What are bots?
A bot — also known as robot or internet bot — is software designed to automate repetitive or time-consuming tasks over the internet, like answer customer service questions, generate marketing materials, write emails, and more. Bots are becoming increasingly popular because they are cost-efficient and require minimal human intervention.
The largest “bot nets” use web crawlers, automated scripts that retrieve, analyze, and store information from servers. According to the data security leader Imperva, more than half the traffic on the internet is bot-driven.
According to The Atlantic, “Most website visitors aren’t humans, but are instead bots — or, programs built to do automated tasks. They are the worker bees of the Internet, and also the henchmen. Some bots help refresh your Facebook feed or figure out how to rank Google search results; other bots impersonate humans and carry out devastating DDoS attacks.”
This means that marketers across verticals and stages of development need to ensure the integrity of their data by using attribution methodologies that can cleanse results of bot activities.