'm so annoyed by adtech and all their scumminess that I'm not willing to give them any additional data if I can possibly avoid it.
Most people sometimes leave the room while ads play on TV. The advertisers know that and work the percentage of pepole that do that into their pricing, etc.
Also, non-organic click fraud is rampant already (and maybe even the majority of clicks). /dev/null + click would at least route ad income to reputable sites that at least have some human readers to view future ad impressions.
The worse point for junk clicks is mobile display - particularly in app. Id never advise RON campaigns here without super tight monitoring. I've never been sure if it's more fraud or 'well placed ads'. I'm guessing the latter as kids apps seem to be the highest offender for mobile display.
@dangrossman I build white lists rather than a black lists for companies where I handle their marketing for display on mobile. Not sure if your offering something like this in Improvely but I imagine it would be of value to a bunch of clients. Advertising networks will hate you!
It is most definitely a problem. Detecting fake clicks is hard enough even when the links are pointing to ad-tracking hosts. In fact browser adblocking could be wiped out instantly if ad networks trusted websites to report their own hits.
Per impression payments are more vulnerable to fraud...
Hide the ad unit in some hidden background layer and you're still gonna get paid for impressions even if no human eyeballs see it...
And you'll get away with it too, because as long as you have millions of web pages and each one only gets a little traffic, there won't be enough statistical power to see that they are underperforming vs just unlucky that none of the first 85 impressions led to a click.
Huh? My working assumption is “all clicks are click fraud” and whenever you see an advertising supported site where the content jiggles aloud (Anandtech) it is no accident that you were trying to click on a link and the ad moved to be right under your finger at the last moment.
Well, the most likely scenario is that you will click their thing. Why? Because you're thrashing around on your mobile screen trying to get rid of the pop-up or overlay.
Whether you succeed or not is immaterial: the ad got clicked on, and hey, even if 99.9% of those clicks are accidental ones that will never convert, they still look like "organic" clicks and the ad revenue still gets booked. Expensive consultants like this person ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944902 ) will chalk it up in the "users engaged" column. Everybody gets what they came for... except you and me.
This must inflate click-thru rates and deflate return on advertising, and I suspect that mobile advertising rates are inflated right now because of this.
reply