Click fraud is a concern for anybody who is doing Pay Per Click(PPC) marketing. Click fraud involves clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating a charge with having no interest in the target of the ad’s link
These clicks cost the advertiser money.
Identifying click fraud is difficult. Avoid or minimize click fraud by paying attention to your campaign’s established trends and watch for any divergence in those trends. For example, suppose you have an Adgroup that averages an 8% click through rate(CTR). Minor variations to this CTR are normal and expected; however, if this Adgroup spikes to a 15% CTR without warning, there may be cause for concern and investigation.
Start by looking for any logical reasons for this spike. Was there some media coverage on your industry that would cause an increase in searches for your keywords? Did you experience an increase in sales? If your sales correspond to your traffic everything should be fine.
If the traffic still seems unusual, gather as much information as possible on the incident.
- Record the time period when it happened and what keywords were affected.
- Check your server logs and look for any suspicious looking IP addresses or user agents.
Once you have collected all relevant information, contact Google support and allow them to take over the investigation. Most likely, they will want access to your server logs and any other pertinent information.
If you suspect click fraud, Google is very competent with their investigation and they will reimburse you if click fraud is indeed proven. If it is determined that click fraud did not occur, you will be given an explanation describing how this was determined.
Click fraud can happen for a variety of reasons. The most common is for financial gain and usually occurs on the content network. Every time someone clicks on a Google Adsense ad on their site, the person gets paid. Some people get greedy and try generating artificial clicks in order to make more money while some click on the ads themselves.
Software programs called click bots might be used. These programs use multiple proxy servers to beat the repetitive IP problem, and can also randomize behaviour to make the traffic seem more natural. These programs vary in sophistication and are harder to spot.
In the recent past it was discovered that there are companies in places like India, where labour is very cheap, which use real people to click on ads. These people are spread out in different locations making the IP addresses all different and non-proxy. Moreover, they are real humans so their actions can seem more natural. This scheme can also be difficult to spot.
Other reasons for click fraud include malicious competitors. In this case a competitor wants you to either stop advertising on a keyword, or lower your bid. This often happens as a result of bidding wars. It also often takes place on the actual search pages. Any of the various methods of generating artificial clicks can be used, and the result is still the same. Increased costs.
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