Non-human traffic is more common on video sites than display ad ones in the UK, according to new data.
A new comScore study reveals that for 79% of digital campaigns, non-human traffic accounts for fewer than 5% of the ads bought and sold (with an average of 1%).
For 14% of campaigns, non-human traffic makes up 5%-20% of the pool, and for the remaining 7% of campaigns, over 20% of the ads bought are delivered to bots.
“In total, the bottom 21 percent of campaigns contributed 75 percent of all NHT (non-human traffic) impressions,” wrote comScore in a blog post teasing the report. “This suggests that by focusing NHT detection and mitigation efforts on these campaigns, the vast majority of all existing NHT activity can be curbed, and wasted ad spend can be greatly reduced.”
While comScore’s discovery that non-human traffic is not as rampant as it may seem — at least for most advertisers — it still needs to be accounted for.
In the report, comScore shows how different digital ad measurement vendors can report greatly different numbers based on whether or not they include non-human traffic. For example, if two viewability measurement vendors track the same campaign but only one accounts for non-human traffic, the final numbers could greatly differ from one another, depending on how rampant the fraud was. In comScore’s example, one vendor reported 55% viewabilty for a campaign, while the other reported 80%.
“Such discrepancies among measurement providers can be disconcerting for clients and contribute to a perceived disparity — and lack of confidence — in the leading viewability technologies in the market today,” writes comScore. “The reason for this disparity is not, nor should it be, a mystery — it is being driven by the increasing incidence of NHT and varying abilities between measurement providers to filer it appropriately.”
The most recent data indicates the market is still below 50% viewability.
The UK ComScore data was taken in January 2015 and spanned the top 100 sites including YouTube and broadcasters.