Invalid traffic & fraud · also called Lead fraud, fake leads
Lead generation fraud
Lead generation fraud is submitting fake, stolen or incentivized form fills, such as sign-ups, quote requests or demo bookings, so that advertisers pay for leads that are not genuine prospects.
Many advertisers, especially insurers, lenders, universities and B2B software firms, pay per lead (CPL) rather than per click. Lead fraud sells them rubbish: forms completed by bots, by paid workers in click farms, with stolen or made-up identities, or by real people bribed with rewards who have no interest in the product.
Modern form bots can fill fields with realistic names and addresses, solve simple challenges and route through residential proxies. Some schemes recycle genuine consumer data bought from breaches or data brokers, so the name and phone number are real but the person never asked to be contacted, creating legal risk in markets with consent rules.
Signals include form completion times too fast for a human, copy-paste typing patterns, mismatches between IP location and address, disposable email domains, many leads from one device and very low contact or conversion rates downstream. Behavioral analysis of keystrokes and mouse movement helps, as does validating phone numbers and emails in real time and paying partners on qualified outcomes rather than raw submissions.
Think of it like this
It is like a recruiter paid per CV who fills your inbox with CVs copied from the internet: lots of paper, no candidates.
An example
An online university in the US pays $35 per lead. One affiliate sends 3,000 leads a month; 40% of phones are disconnected, form fills average 4 seconds and dozens share the same device fingerprint.
Related terms
Bot traffic
Bot traffic is visits, ad impressions or clicks generated by automated software rather than people, ranging from honest search crawlers to fraudulent bots built to look human.
Incentivized traffic
Incentivized traffic is visits, clicks, installs or ad views from people who were rewarded, with money, points, game currency or perks, to take the action, rather than acting from genuine interest.
Behavioral analysis
Behavioral analysis in fraud detection is examining how a visitor interacts, such as mouse movements, taps, scrolling, typing rhythm and session timing, to tell real humans from bots and scripted activity.
CPA (cost per acquisition)
CPA (cost per acquisition) is the average advertising cost of getting one desired action, such as a sale, sign-up or app install, and also a model paying only for those actions.
Human fraud farms
Human fraud farms are organised groups of paid people who manually perform ad-related actions, such as clicking, installing, watching, signing up or reviewing, to fake genuine consumer engagement.
Sources: MRC Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Guidelines Addendum (2020 update)