Click fraud is an unfortunate risk when advertising online, one that costs marketing clients over $35 billion each year.
Small companies lose out the most when it comes to this type of fraud—every click on an ad that isn’t legitimate leads to wasted money from your advertising budget.
Click fraud prevention software exists to help small companies protect themselves against fraud in any paid online ad campaign.
What is Click Fraud?
Click fraud, sometimes known as pay-per-click ad fraud, is a scheme that overinflates traffic statistics for companies advertising online.
Businesses pay to display their banner ads on other websites and in search engine results.
Every time a customer clicks on the ad and goes to the website, the business is charged for that click by the advertising provider. So when individual scammers or phishing software begins to click on ads fraudulently, that can cost the company a lot of money.
Where Does Click Fraud Come From?
In order to understand how this fraud prevention software works, it is vital to know where the fraudulent traffic is coming from. Fake or fraud clicks can come from:
- Malicious individuals at other businesses. Sometimes a competitor may wish to use up all of your ad spend by repeatedly clicking on your ads.
- Botnets, malware, viruses, fraud networks. This is the most common way to lose money on ads. Scammers set up something known as “botnets,” which crawl the web and click on certain ads to run up their pay rates or have them removed entirely. These botnets are pieces of code operated remotely and are used to commit wide-scale fraud.
- Web scrapers and internet crawlers. Web crawlers are automated programs run by different agencies to categorize and screen websites and collect data. These clicks aren’t fraudulent but are responsible for the overinflation of invalid clicks.
Accidental and repeated clicks are also normal – these come from individuals who click an ad and immediately close it. This situation may incur some costs, but widespread fraud is a much bigger problem and should be your primary concern.
What Does Click Fraud Protection Technology Do?
Partnering with a marketing agency that invests in click fraud protection technology is vital for businesses. Agencies use this software to monitor the clicks you’re getting on your ads and ensure that they are coming from legitimate sources.
Agencies using technology can find when clicks are coming from bots, scrapers, and other fraudulent activity by tracking IP addresses and activity. They will use the software to scan twice, before blocking any suspected fraudulent activity.
When fraud is suspected, your marketing agency will log the IP address into a Google Ads exclusion list, which prevents these networks from seeing your ads. That way, most of the clicks you are spending money on will come from legitimate traffic.
If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits our click fraud protection can bring you, call the experts at Advanté-BCS at 804-788-0048. All of our clients are instantly protected during any ad campaign through our click fraud protection service.
