Introduction
Marketers and analytics professionals are increasingly realizing the importance of protecting their campaigns and customer acquisition funnels from invalid traffic.
Users that have no possibility of becoming real customers can clutter businesses' websites and digital assets, effectively skewing data to the point where important company decisions are being made based on false information. These users are referred to as invalid users and regardless of intention, can be incredibly harmful to your marketing efforts.
There are top three categories of threats as well as 18 specific threat types. By understanding exactly what groups and types of invalid users are threatening the accuracy of your data, you can better protect your platforms. Since many issues can arise from invalid activity - from skewed optimization to polluted audiences and resource misuse - marketers who educate themselves on this topic can get ahead of the issue before it becomes detrimental to business.
Types of Threat Group
The invalid visits you see on the CHEQ Pradome Dashboard are categorized into 3 Threat Groups, indicating the types of invalid visitors:
Multiple Threat Types are associated with each Threat Group.First Group - Invalid Malicious Activity
This type of user creates invalid activity purposefully with harmful intentions. This category typically refers to human users, but the channels they utilize and their ultimate goal can vary. Sometimes malicious users are competitors who want to run your campaigns out of budget or give you misleading data. Malicious users could also be trying to steal information or hijack accounts.
Maybe they have been hired by another entity to artificially increase traffic through repetitive clicks or repeated actions. Regardless of specifics, any malicious activity can be incredibly damaging to your acquisition efforts and should typically be blocked from all areas of your customer acquisition funnel.
Invalid Malicious activity Associated Threat Types
-
False Representation
-
Disabled Cookies
-
Click Hijacking
-
Excessive Rate Limit
-
Network Anomalies
-
Behavioral Anomalies
-
Disabled JS
-
Click Farms
Second Group - Invalid Suspicious Activity
Any activity that comes from a questionable or unidentifiable source, or activity that is abnormal and raises concerns, is typically categorized as suspicious. There are many reasons why someone might want to mask their identity online or submit an action multiple times. The intentions could be harmless, but if that user has no chance of converting because of the barriers in place, then you'll probably want to either monitor or potentially block this traffic. It is also important to keep in mind that suspicious users are malicious some of the time. Even when someone is not trying to steal information or hijack an account, they still skew our data and provide misleading information if we don't keep a close watch on them.
Invalid Suspicious activity Associated Threat Types
-
Data Center
-
VPN
-
Proxy
-
Abnormal Rate Limits
Third Group - Invalid Bot Activity
Different from malicious and suspicious users, bots are not users at all. Instead, they are automated tools or systems that perform actions through preprogrammed technology. Some bots were created specifically to carry out malicious actions, while others perform mundane tasks and simply scan websites for information. However, regardless of why a specific bot was created, it is not a real user and therefore cannot turn into a customer and cannot contribute to your customer acquisition efforts in a meaningful way. Similar to the other categories of threats, bots should be monitored and typically removed from your analytics to provide more accurate and protected information on your platforms.
Invalid Bot activity Associated Threat Types
-
Malicious Bots
-
Automation Tools
-
Scrapers
-
Spambots
-
Account Takeover
-
Known Bots