Here at enCOMPASS, we do a lot to protect our clients from click fraud. While we do not view click fraud as a big problem for our clients, it is a very real issue for PPC advertisers in general.

Click fraud can drain a PPC advertising campaign. Not only is it a financial drain, it also drains time and other resources from your company. To understand how to avoid click fraud, you must first understand what it is and where it usually originates. Become familiar with these common sources and methods of click fraud, and you will have an easier time defending your marketing campaign.

Overview of Click Fraud

Click fraud occurs when an entity (real or fake) repeatedly clicks on an advertisement, like PPC ads, to drain money from the advertiser (that’s you). Search engines like Bing and Google do offer some protection to advertisers to prevent click fraud. However, search engines admit that they cannot track all instances.

Where Click Fraud Comes From

A fraudulent click occurs when a person, robot, or computer software clicks on PPC ads in order to deplete the PPC budget. These clicks have an absolute zero percent chance of resulting in a conversion for your company.

Unfortunately, the burden of identifying most click fraud falls on the advertiser. So, how do you identify it?

Machine War or Human Touch?

How do you find click fraud? The answer to this question becomes crucial to your business when search engines do not provide dependable protection. Fraudulent clicks come from many sources.

Manual Click Fraud

Manually generated click fraud usually comes from direct PPC competitors. Another source comes from human-driven operations that exist to generate affiliate revenue from the PPC model. In other words, manually generated click fraud comes from real humans that stand to gain something from depleting your PPC campaign budget.

Real humans exhibit browsing habits and behavior patterns that are much harder to predict than automated click schemes. This makes it very difficult for search engines to create monitoring software that targets manual click fraud. Advertisers also experience difficulty proving manual click fraud because you must prove a real person performed the click, and that the click was malicious in nature. Accidental clicks do not count, and it is very easy for the accused party to say, “I clicked on their PPC ad by accident.”

Monitoring PPC reports closely and reporting any unusual behavior prove the best course of action when you suspect manual click fraud.

Robot Click Fraud

Robot click fraud is a more common type of click fraud. Hitbots, or computer programs designed specifically to generate clicks on PPC advertisements, make click fraud easier to implement for the offending party. This practice is widespread and often initiated by competitors, affiliates, and other malicious parties.

Because robot click fraud tends to make up most click fraud schemes, search engine programs provide better protection against it, as compared to manual click fraud. However, we recommend continually monitoring your PPC campaign analytics to keep an eye out for robots sneaking through the search engines’ protective software.

Contracting vs. Non-contracting Parties

Reporting click fraud is a difficult task because of the legal context and nature of the beast. If you identify definite click fraud, examine the relationship context as it pertains to your business. All click fraud comes from either contracting parties or non-contracting parties.

Contracting parties include parties with which your company has some type of agreement or contract, such as affiliate marketers. Contracting parties can cause significant damage, but click fraud caused by these parties is easy to remedy with adequate proof of the fraud.

Non-contracting parties include parties with which your company has no agreement or contract. These typically include competitors or other parties with malicious intent. Click fraud caused by these parties is more difficult to prove and deal with, but there are ways to minimize its impact on your PPC campaign.

Once you identify the source and gather documented proof of the click fraud, you can report it to the search engine, request refund from the offending party, or even press charges if necessary.

The Best Offense…

With click fraud, the best offense is a good defense. Know what click fraud looks like, review your PPC reports regularly, and report any suspicious findings immediately to the search engines on which you advertise. The best way to fight click fraud is to monitor your campaigns. If you find yourself with questions or concerns about PPC click fraud, or simply do not have time to review your PPC reports, give us a call.