The phrase “click fraud” is well-known among pay-per-click (PPC) experts and online marketers. It’s one of several obstacles to successfully managing a PPC campaign. By showing ads to the appropriate demographic, you may increase the return on investment (ROI) of your advertising spend as a marketer.
One of your most enormous obstacles in click fraud prevention is that it forces you to pay for clicks from fraudulent and non-human sources. The two possible causes of click fraud are as follows:
- The website owner hosting the advertisement will constantly click the link to maximise the amount of money the company has to pay them.
- A rival firm may use click fraud to squander the marketing money of the latter.
How to Prevent Click Fraud?
#1 Be Mindful of Your Rivals
It is obvious how click fraud gives rivals an advantage because it has the power to obliterate advertising spending. Always keep a close eye on who searches for your keywords in the browsers. Check the keywords you’re considering targeting on Google to see whether any other companies are running advertisements for them.
#2 Configure IP Exclusions in Google Ads
You may restrict specific IP addresses using Google Advertisements if you’ve reviewed your statistics and determined that they are illegally clicking your ads. As a result, the IP addresses you’ve recognised as fraudulent won’t see your advertising.
Go to the settings tab on your Ads account and choose IP exclusions. This might help you identify click fraud on your advertisements, but since some of these schemes are highly clever, it’s not a foolproof approach.
#3 Only Go After Valuable Sites
Low-quality websites significantly contribute to click fraud since they are frequently linked to bots that automatically target your site and adverts. By only hosting your advertising on websites you know are packed with potential buyers, you may avoid low-quality websites.
You may build up ad campaigns with Google and Yahoo! that only display advertisements on the websites you designate, avoiding sites that deduct from your advertising budget.
#4 Spend Money on Fraud Prevention Tools
Software that monitors clicks for fraud finds and guards against PPC advertising fraud. Investing in a software solution built to identify the sites providing odd quantities of visits to your site is an excellent method to fight click fraud.
Programs that fight click fraud keep a close eye on the traffic from Google Ads and instantly ban the sources of fraudulent clicks. In conclusion, purchasing click fraud software may assist you in reducing cost-ineffective clicks and optimising your advertising campaigns to boost sales.
#5 Play Protect by Google
Google created Play Protect, which checks applications for malware and suspicious code to aid in the elimination of this particular type of spyware. Additionally, it warns users about possible security flaws in downloaded apps. It tries to plug vulnerabilities by requiring app developers to produce software compatible with newer, more secure versions of Android.
In 2019, the Play Protect technology stopped more than 1.9 billion malware downloads. Even though this program is a great concept and has reduced malware on the Android platform, the issue is still getting worse.
Final Thoughts
Advertisements and click fraud are inescapable parts of advertising that we must accept. It would help if you took the initiative to prevent a drain on your advertising budget. If you see fraud in your advertisements, follow the click fraud prevention steps. Stay away from countries with a high click fraud rate, and ban any IP addresses that behave suspiciously in response to your advertisements.
