What is click fraud? I just did a quick Bing search for click fraud which returned over 40 million results. It’s actually a cybercrime dating back years that occurs with PPC advertising when a spammer or some program or script imitates a real user clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating an actual charge per click, even though they have no interest in the target of that ad’s link.Have you ever noticed in your PPC advertising campaigns, the same IP address clicking on your ad, spending one or two seconds on your website and then leaving? And coming back again within seconds? If you’re spending $ 3.00 per click, that adds up quickly.
From SearchEngineWatch.com 19 Dec 2010 - “A recent Click Forensics report showed that fraud for online advertisements rose to 22.3 percent, up from 14.1 percent during the same period last year.” And “With increased marketing spend during the holiday season, it’s more important than ever that online advertisers pay attention to their traffic and ensure that they are protected from fraudulent clicks.”
What’s the Motivation?
One motivator is competitor click fraud. The motivation of the perpetrator here is to simply obtain higher-placed ad positions for lower bid amounts by depleting the advertising budget of their competitors. Other motivators of click fraud include financial gain, revenge and blackmail.
What can you do to detect and prevent click fraud?
This starts with being proactive – measuring your advertising results, analyzing trends in click volumes with or without accompanying increases in your website’s traffic or sales.
There are also anti-fraud softwares to protect your advertising dollars. A quick check on Google just now for FREE click fraud software returned over 361,000 results.
Popularity: unranked
