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What is Click Fraud?What is click fraud? If you are not involved in online advertising, you have probably never heard of it. (if you need to learn about online advertising and PPC (pay per click) ads, check out our other page, PPC Advertising). But it is a serious problem for many advertisers using Google AdWords and AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network, and Microsoft AdCenter. Advertisers buy ads on these networks by specifying keyword or keyword combinations, and bidding to have their ad appear when someone searches for that phrase or visits a website written about that phrase. For example, let's say you want to reach people interested in scrap booking. So you offer to pay up to 25 cents each time someone clicks on your ad, which they will see when they search for the terms "scrapbook", "scrapbooking ideas", and "scrap book supplies" or visit a website dedicated to scrapbooking. So now each day you get 50 people visiting your site after seeing your ad, and you pay 50 x 25 cents = $12.50. You have a limited advertising budget, so you set your daily limit to somewhere around that amount, let's say $15. So far, all is good. Now comes the click fraud part.. and what you need to know about preventing click fraud and detecting click fraud.
Click Fraud DetectionHow can I stop click fraud? Of course the huge companies running these CPC cost per click ad programs (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) are not unaware of these click fraud problems. By some estimates, 10-20% of clicks may be fraudulent. They go to great lengths to automatically screen out false clicks and reimburse advertisers for fraud. They track patterns of where and when clicks come from, which IP addresses (the identifier of how your computer connects to the internet) clicks are coming from, which sites visitors are clicking on, what countries they are clicking from, and many other parameters to search out and eliminate click fraud. These automated systems help them eliminate probably 75% of all attempts at click fraud, which advertisers never even see. But this multi-billion dollar ad market is so tempting, innovative scammers keep trying to get by the system. Google and other others also employ real people to investigate and analyze problems and patterns they detect, or that advertisers bring to their attention. They also often offer credits and refunds to advertisers who have been victims of click fraud - sometimes willingly, sometimes when taken to court. The burden of getting reimbursed though, often falls on the advertisers shoulders. They need to show that the clicks they were being charged for were fraudulent - for example, originating in China or Romania or something else out of the ordinary, and coming in huge waves with no related sales activity.To do this, advertisers need to enlist the support of one of the number of companies that have sprung up related to fighting click fraud. Click Fraud Solution CompaniesClick fraud detection and analysis starts with tracking log files - seeing who visits a site, where they came from, and where they went and what they did once they got there. Companies like ClickTracks.com do just this. Their software tracks how visitors got to your page and what happened next, providing detailed supporting data that can be used to obtain a refund from the ad network if required. By looking at log files, they can find historic trends and detect activity by bots. The log files indicate what a normal visitor and customer looks like, making it easy to build a profile of what a fraudulent click and visit looks like. Some of the things they examine are how many times a person visits, how often that person buys something, how much the advertiser is paying to reach visitors, how many visitors only visit the initial "click-thru" page, how many clicks come from certain countries, how many visitors did NOT come from any referrer (ie, the URL was just typed into their browser or the browser went their automatically, not from any ad), etc. If click fraud is detected, you can easily spit out an Excel file containing all the relevant to be submitted to your PPC ad network partner for their review and reimbursement. Their product is really aimed at larger advertisers. The Pro version costs $4000. The Pro Hosted version runs on their servers and costs only $189 per month, but it is javascript based and not as powerful as the full Pro log analyzer version. The product does more than just click fraud analysis though - it also tracks all your online campaigns and visitors acitivity, showing you who is buying what, where they are coming from, how different ads and ad networks are working, A/B split tracking (to see how different versions of your website convert visitors into buyers), etc.AdWatcher.com has a more simplified online system that tracks click from IP addresses and warns you (and documents) each time excessive visits come from any one IP (you can set the number of visits that triggers the warning). The system will pop up warning messages on peoples computer who are doing the fraud clicking, warning them they are being tracked and reported, hoping this will stop the activity. The program also automatically spits out data files documenting any instances of click fraud and formats them as required to be submitted to any PPC ad networks for a refund request. AdWatcher comes in two version, one they host for you, one you can run on your own server. If you run it yourself, it costs $20 per month for unlimited tracked. If you run it from their server and just access the reports online, the cost is from $25 to $80 per month, depending on how many clicks you are tracking (3K/mo - 100k/mo). Free installation and support are provided. ClickLab.com offer a fraud audit to help you avoid losing money to click fraud. Their site also has some helpful articles and white papers about click fraud - a good starting point for learning about the problem and figuring out the best ways to combat it. ClickReport.com offers a free click fraud fighting tool -- you just have to include a link back to their site on the page you use the tool. It allows you to pop-up warning messages to anyone who clicks too many times on your ads (you determine how many is "too much"). What does ClickReport do? From their website: "ClickReport compiles statistics every time a user clicks on your advertisement. ClickReport uses these statistics to generate meaningful reports on the traffic generated by your advertisement. You can view the reports by logging into your account, or by reviewing the email sent each day, keeping you in charge of your advertising costs." Their service is pretty simple, but can be effective for combatting a good percentage of click fraud activity perpetrated by individuals and competitors. Setting it up is easy - you get a unique code for each landing page you want to track, then paste the code into your page, then amend your landing page URL to include a tag for the new code. Click Fraud vs. Online AdvertisingEven though click fraud has created some controversy for big companies like Google, do not be dissuaded from getting into the online advertising game to find and win new customers. Literally millions of small companies use PPC online ad campaigns to reach new customers, and it DOES work. The trick is to use it cautiously, keep an eye on your spending, track, track, track everything, and be on the lookout for suspicious activity. When in doubt, contant your PPC ad network partner if you think there is a problem. In most cases, they will bend over backwards to keep you happy and make sure you are getting a fair deal through their ad network, whether Google Adwords, Yahoo Publisher Network, or Microsoft AdCenter.
Do you have a quality site or product that belongs in this guide? We are always happy to evaluate or review new products and websites. Feel free to contact us at the email address below and let us know about you. If you have a demo product you'd like us to look at, please contact us before sending anything. Thank you.
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