Click Fraud

I guess every PPC advertisers are worried about the competitors or a cyber ring clicking there ads off. Click fraud cost PPC advertisers millions. One of the important questions asked by the clients every day to me is what will happen if my competitors click me out? 

The answer to the question is very tricky. According to Google, there are many things they do to detect invalid clicks, including looking at duplicate IP addresses, user session information, network information, geo-targeting and browser information. These are all important signals for detecting invalid clicks. But the question is how accurate the Google filtering system?

I recently thought to put this to the test with one of my high spending clients, who operate in a very fierce competitive market. The reason to chose this client was simply because the competitors would go to any extent to put a client down which shows how fierce the market can really be.

The campaign started with the Initial 2 weeks being great as a result the client expenditure was low, great top position, lots of calls and emails. This scenario changed dramatically after two weeks. The daily expenditure almost tripled, where the average CPC skyrocketed and the enquiries dropped more than half.As a result of this the ROI was very low.

We never expected what was coming. The campaign ended up receiving 5121 invalid clicks. yes its true in 2 weeks. As result, the invalid clicks was reported to Google the answer we got initially was the monitoring software has already filtered out the invalid clicks.

The above campaign is a typical scenario of fraud clicks. So how can one protect from the internet underworld?

The following tips would minimise the fraud clicks.

1. Always stick to the big players for PPC advertising like Google and Yahoo, as they have got a better filtering system compared to the others.
2. Make sure to activate the invalid clicks tab. This is currently visible only at campaign level in Google adwords.
3. Make sure your PPC campaign is set up properly for example breaking in to campaigns, your delivery method, ad scheduling and geo-targeting.
4. Make sure to create a separate campaign for Mobile search and tablets.This will give you a clear understanding of which device is used for fraud clicks.
5. Try to place the ads on the right side of the search, the chances for fraud clicks are high  when the ads are placed on the top 3.
6. Place a IP tracking system on the website, monitor the IP and block them. (Contact Clixpert for a IP tracking system)
7. Check what time the conversions are poor and stop running the ads at that time.
8. Constantly monitor the search report and check which keywords are triggering the ads and stop the unwanted search by adding negatives.
9. Make sure to contact the support team and request for refund, you will be surprised about the refund you receive. Keep in touch with the support team constantly. 
10. Track all calls and online enquiries and stop the non converting keywords.

Click fraud is one of the biggest problem the advertisers face, but PPC advertising is one of the best marketing investment today.