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Separate click fraud from cookie stuffing
Click fraud and cookie stuffing both steal money. They are not the same detect. Click fraud burns paid media with fake or worthless clicks. Cookie stuffing plants an affiliate cookie so a later sale pays the wrong partner. Mixing them is how you pause the wrong channel.
Pair: Click fraud vs cookie stuffing — claim map on Traffic. Partner tells for stuffing: cookie stuffing signals.
Click fraud
Fake clicks, bots, incentivized traffic, or click injection that never meant to buy. Look for CTR spikes with flat or collapsed convert, impossible geos, and sessions that die at landing. Fix is cut the source / publisher — not an affiliate clawback for a cookie you never set.
Cookie stuffing
A cookie lands without a shopper choosing that partner. Look for last-click credit on partners with thin or zero landing sessions, midnight spikes, and sales that match other paid paths. Fix is clawback / kill the partner — signals checklist.
What not to do
Do not pause Meta because an affiliate stuffed cookies. Do not claw back a publisher for bot clicks on a search campaign. Do not invent a single “fraud score” that blends both.
Related: Traffic, cookie stuffing signals, affiliate clawback, affiliate probation.
Procedure
- Name whether the pain is wasted clicks or stolen attribution.
- Click fraud → cut the source; read CTR vs convert.
- Stuffing → match affiliate credit to sessions; hold payout.
- Use the stuffing checklist when stuffing is the pattern.
Failure modes
- Treating both as one fraud score.
- Pausing paid media for affiliate stuffing.
- Clawing affiliates for bot clicks on search.
- Skipping session match because a vendor exists.
Worked example
None on this page yet. When one lands it will be a real case: what broke, the number, and what changed. Not a composite.
Glossary
- Click fraud
- Fake, bot, or incentivized clicks that waste spend without a real purchase path. Not the same as planting an affiliate cookie.
- Cookie stuffing
- Affiliate cookie lands without a real referral click so last-touch CPA pays the wrong partner.
Work with us — We run this job on your accounts. Services
FAQ
- Is click fraud the same as cookie stuffing?
- No. Click fraud is fake or incentivized clicks that waste spend. Cookie stuffing drops an affiliate cookie without a real click-to-sale path.
- Does one detector catch both?
- No. Click fraud shows in CTR / conversion collapse and bot patterns. Cookie stuffing shows in last-click jumps with thin session paths — see the signals checklist.
- Is this the cookie-stuffing checklist?
- No. [Cookie stuffing signals](/manuals/cookie-stuffing-signals) ticks partner tells. This page is the fork between the two abuse types.