Bots that are used to commit fraud can do so 24/7. Looking at analytics, we can see that the normal daily and hourly traffic patterns for humans is very different than that for bots.

1. marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Humans Sleep
Fraud Bots Don’t
July 2014
Augustine Fou, PhD.
http://linkd.in/augustinefou
acfou @ mktsci .com
212. 203. 7239

2. July 2014 / Page 1marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Normal Weekday vs Weekend Pattern
weekends weekends weekends weekends
weekdays weekdays weekdays weekdays
Natural website pattern is weekends have lower traffic

3. July 2014 / Page 2marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Human Pattern vs Bot
Normal traffic pattern for weekday
vs weekend (2 weekend days are
lower)
Something is strange here because daily traffic
should not be exactly the same from day to day
(i.e. no normal weekday vs weekend cyclces)
Natural website pattern is weekends have lower traffic

4. July 2014 / Page 3marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Typical Hour-of-Day Pattern
humans sleeping
humans awake;
visiting websites

5. July 2014 / Page 4marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Device Use By Time of Day
Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/static2.chartbeat.com/quarterly/Fall-2014-Quarterly.pdf

6. July 2014 / Page 5marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
App Usage By Time of Day
Source: http://info.localytics.com/blog/app-usage-peaks-at-8pm

7. July 2014 / Page 6marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
% of Video Time
Source: Nielsen Cross
Platform Report March 2014

8. July 2014 / Page 7marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Humans Sleep At Night
Hourly traffic charts show lower
traffic at night (as expected because
humans sleep at night)
Unusual traffic patterns with no
normal night time trends visible,
likely due to bot activity

9. July 2014 / Page 8marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Humans Find Websites and Webpages via Search
humans find sites via search,
during waking hours
Bot traffic adds anomalous
spikes to pattern
total traffic
search traffic
unfiltered traffic (includes bot activity)
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

10. July 2014 / Page 9marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Hour-of-day patterns - Search vs Sourced Traffic
search traffic
sourced traffic provider 1
search traffic
sourced traffic provider 2
Humans find site via search, and
come during waking hours; sourced
traffic (orange) comes at odd hours
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

11. July 2014 / Page 10marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Same amount of traffic each day, very high bounce-rate
6 am5 am 2 am 3 am 3 am 2 am 3 am
18396 sessions 162 184 178 159 156
Sunday
85% avg bounce rate; 100% peak bounce rate
total traffic
sourced traffic
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

12. July 2014 / Page 11marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
Dr. Augustine Fou – Digital Consigliere
“I research ad fraud so I can advise clients on
how to detect and mitigate it. This has the most
direct impact on the ROI of their digital
marketing programs (i.e. Reducing ad waste due
to fraud).”
FORMER CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, HCG (OMNICOM)
MCKINSEY CONSULTANT
CLIENT SIDE / AGENCY SIDE EXPERIENCE
PROFESSOR AND COLUMNIST
ENTREPRENEUR / SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
PHD MATERIALS SCIENCE (MIT '95) AT AGE 23
ClickZ Articles: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-clickz
Slideshares: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-slideshares
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/84444-augustinefou

13. July 2014 / Page 12marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
Dr. Augustine Fou
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