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Online Marketing and the Bot Invasion

Illustration by Brad Jonas

Online marketing is a great tool, isn’t it? You get thousands of impressions on a daily basis from people all over the world. Your Facebook page, your Google AdWords, and your blog are viewed by anyone and everyone with a computer, getting attention no banner, billboard, or grassroots advertising campaign can come close to achieving.

That 15 minutes of fame you were promised in the 60s suddenly turned into a 24/7 live feed of your business activity, making your corner store bakery a worldwide phenomenon. And the best part? You can see it all happening and record it with online statistics.

Sounds great, right?

Well like many ventures, Online Marketing isn’t free of it’s own issues. In fact, online marketing seems to be inundated with it’s own Bot Invasion, sent to destroy your analytics numbers and inflate your digital budget. Just when you thought the T-9000 was your worst enemy

The Association of National Advertisers recently published their findings on a major online fraud study, and discovered 11% of display ad impressions purchased by 36 major US advertisers were served to bots. Video ads were even worse, with 23% of all impressions sent to non-human traffic. One unnamed premium lifestyle site was sending 98% of its video ads to Bots.

To put that into perspective, this trend means that of the $140 billion the globe will spend on digital marketing, $15 billion will be lost to Bots through display ads alone.

Fitz

Assimilate This!

Think you’re getting away bot free? Think again: sites related to finance, family, and food have the highest percentage of bot fraud, anywhere from 16%-22%. Bot’s don’t need sleep, infect personal computers, and can view thousands of sites at a time.

So what can you do? It looks like Bots are a way of Online Marketing life. Is resistance to Bot Fraud futile if you’re trying to get your name out there?

Well, the last time I checked, you can’t steal impressions from a moving bicycle with Ad Space. Especially when you’re getting 132,000 impressions per bike per month. Not to mention the 13.8% ROI you get from our PPP Interactive Promotion.

Yeah, we like to brag.

Don’t misunderstand, Online Marketing is a great tool, and one that we use frequently. You are reading our Blog after all. But when you’re looking for personalized attention, numbers that deliver, and a marketing plan free of the Bot Invasion, look no further than the bike lane. Our Brand Ambassadors pass along info about all our vendors, advertisers, and local events on every delivery. As an added bonus, they also happen to be immune to Bot Assimilation.

Contact us to break away from Bots and get your name out to the world!