How to combat click fraud in 2022?

Click-fraud schemes apply the pay per click model, when the attacker receives money for each click on the link. This tactic has a negative impact on the business advertising campaign.

What is click-fraud and why it may be dangerous?

The owner of advertisements suffers losses because the ads are unprofitable: it does not attract real clients. At the same time, the main flow of customers may eventually go to other sellers. There is also a more interesting variant of click-fraud, which takes place under the control of the publisher. In this case, scammers get a double benefit, and hackers use the company’s advertising as a platform to have an income. 

Most importantly, because of such actions, it is impossible to assess the real effectiveness of advertising, which means that to build a further strategy for the development of e-commerce sales is a very complex task. Moreover, many advertising platforms set limits, and in case of non-compliance with them or the use of fraudulent schemes, advertisements may appear less often or disappear at all. However, there are several approaches to solve this problem. All of them are aimed at collecting specific data that will help analyze the current situation and make the right decision.

Types of click fraud

Despite the common goals of extracting benefits and destroying someone else’s business, click fraud exists in various forms. And you need to know them in order to be able to identify violations faster.

Both robots and real people can click on links, so many sites use special protection to recognize automatic requests.

Some scammers, using the original text offers of companies, create fake links: the client, thinking that he clicks on the advertisement for his favorite product, unwittingly brings profit to dishonest players.

They sometimes stack ads to hide authentic advertisements. It turns out that users do not see the ad-insert. Also, one of the most common schemes is incentivized traffic, which has many variations (for example, offering rewards or game bonuses).

Ways to prevent fraud-click activity

1. Security. This aspect should come first. Specialized software can not only detect, but also block suspicious activity in time, thereby protecting the website.
2. In order to minimize risks, it is worth using diversification methods. The use of advertisements in different price categories help to plan budget rationally. Then, in case of fraudulent actions, not all the existing sites will suffer losses.
3. It is important to track the user’s actions on the website and the nature of these actions. If many clicks from the same IP (or ISP) or certain scrolling features are recorded, such suspicious traffic should alert the webmaster. It is also easy to notice in this case that there are a lot of views, and very few customers become active clients, or there are no clients at all.
4. Be vigilant with competing companies. Some dishonest marketers may resort to malicious clicks in order to push site owners out of the market. In the future, they can expect appropriate restrictions from advertisers. To avoid this, you can use special programs that generate reports and display the balance of unique and fraudulent clicks. For the record. It’s good to know the competitors by sight! So, you can significantly narrow down the number of suspected fraud firms.
5. Special tools are also able to collect data from such sites, which may be associated with suspicious traffic or content. Such reporting can be very helpful in the case of litigation.
6. Some advertisers are developing their own solutions in the fight against click-fraud, which work quite effectively. Such plugins and software receive regular updates, and the mechanism for countering suspicious activity is based on the artificial intelligence. Sometimes the check is available in manual mode. Pay attention! If there are suspicions about fraudulent clicks, you can directly contact the advertiser company to initiate an investigation.
7. The choice of the site is also important. Unpopular or low-quality resources can be a haven for various bots and click scammers.
8. The country matters. Regions with low wages often use workers to help competitors in an unfair struggle for the consumer.

Pay attention! Many click robots use VPNs to disguise themselves, so it can be problematic to identify the real location of the device from which suspicious traffic is being conducted.

What other steps can a webmaster take?

1. Blocking. If suspicious resources are detected, they can be blacklisted. However, if there are a lot of them or their number is constantly growing, this option may be ineffective.
2. Retargeting of media ads. This type of advertising is widely exploited by publishers. But the advantage of such ads is that they can be configured in such a way that only real buyers see them. At the same time, publishers will not see the advertisements, which will prevent them from making fraud clicks.
3. Customize your ads. Targeting allows you to select a region and reach the target audience. The focus of advertising will reduce the flow of fraudulent clicks. It may be worth paying attention to ads on social networks, as there are many potential clients.

Features of defender programs

There are many tools that can eliminate unwanted actions on the part of dishonest marketers. Among their main functions and elements are:

1. Adding IP addresses (also from unique devices) in white and black lists.
2. Blocking bots, spam and scanners (including options for mobile platforms).
3. Programs that allow you to track the efficiency indexes of advertising campaigns.
4. Control of paid traffic and blocking of unwanted actions.
5. Analysis of incoming traffic and clicks.

Click fraud is gaining momentum every year, and therefore it is difficult to derive a universal protection formula. However, there are many ways to secure your business, but you only need to select unique tools for each case.