Click Fraud
Click fraud is a type of fraud that occurs when an individual, or a bot repeatedly clicks on a pay-per-click (PPC) advertisement.
Updated: November 16, 2023
Click fraud is a type of fraud that occurs when an individual, or a bot repeatedly clicks on a pay-per-click (PPC) advertisement. Some people clicks without genuine interest or the intention to purchase which raise ad costs for networks and publishers.
Click fraud is generally committed to reduce competition among similar advertisers or to generate revenue by cheating the system. Click fraud software is used by advertisers to detect and safeguard against fraudulence in PPC advertising. Data is provided by these tools and also dashboards are offered to warn of fraudulent activity and monitor ad fraud.
Industry competitors and Publishers and affiliates are two types of people who are typically behind click fraud. Various methods, such as leveraging internal employees, are used by competitors to commit click fraud to elevate their business. Publishers and affiliates disrupt PPC campaigns to receive larger payouts in case of publishers and affiliates.
The most common methods of committing click fraud involve crowdsourcing, click farm and bot networks. Businesses should watch for ad impressions and the number of clicks, check conversion rates, examine bounce rates and review click-through rates (CTR) to spot click fraud across their PPC campaigns.
Appropriate tools can be used by advertisers to prevent click fraud. Ad verification tools that provide advertisers with performance data for various metrics, including invalid traffic can be used. A honeypot can also be used which is a security mechanism to help detect and deflect click bots and other malicious networks. Click fraud episodes should be monitored closely and attention should be paid to patterns across ad content leading to fraud.
How to identify click fraud
- Monitor irregular click patterns.
- Identify discrepancies between CTR and conversions.
- Analyze timing of clicks for anomalies.
- Investigate clicks from unexpected locations.
- Check for disparities in click activity across devices.
- Monitor click speed for abnormalities.
- Evaluate engagement metrics associated with clicks.
- Scrutinize clicks from irrelevant sources.
- Watch for increased clicks during competitor campaigns.
- Use tools employing machine learning for fraud detection.
