What Is Click Fraud?

What Is Click Fraud?


The most significant issue facing pay-per-click (PPC) marketers on the Internet today is a problem called click fraud. This event occurs when someone repeatedly clicks an advertisement to drain revenues from the ad purchaser or create income for the hosting site.

If this activity is left unchecked, then it can cause businesses to lose billions of dollars each year.

Click fraud is not the same as an accidental click. The action is one that is malicious, intentional, and offers no potential hope for a conversion afterward. It can even be unintentional when friends, family members, or fans click on an ad because they want to create revenues for a site. 

Although in the early days of online advertising it was usually humans performing this action, automated scripts and computer programs are responsible for many of the instances of click fraud. Some might even try to make it look like a website is clicking on its advertising to cause networks to end their relationship with that publisher.

Can I Prevent Click Fraud?


You can take some proactive steps right now that will help you to reduce the chances that click fraud occurs on your sites.

  1. Know your competition.

It helps to be familiar with the PPC campaigns of your competitors. When you know what the search results are for your targeted keywords, it can be easier to discover fraudulent activities should they occur.

  1. Limit your overall exposure.

It helps to keep your PPC campaigns limited to the specific countries where you do business. Outsourced click fraud often occurs in nations where the labor cost is low, so avoiding those regions will reduce your issues in this area naturally.

  1. Watch your campaigns closely.

If your conversion rates start becoming diluted from your baseline results, then you will know that an attacker is likely targeting your campaign. The analytics tools for your platform will help you to keep track of this information.

  1. Target high-value websites.

Bots and automated scripts tend to appear on low-value websites. You can often avoid most issues with click fraud by using your advertising budget to target sites where you know there are plenty of prospects.

  1. Invest in professional services.

Professional services, which include software interventions, can help you to quickly stop click fraud before it can adversely impact your campaign. 

How to Stop Click Fraud


PPC campaigns are useful when your advertising reaches a targeted market. Your revenues deserve to go to clicks that can result in conversions, not fraudulent activities.

Detecting click fraud without professional assistance can be challenging. Most marketers will help you to identify target markets and design effective advertising, but they are not equipped to stop this activity.

That’s why you need Clixtell. 

We monitor your analytics to detect click fraud and secure your PPC budget. If inappropriate activity occurs with your Google or Bing advertising campaigns, then our software immediately can automatically prevent the attacker from seeing your ad.

Now is the time to take action. If you don’t take steps to stop click fraud today, then it may never be possible to maximize your ROI.