2021 China Invalid Traffic Report

According to the internet advertising data monitored by the Miaozhen system throughout 2021, it is estimated that the loss caused by invalid traffic in the Chinese brand advertising market in 2021 is about 32.6 billion yuan.

In preparing this report, Miaozhen System monitored over 77,000 advertising campaigns from PC, Mobile, and NEW TV in 2021, covering a total of 1,000+ media and involving 1,900+ brands. Marketing and media formats cover internet hard-broadcasting, offline media, website information, social platforms and KOLs, etc.

An overview of invalid traffic changes in 2021 vs 2020

According to statistics, compared with 2020, the proportion of invalid Internet advertising traffic in 2021 will increase by 1.5%, while the proportion of normal traffic will decrease by 1.1%.
The proportion of invalid traffic on social platforms has decreased, among which the abnormal traffic of the six major media platforms has dropped by 10%; the forum has dropped by 5%.
The average number of invalid followers of KOL has improved, and the proportion has dropped by 5.7%
The proportion of invalid traffic on the NEW TV terminal increased by 0.6%

Status of invalid traffic in 2021

1. Internet advertising

In 2021, invalid internet advertising traffic accounted for 10.1%, an increase of 1.5% compared with 8.6% in 2020.
The invalid exposure of Display ads is higher than that of Video ads, and the percentage of abnormal clicks is slightly lower than Video ads.
In 2021, both vertical media and advertising alliances will be the hardest-hit areas for invalid exposure, and the proportion of abnormal clicks in advertising alliances and portal information is much higher than that of other media types.
Among vertical media in 2021, tourism media will have the most invalid exposure (23.6%), followed by financial media (20.1%), followed by automotive media (18.2%).
In the invalid exposure industry in 2021, the leisure and entertainment industry accounted for the highest proportion of abnormal exposure (20.4%), followed by transportation (15.3%) and medicine and health care (12.8%).
In 2021, the invalid clicks in the financial and wealth management industry will be the most serious (28.3%).

2. Invalid traffic on social media platforms

The "Clean cyberspace" action implemented in 2021 has achieved results, and the invalid traffic on social platforms has dropped significantly compared to 2020.
Invalid traffic in many industries has decreased, of which only luxury goods and industries accounted for more than half of invalid traffic

3. KOL average invalid followers

In 2021, the average proportion of invalid followers of KOLs will reach 54.8%, a decrease of 5.7% from 60.5% in 2020.
Among KOLs of different levels, the lower tier KOL has the highest invalid followers, and the proportion of invalid followers is the highest; the proportion of invalid interactions is also the highest.
The proportion of invalid followers of KOLs in transportation and beauty and personal care is relatively high.
The proportion of invalid interactions between mother-infant parent-child and food and beverage KOLs is relatively high.

4. Invalid traffic in the private domain

In 2021, there will be a variety of invalid behaviours in the private domain traffic of the automobile industry. According to the analysis of the report, an average of 4.5% of the users on the website of car companies are invalid users and generated 10.3% of the total number of invalid page views. This part of the invalid traffic will be extended to generate a large number of abnormal conversions (such as leads), which will ultimately affect the marketing effect.
More than 40% of the automobile industry websites have invalid traffic. In 2021, the number of invalid sales leads on the website of car companies will be 44%, a year-on-year increase of 33%.
The proportion of invalid sales leads in the automotive industry application tools and enterprise service media is relatively high

5. Invalid traffic of NEW TV ads

New TV ads accounted for 6.5% of invalid traffic throughout the year, and Decision Rate was 97.5%.
In 2021, the industries with the highest proportion of new TV abnormality and invalid exposure are leisure and entertainment (29.2%), clothing and apparel (26.8%), and home improvement furniture and home furnishing industry (15.2%); among them, education culture is the industry with the highest proportion of abnormal exposure TOP10 in the new list in 2021.
On the New TV side, regular banners have the highest percentage of invalid exposure (20.5%).

6. Invalid offline advertising traffic

Invalid traffic in outdoor monitoring accounted for 5.6%, abnormal radio advertisements accounted for 2.8%, abnormal points in digital monitoring accounted for 2.3%, and abnormal times accounted for 10.8%
In 2021, the proportion of invalid publications in other important outdoor advertising scenes, among which the invalid rate of media in railway station and subway station scenes exceeds 5.0%, and the rate of non-publishing of media in airport scenes is the lowest.
The missed broadcast rate of radio advertisements was 1.4%; the invalid rate of wrong broadcasts was 1.4%; the multicast rate of radio advertisements was 5.0%.
In the 2021 outdoor digital screen advertising, the number of missed broadcasts is 10.8%, and the point-to-point missed publication rate is 2.3%.
In 2021, the number of times multicast rate is 9.1%, and the point-to-point multicast rate is 16.6%.

Unusual Advertising Cases in 2021

Case 1: The same ad is exposed repeatedly, and the same creative is exposed more than once