Click fraud scammers are generating fake leads to trick advertising networks into believing their fake clicks are genuine.
BERLIN, GERMANY, November 10, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ — Click fraud detection service Polygraph is warning advertisers of a fake leads scam affecting a major online advertising network. The fake leads are being generated by fraudsters to fool advertisers and the advertising network into believing fake advert clicks are genuine.
Click fraud is an online scam which steals billions of dollars from advertisers every year. Criminals create websites and monetize the content using advertisements. They use bots – software pretending to be human – to visit their websites and click on the ads. For each of these fake clicks, the advertiser pays money to the advertising network, and the money is then shared with the scammer.
An issue faced by the criminals is their bots never purchase anything at the advertisers’ websites. This will eventually get flagged by the advertising network, and can sometimes result in the criminals’ publisher accounts being suspended. To get around this issue, the scammers instruct their bots to look for leads forms on the advertisers’ websites, and to fill out the leads forms with real-looking data. This tricks the advertising network into believing the bots’ traffic is real, and the scammers are able to continue stealing money from advertisers.
According to Trey Vanes, head of marketing at…
