Episode 161

Bots Don't Buy: How to Spot and Stop Fake Ad Traffic

with Rich Kahn

About This Podcast Episode:

Fake ad traffic isn’t something we often think about when we’re running ads for our small business.

In this episode, I talked with Rich Kahn about how ad fraud and fake ad traffic can siphon away ad spend even when your dashboards look “fine.” Rich is the co-founder and CEO of Anura.io, which is an ad fraud detection platform that helps businesses find and eliminate the bots, the fake clicks, and the junk traffic that are quietly draining your marketing budget. We break down the real-world signs of fake ad traffic, why CTR can be a trap, and what we can do right now to protect ROAS on a tight budget.

what fake ad traffic looks like for small and mid-sized businesses
real benchmarks for when fraud becomes noticeable in results
what networks can increase junk traffic risk
how fake profiles and bot behavior show up
the difference between general invalid traffic and sophisticated invalid traffic
what attracts more fraud
how to use back-end conversions to validate traffic quality
tight-budget tactics to reduce exposure across Google Ads and Meta ad

In This Episode, We’ll Cover:

0:28 The Hidden Black Hole In Ads
2:16 A Real Story Of Ad Fraud
5:34 How A Marketer Built Fraud Detection
9:53 Why Small Budgets Still Get Hit
12:50 Bots Click Farms And Invalid Traffic
13:53 The Warning Signs In Your Results
17:33 Low Budget Ways To Reduce Fraud
22:32 How AI Makes Fraud Harder
23:53 Free Traffic Quality Audit And Resources
28:02 Final Takeaways And Where To Go The Hidden Black Hole In Ads
2:16 A Real Story Of Ad Fraud
5:34 How A Marketer Built Fraud Detection
9:53 Why Small Budgets Still Get Hit
12:50 Bots Click Farms And Invalid Traffic
13:53 The Warning Signs In Your Results
17:33 Low Budget Ways To Reduce Fraud
22:32 How AI Makes Fraud Harder
23:53 Free Traffic Quality Audit And Resources
28:02 Final Takeaways And Where To Go