What you need to know:

• Poll of 129 marketers finds more than a fifth believe bots and fakes make up at least 25% of marketing data.
• This includes first party data.

Marketing fraud could be a bigger problem than ad fraud, according to a benchmarking report from White Ops.

It found two thirds of marketers had experienced some kind of marketing fraud over the last 12 months versus a third that uncovered media fraud.

Meanwhile more than a fifth of marketers polled believe at least 25% of their databases are “populated by fake or fraudulent contacts”, per the report.

Retail and CPG made up the largest cohort of those polled, and 60% of the overall sample worked for large companies of over 1,000 employees.

The report cites lead generation as one of the common types of fraud. While many fake names in a database can be people entering random data to avoid follow-up marketing, some can be bots that use stolen contact data. That could pose problems down the line as privacy regulation tightens around the world, said White Ops. 

It found marketers were concerned about incoming privacy regulations - but fewer than half regularly scrub fake contacts.

Bots also scalp discounted or limited products and resell on third party marketplaces, per the report, leaving brands with lower margins and no data gains to show for it.

As a subset of marketing fraud, ad fraud remains the single biggest issue.

See the report here.