Developing
Lunio sells invalid-traffic detection, and the loss figures are modelled, not observed.
In 60 seconds
- Lunio analysed more than five million education-sector clicks from October 2025 to June 2026.
- Competitor-brand campaigns averaged 9.3% invalid traffic (click-weighted) against 4.7% for generic campaigns.
- The sector rate rose from 4.08% in Q4 2025 to 5.42% in Q2 2026; Meta averaged 8.34% and Google 3.70%.
- For a $5 million budget Lunio models $232,762 in wasted spend and about $698,000 in lost revenue.
Impact Layer
- What changed
- A vendor study quantifies how much paid traffic in one sector is invalid, by campaign type and platform.
- Why it matters
- Invalid clicks distort conversion rates and cost metrics that feed bidding and budget decisions.
- Who is affected
- Education marketers, agencies and any paid search team that bids on competitor brands.
- Martech stack area
- Analytics, Advertising
- Stack impact
- Segment your own invalid-traffic rate by campaign type, especially competitor terms, before drawing conclusions from the averages.
- Business impact
- Low Lunio sells detection tools. PPC Land flags a discrepancy in the 4.7% sector attribution and a correlation presented as mechanism; the loss figures are modelled.
- Related technologies
- What to watch
- Independent data on invalid traffic in competitor campaigns.
Lunio’s report on invalid traffic in education advertising, published October 6, 2026, covers more than five million clicks between October 2025 and June 2026, according to PPC Land’s October 8 newsletter.
Findings
- Competitor-brand campaigns had 9.3% invalid traffic (click-weighted), against 4.7% for generic campaigns.
- The sector-wide rate rose from 4.08% in Q4 2025 to 5.42% in Q2 2026.
- Meta averaged 8.34%. Google averaged 3.70%, rising from 3.16% to 4.61%, and Google Search rose 137%, from 2.32% to 5.50%.
- For a $5 million budget Lunio models $232,762 in wasted spend and about $698,000 in lost revenue. These are modelled, not observed.
Caveats
Lunio sells detection tools. PPC Land notes a discrepancy in the attribution of the 4.7% sector figure and a correlation presented as mechanism.
Our read
The useful lesson is segmentation. An average invalid rate hides large differences by campaign type, so measure yours by segment before deciding where to cut.
Sources
- PPC Land: newsletter of October 8, 2026 (Lunio education invalid traffic report) (opens in a new tab)
The newsletter section on the Lunio report, with figures and PPC Land's caveats.