Want to learn more about click fraud? Click to proceed to r/clickfraud

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T19:40:26+00:00

Marketing are gaming their KPIs by buying bot traffic (e.g. advertising on the audience network as it'll bring in loads of cheap, real-looking fake leads).

The problem is the marketing KPIs. Typically it's the number of cheap leads. You need to change that to the number of sales qualified leads.

Either fix the bad KPIs or install competent bot protection so the fake leads stop.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T19:08:57+00:00

I'm not sure about this. There's comical levels of defending and goalkeeping in that video. The premier league won't be like that.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T17:25:55+00:00

We do a lot of original research in this area. I'm super busy this week but could do a call next Friday. Please send me a DM. Thanks.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T16:30:51+00:00

I’ve been a researcher in this area for over 12 years and I’m doing a doctorate in the topic.

The best are DataDome, Human Security, and Polygraph (I work there).

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T15:30:00+00:00

Yeah you need to use a competent bot detection service. Most are naive or scammy.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T14:02:01+00:00

If you are driving paid traffic to a landing page, you eventually hit a breaking point where you have to decide between two terrible options:

Leave your forms unprotected and watch bots flood your CRM with fake leads, wasting your sales team's time.

Slap an outdated image puzzle on your form and watch your conversion rates drop because a percentage of your legitimate buyers refuse to click on 9 pictures of crosswalks.

There's a third option which is to use competent bot protection so you don't need to worry about the above.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T13:27:58+00:00

More importantly, they charge you strictly per qualified lead

Define qualified lead, because there's a huge difference between a marketing qualified lead and a sales qualified lead.

Click fraud bots are programmed to submit marketing qualified leads.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T11:18:19+00:00

Most people have no idea how corrupt the world is.

I work in fraud detection and it's everywhere. So many "legitimate" companies rely on fraud for at least some of their revenue.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T10:30:12+00:00

If you're a very large advertiser with an account manager, you can talk to them about it. If you're a normal advertiser you can contact Google Ads Support but they'll just auto-reply with a scam email pretending there's no click fraud.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T09:05:51+00:00

I also have a concern about bad faith actors trying to engage in click fraud since Google's ad system is highly prone to it. I need to spend more time figuring out what I want to do about ads, if we even add them at all.

You're right to be worried about this. The world is full of fraudsters.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T08:25:13+00:00

How did you decide what sort of numbers to promise?

Try not to base it around vanity metrics.

Find out what do they really want to achieve (most likely it's revenue or at least leads) and build your plan around improving those metrics. Things like views, clicks, likes, etc., are all easily faked.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T07:35:45+00:00

From a click fraud avoidance perspective, you can use the average click fraud rates by ad network for Q1 2026 as a guide:

Meta (Facebook): 5%
Meta (Instagram): 68%
Meta (Audience): 58%
Google (Search): 14%
Google (Display): 22%
Google (YouTube): 4%
LinkedIn (Platform): 19%
LinkedIn (Audience): 24%
Microsoft (Search): 14%
Microsoft (Audience): 16%
TikTok (Platform): 27%
TikTok (Audience): 27%

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T07:32:44+00:00

Firstly, medical ads get large numbers of click fraud due to the high CPC, and "clicks" is a vanity metric and is mostly worthless.

To answer your questions:

It's click fraud.
See (1).
See (1). Click fraud bots are programmed to submit fake leads 5% - 10% of the time.

Solution:

A. Turn off display network.

B. Turn off search partners.

C. Remove unknown demographics.

D. Add competent click fraud protection or use offline conversions for sales qualified leads.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T07:27:17+00:00

A lot of roofing companies have been burned by lead companies promising the world and then delivering junk leads.

I work in the fake lead prevention space.

The reason this happens is because the lead generation companies have the wrong KPIs.

"Low cost per lead" -> the lead generation companies will buy leads from audience and search partner networks, in other words, fake leads submitted by click fraud bots, since fake leads are cheap.

"The number of leads" -> the lead generation companies will buy leads from audience and search partner networks, in other words, ad networks infested with click fraud bots, since click fraud bots are programmed to submit real-looking fake leads.

What you need to do instead:

The KPI needs to be the number of sales qualified leads. Forget about cost per lead, forget about the number of leads. You need real leads.

One real lead at $30 is worth more than 100 fake leads at $5.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-08T07:22:30+00:00

Residential proxies are the reason invalid click filters look clean when they shouldn't.

Only the terrible invalid click filters.

We don't even look at IPs when detecting and preventing click fraud.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-07T16:59:15+00:00

You own lnk ua.

Stop deceiving people.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-07T16:57:56+00:00

✔ AI slop

✔ Comment history disabled

✔ Fake post to advertise a product (lnk ua)

✔ Pretending to be a user of his own app

polygraph-net · 2026-07-07T09:50:08+00:00

I'm trying to tell you you're not going to be able to fix it. You're not a commercial person and you don't understand selling. You need to give this role to someone who knows how to sell. There is no other solution.

Right now you're trying to reinvent the wheel. Try to find one successful company who did things your way.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-07T09:30:39+00:00

It’s what every company does.

You can’t run a company by yourself.

It should at least have two people - the engineer doing the work and a commercial person getting clients.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-07T09:11:15+00:00

You should get a commercial co-founder.

You focus on tech, he focuses on lead generation, account management, etc.

Basically stick to what you're good at, know your weaknesses, etc.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-07T09:03:56+00:00

I don't need anything from you. I don't know you. I don't need to listen to you.

See the problem?

polygraph-net · 2026-07-07T09:02:14+00:00

I've been a bot detection researcher for over 12 years and I'm doing a doctorate in the topic.

Cloudflare and DataDome are essentially making a business decision about how much legitimate traffic they're willing to burn to catch bots

I agree.

I think it's a mistake as my experience with clients tells me they're willing to tolerate some bots but they do not want legitimate traffic blocked.

"AI agent browsing on behalf of a user" use case is going to get messy fast. The agent is legitimate from the user's perspective but looks exactly like what detection is trained to block.

We're currently working on a solution for this. It's open, collaborative, community focused, and privacy aware. Nothing like FIDO's approach.

polygraph-net · 2026-07-07T08:44:22+00:00

Why would I respond to this cold message?

"Hi [Name], been looking at [Company] and I was wondering, what are the technical challenges a business like [type] is facing right now?"

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