Marketers who want to get started with paid advertising are usually wary of click fraud. Although many people who do not know what it is might think these marketers are just paranoid, click fraud is a real concern for marketers who understand just how much damage it can do.
Although these concerns are valid, there is no reason to abandon PPC because of them. Marketers who can identify and reduce or eliminate click fraud will be in a good position to protect their accounts and budgets and to ensure their campaigns produce the ROI they expect.
What Is Click Fraud?
Click fraud happens when a fraudulent third-party clicks on an ad without the intention of providing any value to the ad’s owner. This is usually done to sabotage competitors by pushing their budgets too high. Some ad publishers will also click on their own ads, usually using bots, to generate more ad revenue. However, in this article, we will focus on crushing the first type of click fraud.
Switch Platforms
If you are worried about click fraud using too much of your advertising budget that you do not see any ROI on running paid search ads, you can turn to other platforms, mainly social media. When you do this, your ads will only show on the platforms you choose meaning that bots and malicious actors will have a harder time finding your ads and clicking on them.
Additionally, malicious actors involved in click fraud will usually focus on search engines and make targeted attacks on keyword searches. By switching to social media advertising, you will be eliminating a large portion of fraudulent clicks.
Use Automated Tools
If you plan on sticking with paid search ads, you might want to use automated tools to eliminate worthless clicks. These tools detect and block all types of click fraud including anonymous, bot, and competitor clicks.
Various tools on the market promise to do the same thing but some do a lot more than others. PPC Protect is a very popular tool, but it is limited in that it does not allow you to optimize your accounts or to block fraudulent clicks in real-time.
This is why tools like ClickGuard were developed. ClickGuard does what tools like ClickCease and PPC Protect do plus a lot more, including allowing you to create device-specific blocking rules, setting advanced rule conditions, and handling click sources that target multiple keywords, campaigns, ad groups, and landing pages. ClickGUARD has a full, detailed guide comparing its tool to other PPC Protect alternatives you can see why their industry-leading solution comes out on top.
Use Retargeting
If you are worried about fraudulent clicks from publishers, setting up retargeting is a great way to defeat it. Retargeting only shows your ads to people who have visited your website or those who are interested in it. Because a publisher might not have done either of those things, it is harder for them to see your ads which means they cannot click them.
Conclusion
Click fraud can wreak havoc on your ad campaigns. However, there are some simple protections you can put in place to protect yourself and your business, including those outlined above.
