Have you ever thought about how often you lie? In life, at the office, to your kids?
And how often have you looked at the numbers and thought, "This is 100% bullshit. The Ad Network must be lying to me."

Well, let's start with one thing. Nobody in their right mind (at least speaking for ourselves here at Trafficshop) actually wants to deceive you.
But sometimes people do lie intentionally to benefit themselves. The question is, would you fall for that lie if you knew it was sweet? Especially if you really don't like bitter truths.

Today we'll go through 6 cases. Some of them are sweet lies, some are bitter truths. You just have to decide which one you would choose, and how many of them you've already come across.
 

1. "We have our own websites."

Apparently, for many advertising networks there is simply no way to tell the bitter truth that they don't. So they just claim that everything is theirs.

For the last few months we've been hearing exactly the same thing from advertisers: "We only want your own websites." (We also hear: "We'll pay $0.20 CPM for them.") But has anyone actually stopped to think how many traffic suppliers or Ad Networks truly own their own websites?
For some reason, I'm pretty sure almost every traffic supplier says, "Yep, they're ours."

Then they hide the domains.
And somehow the advertiser still buys anyway.

Sweet lie?

2. "Our traffic is 100% human."

Has anyone heard a better fairy tale than traffic being 100% human? 
Actually, Google bots are traffic too. Googlebot, Google Ads crawlers, Safe Browsing bots and dozens of other Google services constantly visit websites. If your site is open for indexing, they will access it. Block them, and you'll end up with indexing issues and potentially even advertising problems.

And it's not just Google using bots. Bing, Cloudflare, Apple, Meta, Ahrefs, Semrush, UptimeRobot, antivirus software and corporate security scanners all regularly access websites. This isn't fraudulent traffic, but it isn't human traffic either.

You can't filter what cannot be identified with 100% accuracy.
Even the most advanced fraud detection systems work on probability, not certainty. Some legitimate users may look suspicious because they're using VPNs, proxies or shared IP addresses, while some sophisticated bots are designed to behave like real users. That's why 100% accuracy simply doesn't exist.

3. "We don't buy traffic."

Really? Then where exactly do you get it from, considering you don't own websites and don't produce traffic yourself? 

Now for the cherry on top. Here's what advertising networks hear from advertisers.

1. "Our budget is unlimited if the traffic performs."

And then they deposit the smallest minimum amount available and message you about every single impression they got (or didn't get).
Did we believe they actually had an unlimited budget? Well, no. Did we still help them launch the campaign? Well, yes. We're still nice people.
 

2. "We only work with direct advertisers."

And then you receive a Tech Support offer from that very same "direct advertiser." Was Tech Support on your list of direct advertisers? I think we can all guess why that unlimited budget was promised in the first place. Haha... just kidding. Or maybe not.
 

3. "Nothing has changed on our side."

This one can easily be applied to both advertisers and publishers. But nobody tells you—or they simply don't realize—that a million things actually changed. Maybe the landing page stopped opening, maybe the tracking URL broke halfway through the campaign, maybe the carrier blocked the offer, maybe the country introduced new regulations and blocked the brand, or maybe another account manager changed something in the account without telling anyone else.

Exactly the same thing can happen on the publisher's side. Sometimes Google decides to play one of its little jokes. Unfortunately, we usually don't have enough time to laugh about them.

So, what do you choose to believe when you hear things like this? Or maybe a better question... how often do you have to lie to yourself?

 🧡