PPC ad production and its management have a lot of underlying problems that can be addressed by monitoring various metrics. However, there are other potential problems that are far beyond the understanding of metrics. This includes Click Frauds. This can be defined as fraud in online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user by clicking on an ad with the intention of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the ad’s content.
Click fraud can implicated by competitors trying to deplete a rival’s advertising budget, by publishers trying to increase their ad revenue artificially, or by individuals or bots seeking to profit from pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. These have serious consequences on the advertisers ranging from wasted ad spend, inaccurate campaign performance data, and reduced return on investment (ROI). However, there are multiple steps to combat these frauds which will be discussed later.
How are Click Frauds made?
Click fraud can be perpetrated in several ways –
1. Manual clicks –
This is usually done manually by competitors, disgruntled customers, or individuals seeking to profit from click fraud schemes. This is done in order to produce invalid clicks and increase the impressions when in real they are not from actual viewers.
2. Click farms –
Click farms are operations where a large number of individuals are paid to click on ads to generate fraudulent clicks. This is usually done in low-labour countries to derive the work to complete the motive at a low cost.
3. Botnets –
Botnets are networks of compromised computers or devices controlled by a single entity. This can be used to simulate legitimate user behaviour, including clicking on ads, without the knowledge of the device owners.
4. Ad fraud software –
There are multiple software online that mimic human behaviour. These software are used by people to generate ad clicks. This can confuse the ad monitors and it becomes hard to detect fraudulent activities.
5. Hijacked devices –
In some cases, hackers may compromise devices and use them to generate fake clicks on ads without the knowledge of the device owners.
How do you deal with Click Fraud?
Combatting click fraud requires a combination of proactive measures and ongoing monitoring. Here are some strategies to combat click frauds –
- Regularly monitor the clicks that your ads receive. This will help in understanding if any frauds are being made. Especially monitor if there is any sudden activity from a specific geographical location or an IP address.
- Utilize click fraud detection services and software that can help identify and block fraudulent clicks in real-time. These tools use algorithms to analyze click patterns and detect anomalies indicative of click fraud.
- Set limits on the number of times an ad can be opened by an IP address in a certain time interval. This will avoid any fraud and also not affect the conversion rates and clickthrough rates.
- Maintain a blacklist of IP addresses previously known to have caused fraud.
- Use CAPTCHA verification to ensure that clicks are coming from real users and not automated scripts or bots.
- If the conversion rates and impressions show discrepancies, then it is very likely that there is click fraud being made.
- Educate your employees about click fraud and how to recognize and report suspicious activity.
- Report any fraud that you might have noticed to the ad platform or network, as they may have tools to analyze the frauds, investigate them and combat them safely.
Wrapping it up –
Click frauds are a very crucial thing to monitor if you are running ads online or on social media. Sometimes you might think that you are getting enough impressions but it could just be bots or your competitors working against you. To combat this it is important to educate your employees, report any suspicious activity, monitor and compare conversion rates, require verification on entering the landing page, use IP blacklist, set click frequency limits, use click fraud detection tools and monitor click patterns. By following these steps you can avoid any frauds and monitor your website effectively.
