From the rugged alleys of Sweetwater to Facebook feeds filled with fake news, the impact of bots has never been greater.
With bots now accounting for a majority of online traffic, they have moved on from just giving marketers headaches to destabilizing digital economies and perhaps even electing presidents.
As online advertising is projected to hit $77 billion in 2017, bots are directly responsible for fraudulently taking tens of millions of dollars from marketers every day, undermining fundamental trust in the industry. The meteoric rise of fake traffic prevents an existential challenge to demand-side platforms, agency trading desks and other vendors across ad tech to prove the basic integrity of their product.
Furthermore, 75 percent of publishers admit to being unable to differentiate between bot and human traffic. Three-quarters of media outlets are selling digital audiences — the fundamental lifeblood of their businesses — without any way to prove they are real.
But bots do far more than just spend their lonely days clicking ads. They also spend time at each level of the purchase funnel.
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