Advertisers in China have reportedly suffered a loss of nearly 1.6 billion dollars due to non-human traffic such as fraud impressions and clicks from July 2012 to June 2013, a new study has revealed.
The data released by a Chinese third-party advertising technology company, Miaozhen Systems, pointed that China's online advertising market is expected to break nearly 20 billion dollars this year, but with increased risks.
It was found that vertical sites are on the top with abnormal impressions and click-through rates (CTR) at 21.67 percent and 33.35 percent respectively, followed by ad networks.
Portal sites had 11.18 percent abnormal impressions and 23.72 percent CTR, while video sites saw the least non-human traffic, with 9.4 percent and 19.42 percent for the two indicators.
The company revealed that auto and telecommunications were the worst hit with abnormal impressions at 32.12 percent and CTR at 23.5 percent, while food and drink and the fast moving consumer products industry saw the lowest rate at 8.52 percent and 11.88 percent respectively.
Unlike 'machine-made' traffic before 2012, which could be checked easily through third- arty professional verification, abnormalities in geography, time slots and ad positioning are currently unidentified as three major fraud traffic behaviors.
Meanwhile, non-human traffic also transferred from PCs to mobile terminals with some mobile publishers displaying advertising on inferior APP platforms, pretending to be superior ones.
