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Click fraud refers to the type of fraud occurring on PPC (pay per click) advertising platforms. In PPC, the amount of money that website owners are paid is determined by the total clicks made by visitors on placed ads.
Click fraud is considered as one of the biggest challenges of PPC today. According to Google, 40% of all clicks are made by bots and not by the real users. Who is interested in Click Fraud? This is a common question for advertisers. For most online competitors, click fraud is a great deal as they make huge profits from it. PPC costs a lot of financial losses to advertisers and it is not easy to detect click fraud.
Online competitors usually pay hackers to create bots and perpetrate this or and there are times people are hired to visit ads several times and click. They consider this an easy way to drain down the budget of the business by clicking one particular keyword multiple times.
Despite technological advancement, click fraud still poses a great threat to both publishers and digital marketers. In 2017, the Association of National Advertisers estimated that businesses lost a total of 6.5 billion dollars due to click fraud. Experts devised methods of click fraud prevention to help protect your website against fraudsters and make sure that your data is accurate.
The following are strategies you can employ to back off click fraud
Using proven platforms
Each passing day, you’ll come across a new service provider or a marketing tool promising better results. Most of these platforms offer new tech and easier ways to reach the target audience without really showing the efficacy of how it actually works.
Website users should use platforms with a proven track record of providing results by validating case studies., objective third party points of view and white papers.
Performing a Third Party Auditing and Performance
Do you allow the end vendor to evaluate their own work? You are supposed to use trusted third-party firms to audit the performance and assist you in holding the advertising dollars to the highest standard. Conduct an investigation when the CPMs(cost per thousand) are too good to be true. By using a third party to investigate, you’ll get more value for your money.
Monitor Your Ad Data Manually
This ensures that your ads are not by any chance of attracting online scammers or bad traffic. To know the parts of your ad which may tweak, specify campaign tactics beforehand like your budget, metrics to monitor and the target audience. Through this, you’ll realize your goal faster.
Paying for Action and Not for Traffic
Basic fraud protection mechanisms are a common problem experienced by most advertising platforms. These platforms rarely disclose a piece of well-elaborated campaign information, so sorting through fake traffic is not an option for advertisers. For this reason, to generate invalid clicks and traffic seems like a no-brainer. Marketers’ performance should be based on measurable values rather than pushing traffic.
Demanding Transparency from Ad Tech Provider
You should not trust a provider who is just offering ‘new ad tech’ or saying their sites are of high quality. Before performing a transaction, first demand transparency. You should first understand how the suggested technology works and not just what the provider is saying about it. According to experts, click fraud is simple to avoid if you do it right with people of integrity.
Looking at IP Addresses for Incoming Traffic
As a website owner, you need to regularly monitor incoming traffic. Lay down rules and regulations based on IP addresses to minimize the chances of bots or competitors clicking on your ads. A controlling tool is used to flag IP addresses by setting rules for both frequency and the volume of the traffic.
For instance, if one ad gets three clicks from the same IP in a day, this could be considered to be fraud and IP can be added automatically to block list within the AdWords.
Implementing a Cross-Device Strategy
Applying this strategy enables you to serve a targeted audience across multiple advertising platforms. It entails sending direct messaging ads to a specific audience, allowing you to reach your target audience when they are willing to engage with your brand.
Implementing this strategy is critical in fighting click frauds. Why? Because bots which are among the common types of frauds can pretend to be one device but in reality, it is across several devices such as tablets, mobile phones or even laptops.
A consumer might have three or more devices, so applying a cross-device strategy will enable you to identify true consumers avoiding bots and online competitors.