Invalid traffic (IVT) is a big problem for digital marketers. Bots, fake users, and other types of IVT are so pervasive that almost 50% of all internet traffic now comes from non-human sources. What’s worse is that malicious bots make up 32% of internet traffic.

At Lunio, we’ve seen a lot of disinformation about invalid traffic over the years. While more and more people are becoming aware of IVT, many myths persist about its scale, impact, and management.

Sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) is increasingly hard to detect, thanks to the rise of AI and machine learning. So it’s more important than ever for advertisers to understand how invalid traffic can compromise your results and your revenue.

Here, we’ll take a look at five of the most common myths about invalid traffic, and uncover the facts.

Myth 1: Ad platforms automatically take care of invalid traffic

Ad platforms are pretty good at detecting and filtering out general invalid traffic (GIVT). GIVT doesn’t try to hide the fact it isn’t human, so it makes sense that even simple filters can identify GIVT. But when it comes to SIVT — which is where the real problems lie — it’s a completely different story.

SIVT is designed to mimic real user behavior for malicious purposes. This could be committing ad fraud and click fraud, spreading malware, creating distributed denial of service attacks, stealing personal information, and more. A Lunio report from October 2024 found that more than three-quarters of IVT affecting the finance sector is sophisticated invalid traffic (78.5%). And ad platforms are currently doing very little to stop this.

Google, Meta, and other ad platforms have no real financial incentive to tackle the bot problem properly. Because SIVT is becoming more aggressive, it takes machine learning models longer to identify it. The longer it takes, the more expensive it becomes to detect SIVT — the difference between seconds and minutes of processing time can result in a 10x cost increase. And for ad platforms, the results simply aren’t worth the expense.

This reluctance to deal with the problem has a huge knock-on effect for advertisers. In the investment banking sector, we identified an average IVT rate of 6.41%. With an estimated return on ad spend of 3:1, this IVT rate could lead to lost revenue totalling $1.92m in a single year.

And the maximum IVT rate we found is eye-watering by comparison. Some investment banking advertisers had IVT rates of 59%.

The failure of ad platforms to clamp down on SIVT means that without advanced IVT protection, you’re going to lose a significant proportion of your ad budget — and potential revenue — to invalid traffic.

Myth 2: Invalid traffic is a small percentage of total ad traffic

For some lucky advertisers, IVT is only a small proportion of total ad traffic. But this can’t be taken for granted. Many advertisers are affected more than they think.

For finance advertisers, 7.52% of total traffic is invalid on average — but this average rises to almost 10% in some sectors. Here’s a breakdown of IVT rates across the finance industry, according to Lunio statistics:

If you’re unfazed by these average rates, it’s important to note that they can hide the potential scale of the problem. With maximum IVT rates of up to 60% reported, some advertisers get more traffic from malicious bots than they do from real humans.

Financial services are often a key target for scammers, since they tend to have big ad budgets. So not all industries will see a similar scale. But you can’t know the extent of your own IVT problem until you have the facts. Lunio offers a free two-week trial, during which we’ll monitor your PPC campaigns to uncover your IVT rate so you can decide on the best next steps for your business.

As well as draining your ad budget and compromising your potential ad revenue, high IVT rates can lead to inaccurate performance data and misguided optimization strategies. So it’s essential to minimize IVT as much as you can to get the best results from your ad campaigns. 

Myth 3: IVT only affects display ads

Some people mistakenly believe invalid traffic only impacts display ads. And it’s true that display ads are often the most profitable channel for fraudsters, which means they are heavily targeted.

But while display ads tend to be targeted more than Google search and PMax ads, Lunio data from our wasted ad spend report shows that the Google Display Network actually has a lower average IVT rate than most other channels, including TikTok, Meta, X, and LinkedIn:

Bots, click farms, and other sources of IVT can interact with any type of online ad. And with bots becoming increasingly more sophisticated, this trend is likely to develop (especially without any meaningful intervention from ad platforms themselves). Even newer forms of digital advertising (such as native ads and connected TV ads) are affected by invalid traffic.

As a result, marketers need to be vigilant about managing IVT across all their advertising channels. This can be difficult and time-consuming when done manually, but it’s essential for maintaining or improving your PPC results. Alternatively, automated systems like Lunio can help you detect ad fraud and the signs of invalid traffic, then filter out the vast majority of SIVT without the hassle of manual monitoring. 

Myth 4: IVT rates are going down

Unfortunately, the opposite is true: IVT rates are higher than ever, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to decrease any time soon. According to Soax research, bot traffic has been increasing year-on-year since 2019:

Some reports estimate that 65% of all bot traffic is malicious. That means most advertisers are inevitably wasting ad spend on SIVT, resulting in lost budget, reduced revenue, and skewed analytics. So assuming that IVT is in decline is dangerous for your PPC performance.

Myth 5: Invalid traffic is unavoidable, so it’s not worth focusing on

The lack of support from ad platforms and increasing prevalence of SIVT can make beating invalid traffic feel like an uphill struggle. But the truth is that there are many tools and practices that can help you tackle IVT, resulting in better PPC performance and increased revenue.

It’s true that all advertisers will experience some level of IVT. But it doesn’t need to become an overwhelming problem that compromises your entire paid marketing strategy. Advances in click fraud detection now allow advertisers to identify and mitigate IVT, helping you protect your ad spend and improve your return on investment.

“Since our main paid media goal is, like most advertisers, always going to be maximizing return on budgeted spend, then reducing wastage on ad fraud and low quality traffic is always high up the list. And Lunio provides a crucial tool to tackle that.”

— Mark Churchill, Digital Marketing Manager, Wealth Club

Some of the most effective ways to tackle IVT include:

• Investing in IVT detection software — Effective software that identifies and eliminates IVT from your PPC traffic is the best way to remove IVT without adding lengthy manual monitoring processes. Lunio uses AI to detect and prevent IVT from impacting your ad campaigns.
• Manual monitoring — Keeping a close eye on your campaigns can help you spot unusual patterns or user behaviour indicative of SIVT. You’ll need to get a good understanding of what normal campaign data looks like, then compare this with suspicious data.
• Avoid poorly-performing ad networks — Certain ad placements can put you at greater risk of IVT infiltration. Our research shows that made-for-advertising and gaming site ad placements are among the worst for high IVT levels.
• Don’t pay for site traffic — Don’t use click farms or any other service that claims to send traffic to your site. Most of these use bots to generate clicks as cheaply as possible, but they don’t send anyone of real value to your site.
• Blacklist suspicious domains and IP addresses — If you spot dodgy traffic coming from a specific domain or IP, you can blacklist this so they can no longer direct IVT to your site. AbuseIPDB.com is a helpful resource; it collates IP addresses that have been associated with malicious activity online and provides a central blacklist to cross reference against. 

Many of these options require a lot of time, effort, and vigilance to carry out. But they’re also effective ways to optimize your PPC campaigns and make sure you’re not losing a significant amount of your ad budget to invalid traffic.

Leverage Lunio for optimal PPC performance

Getting a better understanding of the reality behind these IVT myths will help you take the most effective action to tackle invalid traffic. For performance marketers, this can give you a huge advantage in a competitive PPC field.

Lunio is an advanced IVT detection and prevention solution. It can safeguard campaigns across all channels, minimizing and mitigating the impact of IVT across your performance marketing campaigns.

To learn more about how IVT is currently affecting your PPC performance, get a free two-week trial of Lunio. We’ll uncover your invalid traffic rate, giving you a clear view of your campaign accuracy, so you can make the right decisions to meet your performance marketing goals. There’s no obligation to buy after the two-week trial, and we’ll offer any support you need to identify and eliminate IVT from your campaigns.

‍Book your free two-week traffic audit to get started.