How can you prevent click fraud on your ppc ads?

You've worked hard to create and design your new ad campaign, and your ads have just gone live. However, a big problem arises: a huge number of Internet users click on your advertisements, but you do not see any validated sales on your website.

Intro

You may be a victim of what is called click fraud. This is a worrying phenomenon that advertisers should be aware of, as fraudulent clicks are estimated to cost them nearly $6 billion a year worldwide, and it can obviously jeopardize your PPC campaigns and your entire business. marketing strategy .

What is click fraud?

When you run a PPC (Pay Per Click) ad on Google or another platform, you pay every time someone clicks on your ad. If you have prepared your move well, you should expect that a certain number of these clicks will turn into a sale, or validate another objective that you have set for yourself.

According to recent studies, the average conversion rate for mobile ads on Google is around 3.5%. It is therefore reasonable to expect to make three sales for every hundred clicks. If you see your visitors starting to click on your ad with no intention of making a purchase or engaging in any way, then something is wrong.

This is called click fraud, and it can become a real problem for advertisers.

Because when people or bots fraudulently click on your ads, that means you're paying for clicks that aren't real, and your daily ad spend goes up in smoke, and you can't reach your target audience.

Click fraud is a phenomenon that search engines — starting with Google — are beginning to take seriously, and they have implemented a number of tools and solutions to try to combat it. The main problem is that click fraud remains very difficult to detect. It is therefore unfortunately always possible for people or robots to click on your ads and abuse your daily advertising budget.

The different types of click fraud

The principle behind click fraud is very simple: someone clicks on your PPC ads with the intention of making you lose money. Why is that ?

There are two main types of click fraud: that which comes from competitors and that perpetrated by advertising publishers, or “publishers”, as we say in English.

– Click fraud by competitors

What if your competitors spent a lot of money on advertising and got nothing in return?

It wouldn't bother us that much, quite the contrary. The problem is that some ill-intentioned companies ensure that this actually happens.

Thus, your competitors have everything to gain by fraudulently clicking on your ads, for two reasons.

First, it means you're paying for clicks that have no chance of converting, and second, it means you're wasting your daily ad spend much faster. The result is that there is much less competition in the ad market when running their own ads later in the day.

These fraudulent clicks can also have an impact on your advertising score: your ads will be shown less often and your CPC (Cost Per Click) will increase.

– Publisher click fraud

Your competitors profit from click fraud by weakening you, but there is also another actor who directly profits from fraudulent clicks on your ads: the advertising publisher.

If you serve display ads on third-party websites, the publisher receives a percentage of what you pay for each click. Thus, the increasing number of clicks on your ads has the direct consequence of increasing their income.

You may be surprised to learn these facts, but there have been a few large-scale ad fraud stories in recent years.

How to tell if click fraud is affecting your website

To be successful with Pay Per Click advertising, one must be able to interpret data. It is with the help of data that you can refine your PPC strategy and it is also a way to determine if click fraud is affecting your website.

To find out if you're a victim of ad fraud, you need to see what happens after people click on your ad and where those clicks come from. To do this, collect the following:

• IP addresses
• Click timestamp
• timestamp of actions
• user agent
• This information will help you identify a large number of clicks that might come from the same person but never lead to an action.

If you see a lot of clicks from the same IP address, that should raise suspicion. Then be sure to check the IP address on a site like www.whatismyip.com to see where those clicks are coming from.

Although people who engage in this type of click fraud have ways of hiding important information about themselves, these tips will still have the benefit of letting you know if you're being targeted, and prompting you to make decisions.

If you have any suspicions, contact Google to report the issue so they can investigate.

Why is it important to fight click fraud?

You have many options when it comes to advertising, but you chose PPC because it gives you a good ROI. However, if you are a victim of click fraud, you will not see a return on your investment.

What's worse is that your competitors, whether they're doing the click fraud or not, are taking advantage of your difficulties.

This is why it is important that Google and the other search engines put in place mechanisms capable of stopping this phenomenon, because they also have an interest in ensuring that advertisers continue to use their platform without having to worry about possible " false » clicks.

Click fraud is a concern for many advertisers. According to PPC Protect, 11% of all paid search clicks and 36% of display ad clicks are fraudulent. It is therefore not a minor problem that the main players in the internet and digital marketing can afford to ignore.

4 steps to prevent click fraud

Click fraud can be difficult to detect, but it is entirely possible to take certain measures to prevent it, or even limit its impact on your campaigns.

Here are four steps you can take to limit the impact of click fraud on your PPC ads:

1- Configure IP address exclusions on Google Ads

If you've analyzed your data and suspect that certain IP addresses are fraudulently clicking on your ads, you can block them by adding them to an exclusion list in your Google Ads account.

2- Focus on ad targeting

Focus on your target audiences and tighten your advertising strategy as much as possible. The more your ad is shown to people outside of your target audience, the more likely it is to attract the attention of scammers.

3- Think about ads on social networks

Ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram are less keyword-focused, which means they're harder to find. With smart targeting, these platforms always give you value for your money, and they are less appealing to fraudsters.

4- Use click fraud protection software

If you think click fraud is costing you a lot of money, then it makes sense to invest in protecting your ads. Keep an eye on your data and results, and then assess whether the protection software improves your ROAS and is worth it.

Conclusion

Click fraud is a complex problem that can affect anyone using the PPC ad system.

Although Google and other major search engines take steps to limit click fraud and sometimes even reimburse losses, it is best to take a proactive approach to ensure that you are not the victim of fraud and that you get the most out of your PPC campaigns.

When you pay for every click, you definitely need to make sales in order to get a return on your investment, but if your campaigns are ruined by fraudulent clicks, you won't be able to get away with it.

It is for this reason that it is time to take seriously this problem which affects many companies and to be vigilant on all the data you have, such as the number of clicks, traffic, conversion rates, etc. .

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