How Clickbots Imitate Real Users: 8 Ways

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The classic budget of an Internet marketer includes expenses on SEO website promotion, contextual advertising, SMM and targeted advertising in social networks, brand reputation management and other multiple lead generation options. And all in order to reduce the cost of one request (CPO and CPA), smooth out the impact of negative reviews from dissatisfied customers and reduce the percentage of bounce rates and abandoned carts. But, unfortunately, where there is active paid customer acquisition, there is also invalid traffic, or click fraud.

Contents
1. What is a click bot
2. Where are they used?
3. Methods for bots to imitate real users
3.1. 1. Placing an order
3.2. 2. Returning "buyers"
3.3. 3. Scraping
3.4. 4. VPN
3.5. 5. Retargeting
3.6. 6. Cancellation of payment and refund of funds
3.7. 7. Critic Bots
3.8. 8. Landing bots for branded queries

What is a click bot​

Clickbots (from the English click — to press the mouse button and bot (abbreviated) — robot) are special scripts or programs that are created for automatic clicking of PPC advertising on search, advertising network sites or social networks. They imitate the actions and behavior of real users pre-set by the bot master. They can be used both by the advertising partner on whose site the advertising is placed, and by a third party that earns money on motivated clicks and participates in other fraudulent schemes.

As a rule, they are written in Python or Java script in conjunction with the Selenium WebDriver browser driver. At the output, they are an exe file for Windows OS or a binary file for Linux. To bypass blocking of the bot by its IP address, it can quickly change the proxy server. To reuse the same bot, it is programmed to change the browser response header. For example, the first visit was allegedly made through Internet Explorer, and after the change - through Opera.

It is important to understand that this is not just some home program installed on the master's PC, but also a whole network of devices infected with a virus (worm or Trojan), be it a mobile phone or a toaster. The master sends commands to the "zombie" devices, and they execute them, for example, by massively clicking on ads on a specified site.

Where are they used?​

Below are the results of a study by an American agency that analyzed the behavior of clickbots when they went to a site via advertising. It was done using sites with high advertising budgets as an example. Here are the top topics of resources where a high concentration of click fraud was observed:

• beauty and health (care cosmetics);
• food and grocery delivery;
• clothing stores, sporting goods;
• travel websites (booking tours, air tickets);
• online education.

Over the course of a week, every click—both real user and bot—was analyzed across advertising campaigns.

Ways for bots to imitate real users​

Clickbots are capable of completely copying the behavior of real buyers. Simply scrolling a page is just a small part of what they can do. It can fill out a form, send it, copy text on a page and imitate pressing keys on a keyboard, add products to a cart, subscribe to a newsletter, and much more.

Here are 8 ways that bots, according to the analysis, used to copy the actions of real buyers.

1. Placing an order​

For every 50 bots that clicked on an ad, there was one "customer". That is, he purposefully went to the checkout page ( /checkout/ ). In total, 3.5 million such clicks were recorded.

► Algorithm of actions: adding a product to the cart, filling out the form to place an order and making a purchase.

► As a result: losses on the advertising budget and logistics (if a fictitious or real delivery address was indicated), refunds, impact on the correct analysis of conversion rates in metrics. In the case of financial organizations, this meant a loan refund if the site offered to apply for a loan, for example. As soon as it turned out that the data was fake and the application was fraudulent, it was rejected. For intermediaries, this means significant losses of their own funds.

2. Returning "buyers"​

Thousands of different bots could return hundreds of times to sites they had already visited. And not out of the simplicity of their hearts, but because targeted advertising was set up based on their earlier visits.

► Algorithm of actions: the advertising system, assuming that this was a real user, showed the robot ads customized for his segment.

► Result: 2,117 bots returned to sites in this way 34,031 times.

3. Scraping​

Scraping is a technology of automatic collection of large data arrays by bots by extracting them from the pages of web resources and applications. This includes, for example, well-known parsers that automatically copy information from popular resources in their niche. Such bots play a major role in advertising fraud. During the study, 5,000 clicks made by such "scrapers" were found on one site alone.

► Action algorithm: for example, one of the advertising partners, who owns cooking sites with recipes, discovered that bots were stealing his quality content and monetizing it on their platforms through online advertising.

Result: lower rates, advertiser loyalty and revenue.

4. VPN​

Every fifth bot used a VPN connection or other methods to hide its real location. For example, a clickbot could pretend to be a buyer from Germany, Russia or Japan (depending on the store's coverage area) for an online store. But in fact, it was located in a completely different place, for example, in Pakistan or Vietnam, outside the online store's delivery zone.

► Result: For example, a top women's cosmetics brand analyzed contextual advertising clicks and found that hundreds of thousands of dollars of the advertising budget were spent on visitors using VPN traffic. And one of the largest handmade goods sites, which spends $2.5 million a month on advertising, found 14,000 such invalid clicks, where the real location of the "visitors" was mainly China and Malaysia.

5. Retargeting​

Retargeting and remarketing are the basis of Internet marketing. This is when individual advertisements are set up for a certain segment of buyers who did not perform any target action - purchase, request - during their last visit to the site. Every fifth marketer may even have a separate budget for retargeting. But how annoying it is when this budget is spent on returning bots, not real buyers.

► Result: For example, one of the advertisers spent $3,500 on retargeting for click bots.

6. Cancellation of payment and refund of funds​

Bots are very often used in bank fraud, and not only to steal funds from cards. In our case, a different scheme was used.

► Algorithm: the bot went to the site, filled out a payment form, supposedly making a purchase, and then demanded its cancellation with a refund.

► Result: Thousands of invalid clicks on search and social media ads were recorded, with bots making a transaction and then demanding a refund.

7. Critic bots​

They are often used to generate fake reviews. Moreover, they can be not only positive, but also negative, which can seriously damage the brand's reputation. Their services are offered by special services for cheating and motivated advertising.

► Result: 2,500 invalid clicks on a tourism website when bots deliberately generated fake reviews after visiting the resource.

8. Landing bots for branded queries​

They are aimed exclusively at clicking ads on vital queries and spending the budget. In addition, they significantly spoil key metrics and behavioral indicators.

► Algorithm: bots click on an ad to the landing page and do not perform any other actions. For example, during the study, bots clicked on ads mainly for vital queries (brand or company name + key query or just brand name). That is, the money spent on the bot could bring a target client who is loyal to the brand.

► Result: damage of ~1 dollar for each such click. For example, 56% of invalid clicks were recorded for the query "men's jackets + NAME" at one of the online clothing stores. Or 48% of invalid traffic for the query "Asics New" (Asics is a store of sports shoes and sneakers; search for new products of the brand).