Don T Be A Victim Of Click Fraud Here S How To Protect Yourself

This is a system easy to abuse. With website owners struggling to earn profits and advertising networks seeking to cash in on their websites’ traffic, click fraud has become a favorite tool in the arsenal of cybercriminals everywhere.

What Is Click Fraud?

Click fraud occurs when a person or software with no interest in a banner ad repeatedly clicks on the ad to increase revenue. For instance, 200 people visit a website, but the ad banner has over 700 clicks. What about the extra 500 people? Some people have clicked on the ad more times than once.

Understandably, one might mistakenly click on an ad twice. Also, your old visitors or competitors may click your ad several times. These would not count as click fraud. Instead, click fraud is a deliberate action to manipulate the number of ad clicks.

How Does Click Fraud Work?

Perpetrators of click fraud might hire some people to repeatedly click on an ad banner for the numbers to keep increasing. They might also use click bots.

The more clicks the ad gets, the more money the publisher or advertising network—the middleman between publishers and advertisers—receives.

Common Perpetrators of Click Fraud

There are some groups of people that come to mind when discussing those responsible for click fraud:

Publishers

These people own the websites or platforms where you would place your ads. They are a core player in PPC advertising. Some publishers are swayed by the monetary benefits they earn when users click on ad links. So they sometimes manipulate the click figures to make more money from business owners, service providers, or advertisers.

Publishers may use bots that keep clicking on the links, thereby increasing their revenue. Sometimes, you may not notice the click manipulation. However, issues arise when the ad doesn’t produce your desired results.

Advertising Networks

These networks connect advertisers to publishers. Thus, they receive a share of the ad banner’s revenue. Advertising networks could manipulate figures so that their percentage increases.

Other Persons Not Bound by a Contract

Publishers and advertising networks may employ click fraud to sabotage their competitors. Although they do not earn revenue from the irrelevant links, they force you to pay for them. And upon noticing the scam, you would probably terminate your relationship with your publisher or advertising network.

Asides from competitors, other individuals with malicious intent may execute click fraud. These persons are the hardest click fraud perpetrators to determine.

Types of Click Fraud

Click fraud can happen in different ways:

Click Bots

We mentioned earlier how a click fraud perpetrator owner could use a click bot. Humans could eventually get tired of repeatedly clicking on the ad banner. Click bots are an automatic way of clicking on ad links.

These bots are not real people. Instead, they are software using existing user traffic to click on links randomly. It is a way of ensuring that the ad network doesn’t find out about the fraudulent practice.

Click Farms

Click farms are similar to click bots. The difference is that click farms are made up of actual humans. These people are paid to click on the links continuously, so they dedicate hours to clicking on ad links.

Crowdsourcing

This form of click fraud is similar to emotional manipulation. There is usually a manipulative clause that compels people who come across the ad to keep clicking. For instance, a call-to-action (CTA) could inform them that they would support a foundation by clicking on the ad several times.

How to Identify Click Fraud

Identifying click fraud can be tricky since it is hard to know who is behind a computer and their intentions, especially with access to only click data. However, abnormal metrics can indicate the presence of click fraud. You can focus on the following metrics:

IP address: If the click fraud perpetrator uses the same server for all their clicks, you’ll notice a high level of clicks coming from the same or similar IP address. Click Timestamp: This timestamp records the time clicks are made. You might be on the verge of discovering click fraud if you notice numerous clicks with almost the same timestamp. Action Timestamp: This timestamp records the time users engage with your app, website, or platform. Similarly to the click timestamp, there could be click fraud if multiple identical or closely related action timestamps exist.

Frequently, advertising networks and publishers check these metrics to determine fraudulent clicks, and they don’t charge you for them. This is why much money has been lost to click fraud.

Although there are more sophisticated means of identifying click fraud, none is infallible. However, the PPC advertising industry continues to lobby for more stringent laws on click fraud. And several companies, in relationships with publishers and advertising networks, are devising innovative solutions for identifying click fraud.

Ways to Protect Yourself from Click Fraud

Here are a few simple ways you can protect yourself from click fraud:

1. Keep Track of Your Campaign

Ideally, ad clicks should convert to traffic and lead to more user interaction with your advertised goods or services. However, this does not happen when click fraud is in play. As a result, you have to keep track of your ad campaigns.

Fortunately, several privacy-friendly analytics tools are available to help you monitor and track your campaign. Alternatively, you can use Google Analytics to check and catch invalid clicks.

If the numbers and metrics look suspicious, don’t hesitate to report a case of possible click fraud to your publisher or advertising network.

2. Only Use Reputable Publishers or Advertising Networks

Before engaging a publisher or advertising network, carry out research to learn their click fraud policies. Some publishers are dedicated to improving their fraud identification capabilities and will refund you when it is ascertained that click fraud has occurred. These publishers will usually engage specialists to review your clicks and impressions to identify invalid clicks.

However, not all publishers take this stance. So do your due diligence.

Click Fraud: Is It Legal?

Click fraud is illegal because it involves the manipulation of figures. And people who employ click fraud cause advertisers to pay more than they should. Moreover, click fraud does not translate to more traffic for your products or services.

Several click fraud lawsuits have proven the illegal nature of click fraud. As far back as 2005, Google won $75,000 in a lawsuit against Auction Experts, which Google accused of employing click fraud. After being sued for click fraud, Google settled a case where it was accused of click fraud in 2006, paying $90 million. There have been other cases of click fraud since then, including the case against Fabio Gasperini, who allegedly created a global network of click bots.