Artificial increase in traffic to Atlanta DMA

[patrickheavey]

Our client's reporting has shown a significant and likely artificial increase in traffic allocated to the Atlanta DMA in the first and second quarter of 2024.  The vast majority of the traffic is from iOS (mobile and desktop), and one Experience League user reported the same issue in 2022.  Has anyone else seen this?  Or is there anything else in AA that could explain this increase?

Thanks.

[Pablo_Childe]

Check existing paid camapigns. I have seen this type of SPAM bot generated like traffic from Facebook, Google programmatic buys. See if any marketing campaigns launched and they then used to advertise of 3rd party networks.

Look for any tracking IDs that may have been used as part of campaigns. Sadly there is a ton of garbage digital adds served in some adnetworks you just may have been exposed to some.

Also check in case any IT tests around load capacity were performed can sometime generate traffic spikes to.

[patrickheavey]

Thanks, but this doesn't have to do with campaigns.  The IP addresses indicate they are from Apple’s Private Relay, and Adobe notes here that the service does not send the original IP but send a replacement IP.  It appears that Adobe's backend is assigning these IPs to the Atlanta DMA, but I can't find any documentation that confirms this.