Despite only entering the advertising game in 2019, TikTok has quickly snapped up a sizable portion of overall digital ad spend. Analysts project the platform’s ad revenue will hit 2.4% of digital ad spending in 2022, a colossal jump from just 1% in 2021.
In our 2022 advertising trends report, ad managers and experts we surveyed anticipate huge marketer investment in TikTok advertising. This is primarily because the platform helps brands reach younger demographics. These audiences will soon form the largest generation of consumers.
However, TikTok’s ad program is still maturing, and the platform has faced criticism for failing to curb misinformation. A recent study revealed that TikTok failed to detect 90% of ads containing false or misleading election information.
So what does all of this mean for advertisers? That fraudsters want a slice of the TikTok pie.
Wherever there is money to be made, they are waiting ready to take advantage. Here, we explore how to identify TikTok click fraud, plus some detection techniques to help protect your campaigns.
How difficult is it to identify TikTok fraud?
Fraudsters themselves are teaching TikTok users how to use the platform to scam brands. So how difficult is it to accurately pinpoint TikTok fraud?
Fraudsters can also easily disguise bots as the real TikTok app. They can also run the app in an emulator or other similar virtual environment. Plus, advertisers have no easy way to verify whether traffic originates from a real device, or even the genuine TikTok app.
At Opticks, we see large amounts of fraudulent traffic claiming to come from TikTok, but plenty of evidence proves otherwise. In some cases, up to 40% of traffic alleging to be from real TikTok users is actually invalid.
In short, without the right knowledge and technology, it’s very challenging to accurately identify TikTok ad fraud.
A real-life example of TikTok fraud identification
To better identify TikTok fraud, we decided to run an experiment. We took two samples, the first one contained 10,000 legitimate clicks while the second contained 10,000 invalid clicks.
Within the invalid traffic, we observed the following:
- Little effort to hide or mask fraudulent behavior and activities (as opposed to other, more sophisticated bots we often find present on platforms such as Google and Meta).
- Plenty of traffic originating from data centers and proxies.
- The physical device feature distribution is very different from legitimate traffic.
Physical device feature distribution
Let’s take a deeper look at how three specific device features distribute across both clusters of TikTok traffic (legitimate and invalid).
Each graph measures the same amount of clean traffic vs. fraud (10,000 clicks) and shows how different features distribute. These graphs show clearly how fraudulent traffic has very different values and distributions.
When comparing the same total amount of invalid and legitimate clicks across 5 different feature examples, we see a clear pattern. Invalid traffic generally has just one dominant feature category. Legitimate traffic, in contrast, shows a more natural variety of features.
**Note: All features have had their values remapped to capital letters in the interest of intellectual property matters.
Feature distribution: Legitimate vs invalid traffic
What does TikTok click fraud mean for advertisers?
TikTok is an attractive new channel and source of traffic for advertisers. But it currently lacks the maturity and transparency needed to reduce the risk of ad fraud. As the data shows, fraudsters are already taking advantage of the platform’s apparent lack of prevention against rampant click fraud.
There are several manual techniques to uncover TikTok click fraud. But advertisers exploring new platforms need a sophisticated anti-ad fraud solution to detect invalid traffic and clicks.
Opticks can help you separate legitimate users from bots and other fake traffic sources. Our award-winning fraud detection solutions combine the accuracy of human expertise with the scalability of machine learning. That helps you invest only in fraud-free channels.
Want to learn how the expert team at Opticks can prevent TikTok click fraud before it destroys both your budget and your campaigns? Contact us today or start your free trial.