What is Click Fraud? How to Prevent, Identify and Eliminate It

So you've heard the term "click fraud" or invalid traffic or clicks. Have you looked into your Google. Ads dashboard and wondering what the hell is going on? All those ad clicks and very few conversions right?

By searching for "click fraud" you'll find plenty of click prevention options and detailed guides. But who has time to read these complete click fraud guides? And do you need fraud protection?

You just want to know what is causing these huge amounts of traffic and all those ad clicks, but without any additional conversions.

What is a click fraud?

Any fake click on your paid ads costs money. This is denoted by many terms which may include:

• Click Fraud
• Advertising fraud
• Clicking
• Click Fraud
• Invalid clicks
• Invalid traffic (IVT)
• PPC scam

Simply put they are different names for a very similar practice: clicks on your paid ads that have no chance of converting into a sale.

Ad clicks may come from your display ads, paid search links (such as Google search results) or display ads on YouTube or other apps.

Anywhere you pay for programmatic ads or sponsored search results.

Who clicks on my ads?

When it comes to clicking fraud, there can be multiple sources of fake ad clicks or invalid traffic.

1. Random clicks of people. If you have ever accidentally clicked on a banner ad or even clicked on the wrong search result this could be a source of IVT or invalid traffic. Poor ad placement, pop-ups or finger slippage can be to blame for these genuine click errors.

2. Business competitors. Competitors know how much you pay per click and they also know that you probably have a similar daily budget to theirs. By clicking on your paid ad, competitors can deplete your PPC ad budget and potentially get their ad at the top (if your ad budget is depleted).

3. Malicious clickers (brand haters). Are there former employees there? Maybe an ex-partner who would like to hit you right where it hurts? (We mean in your wallet.) Or maybe your ad just pops up all over the place and people know it costs you money to click on it. Hey, we won't judge you But it can be a frequent source of fraudulent ad clicks.

4. Bots and automated traffic. Did you know that more than half of all internet traffic does not belong to people? Bots and scrapers are everywhere and most of them are not malicious. For example Google uses bots to map the web, as do thousands of other software companies. And, unfortunately, from time to time these click bots can click on your paid ads.

5. Fraud networks. The term "scam" conjures up images of dark boiler rooms where scammers steal your money. Correctly? Well, there is an infrastructure set up to deceive advertisers with pay-per-click usually using click farms or sophisticated bot networks. There are some incredibly complex clicker bots out there, some of which are believed to make millions of dollars a year.

6. Paid clickers. Did you know that almost anything can be paid for by clicks on the Internet? You can buy traffic to increase your social status or "improve" your site's traffic. And you can also buy traffic to follow links like ads placed on your website (so you get inflated payouts). There is also a growing industry of apps that pay people money to click on ads, which is often seen as part of the gig economy.

7. Infected software. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of clicks coming from clicker-infected software known as malware. This can be from both apps and browser extensions. Malware is a common source of click fraud.

Click fraud stats in 2023

Our research shows that the majority, about 90% of all PPC ads are susceptible to click fraud to some extent. Of these ads the average rate of invalid or fraudulent clicks across the board is about 14%.

However, the actual rate of click fraud varies greatly depending on your industry, location, and even time of year. For example, we found that the top industries affected by click fraud (in terms of click fraud percentage) include:

• Photo 65%
• Pest control 62%
• Locksmiths 53%
• Plumbing 46%
• Garbage removal 44%

In industries such as retail, legal and financial services, the average fraud rate worldwide was 14-20%. Interestingly the Covid-19 pandemic caused a spike in click fraud during the initial lockdown with click fraud increasing by 21% in April and May 2019.

We also found that during the 2021 super shopping seasons such as Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, invalid and fraudulent ad clicks increased by approximately 180%. This happens through a combination of competitor clicks, bot attacks and genuine random clicks from potential customers.

It has been estimated that click-throughs and ad fraud accounted for around $377 million during the 2020 US election. Major news events such as elections or the coronavirus and the ads around them can attract large amounts of ad traffic and in turn can be exploited by scammers.

We have found that while the number of click fraud cases is constant throughout the year, as with everything, there are peaks and valleys.

What can you do to stop click fraud?

Whatever your ad budget, you probably don't want to pay around 14% of it for fake ad clicks. And if you're paying a few dollars per click you most likely want to make sure that every time you pay per click you're paying for a genuinely engaged person (and potential customer).

Here are our tips to stop click fraud:

1. Monitor your ad traffic and watch out for unexpected traffic spikes, high bounce rates, and low conversions.

2. If you find that your ads are showing a lot of weird activist you might want to try adjusting your bids for some keywords. For example, removing bids for keywords that attract high traffic and low conversions. You can also blacklist IP addresses and experiment with ad timing.

3. Use negative keywords to prevent your ad from appearing on a large number of low-converting searches.

4. Register with Click Fraud. You will be able to see the number of click fraud cases on your ads and understand if you should use them in the long run.

5. When running paid search campaigns, make sure the ad clicks come from genuine sources.

6. Automate click fraud prevention with industry-leading click fraud protection software.