Ad click fraud is a digital advertising fraud in which advertisers are charged for fraudulent clicks on their ads. In ad click fraud, third parties compromise an advertiser’s digital advertising campaign by creating fake websites and ads that prompt users to click on them. These third parties then charge advertisers for these fraudulent clicks. Ad fraud can be difficult to detect because the only way to know whether users have been deceived is to monitor user behavior after an ad campaign has finished. This article outlines some guidelines on which you may identify and detect ad click fraud and avoid falling victim to it in the future.
Monitor User Behavior
The first step in detecting ad click fraud is to monitor user behavior after an ad campaign is over. To do this, you can closely analyze the results of your ad campaign to see which users engaged most with the ad and ad content. Look at the user’s location, device, search history, and other demographic and behavioral data. If many users are engaging with your ads, but a small percentage are clicking on them, it may be a sign of ad click fraud. It’s important to note that not all users who click on your ad will purchase your product. If many users click on your ad but do not buy your product, this may be a sign of ad click fraud. If your product is related to a high-value purchase, this is a sign that ad click fraud may occur.
Getting the IP Addresses
One way to determine if bots rather than real users are clicking your ads is to get the IP addresses of the users clicking on your ads. To do this, you’ll need to create a special account login for click fraud detection. After you’ve created the account, you should be able to access the IP addresses of the clicks associated with your ads. You may have a click fraud problem if most of the IP addresses associated with your ads are from unknown and foreign countries. These tracking scripts can be copied and pasted into several widely used services for easy implementation. Once implemented, the script will provide the IP addresses of everybody who interacts with your ads, their device, geographic area, and more. Additionally, if these IP addresses are reported as spam or detected in illegal activity like Cyber Attacks, Hacker Blocker Hosting can block them.
Use Automated Click Fraud Detection
As a best practice, advertisers should monitor their click fraud activities manually. However, it is also common for click fraud to occur so that it evades detection by manual monitoring. For this reason, advertisers should use automated click fraud detection tools. These tools detect click fraud by monitoring an ad’s performance over time, identifying if there is a change in the ad’s performance and suspicious flagging activity. Using these tools is essential because it allows you to monitor your ads in real time and address any click fraud issues before they significantly impact your ad campaign.
Check Ad Engagement
Another way to identify click fraud is to look at how engaged the users who click on your ad are with your ad content. An effective way to do this is to use a heat map to visualize ad engagement. A heat map is a visual tool that lets you see where users click most on your ad. If most users click on an image or button that does not take them to your website, it may be a sign of click fraud.
Monitor Relevant Metrics
Another way to detect click fraud is to monitor relevant metrics related to your ad campaign. For example, if your campaign is related to a high-value product and users are not clicking on your ads, this may be a sign of click fraud. If the vast majority of users clicking on your ads are not clicking the “buy now” button, this may be a sign that bots are clicking your ads. If any of these metrics indicate that click fraud is occurring, you should immediately shut down the ad campaign.
Ad click fraud is a serious issue that can significantly impact digital advertisers. To protect yourself against ad click fraud, you should monitor user behavior after an ad campaign has ended, get the IP addresses of the users who are clicking on your ads, use automated click fraud detection, and monitor relevant metrics related to your ad campaign.
