Device fingerprinting
Browser, OS, screen and hardware traits expose emulators, headless browsers and spoofed devices.
Bot Detection
Bot detection software that sees what analytics can't
Separate real users from bots, scrapers and click fraud in real time — with detection built on 2 billion analysed clicks.
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What is bot detection software?
Bot detection software identifies automated traffic and separates it from real human visitors in real time. It scores each visit or click on signals a browser and analytics tool can't see — device fingerprint, IP and network reputation, and behaviour — then lets you exclude the invalid traffic automatically.
It matters because the scale is large: across 2 billion clicks in the Opticks Ad Fraud Report 2025, invalid traffic ranged from 2.18% on search to 15.9% on native ads, and the large majority of detected bot activity was bad-bot traffic with no genuine intent.
How it works
How bot detection works
No single signal catches a modern bot. Effective bot detection scores many signals together on every request:
Network & IP analysis
Data-centre ranges, residential proxies and IP reputation flag traffic that hides its origin.
Behavioural analysis
Mouse movement, scroll, timing and navigation reveal scripts that don't act like people.
Machine learning
Models trained on known fraud across billions of clicks catch new patterns a static rule would miss.
Buyer's checklist
What to look for in bot detection tools
Strong bot detection
- Real-time scoring, not just reports
- Coverage across every channel
- Low false positives for real users
- Transparent, published methodology
- Simple tag or firewall integration
Red flags
- After-the-fact analytics only
- Single-platform coverage
- Aggressive blocking that loses customers
- No data behind the claims
- Heavy, slow integration
The benchmark
How much bot traffic is normal?
It depends on your channel mix. These are the benchmark invalid-traffic rates good bot detection should be measuring against:
| Channel | Invalid traffic rate |
|---|---|
| Native advertising | 15.9% |
| Programmatic / display | 15.43% |
| Social | 10.61% |
| Affiliate | 9.09% |
| SEM / Search | 2.18% |
Put bot detection to work in 5 minutes
Opticks deploys a detection tag that scores every visit and click in real time, then prevents the invalid traffic from draining your budget.