Glossary · Fraud
Click fraud— what it means in affiliate marketing
Generating clicks artificially — by bots, farms or scripts — to drain a budget or to earn click-based payouts.
For the advertiser it is spend with no user behind it; for the publisher it is revenue with no inventory behind it. Platforms refund some of it after the fact, which is why reported spend and billed spend diverge.
Related terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Fraud | Any falsification of conversions, traffic or identity in affiliate marketing. |
| Click farm | An operation that pays real people to click ads, install apps, leave reviews or follow accounts. |
| Click injection | Android fraud where a malicious app detects an install in progress and fires a click just before it finishes, claiming the attribution. |
Entry updated 29 July 2026. All 276 terms in one page.
