What is Invalid Traffic?
Invalid Traffic refers to traffic that does not meet certain ad-serving quality or completeness standards or otherwise does not represent legitimate ad activity that should be included in measurement counts.
Ad traffic may be deemed invalid for several reasons, such as non-human sources (e.g., spiders, bots) or fraudulent activity intended to generate fake traffic. Data in Commerce Max is protected from such illegitimate activity through the Invalid Traffic (IVT) Protection feature.
Why is Invalid Traffic Protection Important?
Invalid traffic protection is important because it filters out traffic that does not meet certain quality or completeness criteria, such as non-human traffic or fraudulent activity. This ensures that only legitimate ad traffic is included in measurement counts, which in turn provides accurate reporting and attribution.
Without this protection, metrics like conversion rates, click-through rates, and clicks could be skewed, leading to incorrect insights and decisions. Additionally, it builds trust in the platform by ensuring advertisers are not billed for illegitimate traffic and helps maintain a transparent and secure advertising ecosystem.
Who is it for?
Invalid traffic protection is for brands, retailers, and DSP (Demand Side Platform) partners. It ensures that they are not billed for illegitimate traffic, helping to maintain the integrity and transparency of their advertising campaigns.
How IVT works?
IVT protection uses rules to protect our brands, DSP partners, and retailers from being billed for illegitimate traffic.
With IVT rules, Criteo identifies and filters both general and sophisticated IVT through data-based identifiers, activities, and patterns. This includes non-human traffic and suspected traffic fraud.
Any traffic flagged as invalid by our rules will be discarded by our system and not counted for reporting or attribution purposes.
Invalid Traffic Suspicions
When there is a suspicion of Invalid Traffic, a good starting point of analysis is to look at the Conversion Rate (CR). If there is indeed a case of invalid traffic, conversions and CR are likely to be subject to a sudden drop.
A sharp and unexpected increase/decrease of the following metrics can also be signs of IVT: CTR (Click Through Rate) and Clicks.