Sourced Traffic

‘Sourced traffic’ refers to a practice in which publishers acquire audiences from third parties, then represent those audiences as their own. Publishers generally do so in order to fulfill advertiser commitments. As the Association of National Advertisers has warned, sourced traffic represents far less fertile territory for advertisers, as it is particularly susceptible to fraudulent traffic generated by bots and other shady practices. Buying sourced traffic is a fairly common practice, and the ANA argues that it represents a major (and highly under-recognized) threat to digital advertisers.

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