According to new research from Distil Networks, 48% of digital ad sellers were not sure how much of a negative effect bots (a "software robot" or virtual agent) had on digital ad campaigns
Whether bots are bad for business may depend on whom you ask, says the report. Though many players in the digital ad ecosystem still say they aren’t sure, advertisers consider
bots more of a problem than publishers.
Bot Traffic Effecting Digital Campaigns (Buyers vs.
Sellers) |
Bad for Business | Buyers | Sellers |
26% or more effect | 18% | 12% |
11-25% | 19 | 2 |
Less than 10% | 22 | 38 |
No effect | 1 | - |
Not sure | 40 | 48 |
Source: Distil, October 2015 |
Ad buyers were more likely to put a significant figure on how much damage bots were doing, says the report. 18% of advertisers said the negative effect amounted to 26% or more, while 19%
said it came to 11% to 25%. Among ad sellers, the responses were 12% and 2%, respectively. Meanwhile, nearly twice as many ad sellers as buyers said the effect was smaller than 10%.
The Premium US Digital Ad Buyers vs. Sellers Would Pay For Certified
Human Traffic |
Premium Value | Buyers | Sellers |
1%-10% | 22% | 17% |
11-25% | 26 | 22 |
26-50% | 1 | 11 |
51-100% | 10 | 12 |
No opinion | 41 | 38 |
Source: Distil, October 2015 |
What to do about the problem was unclear, says the report. About two in five buyers and sellers alike had no opinion on paying for a solution that would certify traffic
as human, though a fair number were willing to pay a premium of less than 25% for such a service.
Earlier this year, notes the report, reports showed that 22.8% of web traffic worldwide in
2014 came from “bad bots,” while a little over one-third came from “good bots” (like search indexing). Human traffic had dropped from 54.8% of the worldwide total in 2013 to
40.9% in 2014, though bad bot traffic had dipped slightly.
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