Click Fraud 101: The Main Types of Invalid Clicks Draining Your Ad Budget

This is part three of a multi-part series. Check out part one and part two of this series on the definition and market impact of click fraud.

Digital advertising relies on genuine user interest and intent. When a user clicks on an ad, it should represent authentic engagement with the brand, product, or service being offered. 

The problem is that the gap between click quality and campaign outcomes continues to widen as advertisers face an increasing volume of non-genuine clicks. This disconnect between quantity and quality undermines advertising effectiveness and distorts the metrics that advertisers rely on to make strategic decisions.

What do we mean when we talk about click quality? At its core, advertising loses its meaning when it’s served to bots or people who have no intention of engaging with the brand, product, or service.  Below, we’ll outline how HUMAN categorizes the types of click fraud.

Understanding different types of invalid clicks

Bots or invalid clicks

Bot clicks represent one of the most common forms of click fraud. These clicks come from bots, automated scripts that mimic human behavior but lack the genuine intent that gives advertising value. Often originating from data centers or infected devices, bot-driven clicks inflate click-through rates (CTRs), without delivering real conversions or sales. These artificial interactions essentially act as  “phantom clicks,” draining advertising budgets without delivering real business value. 

Incentivized clicks

Incentivized clicks are clicks performed by real humans in exchange for rewards, such as money, points, or access to content. While these clicks come from actual users, incentivized click schemes undermine the principle of authentic user intent.  Users in these schemes have no real interest in the advertised product—they’re just clicking to earn a reward. 

For example, reward apps give users points or money for interacting with ads, and paid-to-click websites compensate users for clicking on ads. Although these clicks are ‘real,’ the motivation behind them is not,  leading to skewed performance metrics and wasted ad spend.

Accidental clicks

Even legitimate users can contribute to invalid click metrics through accidental interactions. Accidental clicks are instances in which a user unintentionally clicks on an ad while browsing, often due to poor user interface design or misplaced ad units. While not malicious by nature, these unintended clicks still impact campaign performance metrics and budget efficiency. They underscore the importance of thoughtful ad placement and user experience design in digital advertising strategies.

Understanding the ecosystem of invalid clicks 

The beneficiaries of click fraud vary depending on context, but they all share a common goal: to exploit the advertising ecosystem for financial or strategic gain. The challenge of click fraud persists because various parties benefit from artificial engagement. This activity undermines trust, inflates costs for advertisers, and skews performance metrics, making it critical to detect and mitigate click fraud effectively.

Fraud or bot operators

Fraud operators are individuals or organizations that profit from creating and monetizing invalid clicks. They build businesses around click fraud using bot networks, click farms, or other automated systems to simulate human behavior.  Bad actors then get paid for fake clicks via collusion with ad networks, publishers, or pay-per-click models. Some fraudsters sell their services and present themselves as legitimate service providers, offering “traffic boosting” or “engagement services” to unsuspecting businesses. Their profit comes from both the direct operation of click fraud schemes and the sale of tools or services to others seeking to inflate their metrics.

Publishers with misaligned incentives

Some publishers have found ways to benefit from invalid clicks, whether intentionally or through negligence. By allowing or encouraging invalid clicks, these publishers can artificially inflate their revenue from cost-per-click (CPC) campaigns. Inflated engagement metrics make ad inventory appear more valuable than it is, improving its ranking in ad networks and allowing sellers to command higher rates for their ad space. This creates a cycle where artificial engagement drives real monetary gains, even though no actual value is being delivered to advertisers.

Over time, bad actors engaging in click fraud erode trust between advertisers and publishers, ultimately damaging the credibility of legitimate publishers and the integrity of the broader advertising ecosystem.

Click farms

These operations employ groups of people specifically hired to click on ads, artificially inflate metrics, and generate fake engagement. Unlike fully automated bots, click farms use human workers to create patterns of behavior that can be harder to detect. They often operate across multiple campaigns and clients simultaneously, selling their services to publishers, fraudsters, or businesses seeking inflated metrics. While the individuals performing the clicks are real, their actions lack any genuine interest or intent in the advertised products or services.

Ad networks and platforms without quality controls

Some ad networks and platforms may inadvertently or deliberately contribute to click fraud and compromised ad quality by failing to implement rigorous click quality measures. These platforms can benefit from higher click volumes, as increased traffic generally leads to higher fees or commissions from advertisers. By tolerating or turning a blind eye to suspicious click patterns, these networks can report better performance metrics and market themselves as high-performing platforms. This creates a problematic incentive structure where the very entities responsible for maintaining click quality may benefit from its deterioration.

Competitive Interference

In some cases, organizations exploit click fraud as a strategic tool against competitors. By deliberately driving invalid clicks to a competitor’s ads, they can quickly deplete their opponent’s advertising budget, leaving more prominent ad placements available for their own campaigns. These actions not only waste their competitors’ resources but also distort performance metrics, making legitimate campaigns appear ineffective. 

Building a More Trustworthy Digital Advertising Ecosystem

The future of digital advertising depends on our ability to ensure that every click represents genuine user interest and intent. This requires:

• Implementation of sophisticated fraud detection systems
• Industry-wide collaboration on fraud prevention standards
• Greater transparency in advertising metrics and reporting
• Alignment of incentives across the advertising ecosystem to reward genuine engagement

By understanding these challenges and working together to address them, we can create a more transparent and effective digital advertising marketplace that delivers real value to all stakeholders.