Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Suspicious Web traffic in the U.S. rose 36% sequentially in the third quarter of 2014, and bot traffic grew by 35%. Data released Friday identifies 55% of the traffic on retail sites as suspicious with 34% of traffic confirmed as bot. The data defines "suspicious" as non-human behavior.

U.S. retailers could waste about $4.6 billion of eMarketer's projected $11 billion spent on digital advertising this year on bot traffic fraud, estimates Solve Media. The company's latest Quarterly Bot Traffic Market Advisory focuses on U.S. retailers.

Solve Media CEO Ari Jacoby believes 2015 will become the year of verified human audiences. Media companies are "demanding to purchase only human ad traffic and viewable ads."

Brands waste millions of dollars annually. If Bloomingdale's spends $200 million annual in digital, "we estimate $68 million of that could be wasted on bot traffic," estimates Jacoby.....