The Power Of PPC
Pay Per Click marketing has been still is and will continue to be an industry-leading method of advertising for almost any B2B and B2C business. The sheer amount of customisation, targeting, and attainability has kept PPC at the forefront of businesses’ marketing strategies for as long as they have been physically able to use it.
Google Ads especially has helped to revolutionise the way that businesses can be seen by their audience. A search engine used by billions across the world, the ability to create ads specifically for people that you know will be interested in what your business offers are exceptional. Don’t think that Google will control your money either, as you can control your budgets and bids to make sure you spend whatever you see fit, and only whatever you specify per keyword, so you can focus on what is important to you.
What Is Click Fraud?
However, on the topic of clicks, there is something that all businesses need to be wary of if they have any level of influence in Pay Per Click marketing, and that is Click Fraud. To clarify clearly, click fraud is The fraudulent clicking of pay per click adverts to generate fraudulent charges for advertisers. One of the most frustrating and problematic reasons as to why businesses may stay away from Pay Per Click advertising, it can be the reason for more downsides than you may initially think.
First, yes, the main issue you will face with click fraud is losing a lot of money. As the ads aren’t being clicked by genuine prospects, there’s absolutely no chance that it will lead to a lead or a sale. This can also cause the spiralling factor of the keywords your business needs to succeed rising higher and higher, possibly out of your budget. Per Adage.com, it is believed that $1 worth of fraud is committed for every $3 of ad spent, a crazily high amount.
Budget loss is one thing, the loss of revenue you will suffer subsequently is another major issue. For example, let’s say you lose £10,000 to click fraud, and your return on ad spend (ROAS) is 500%, that’s £50,000 worth of revenue that you will never see, and a total loss of £60,000 all things considered.
It’s Not Just Your Revenue That Could Suffer
Then you need to consider your analytics, and how badly they will be affected. Click Fraud can easily distort your data, which can affect your marketing efforts and decisions. If it happens on a popular keyword which you don’t just bid a lot on, but is the leading factor behind a solid percentage of your sales and/or leads, it’s going to hurt your business.
Staying with analytics, if you do like to keep on top of your ad performance, it will be more likely that you can notice click fraud, or at least something suspicious. Maybe your CTR has picked up massively in recent days, or the volume has jumped up. You can then start to monitor IP addresses of these clicks, as well as physical locations to determine whether this spike in traffic is legitimate or fraudulent.
A Wider Impact Of Click Fraud In The Marketing World
Unfortunately, Click Fraud can occur across all types of ads, from search to display, video to shopping. Pixalate did some digging into visual media and found that the filmstrip ad size (300px x 600px) seems to induce the most fraudulent activity, highlighting that 3 in every 4 clicks on these sizes are from malware-laced bots. Expanding on this in quite horrifying fashion, Google has indicated that around half of all paid ads are unlikely to have been seen by a human.
Looking on a more broad scale, a study by the University of Baltimore and CHEQ estimates that the cost of click fraud will reach $23.7 billion by the end of 2020 The hardest-hit industry has been finance, an area with a lot of high-value keywords. It is a highly competitive market with real estate, banking and more being involved in the bidding, and the loss of huge chunks of individual marketing budgets.
How Can I Stop Click Fraud?
So you may be wondering, “Is it possible for my ads to be safe from fraud?” and the answer is absolutely. Here at Optimyzd, we ensure that you do not have to face this tumultuous issue throughout any stage of your ads’ life. We use state of the art, A.I anti-click fraud software to prevent bots and other virus-ridden PCs getting their mitts on your content and budget. This comes as standard with every campaign that we run, at no extra cost! This is unlike other agencies you might come across who will charge for this, or even worse, who don’t even offer it at all.
Every single click that your ad will come to receive is monitored in-depth, with multiple layers of security to confirm that it is genuine human interest by the advert. We have an ever-expanding global blacklist of IP addresses, device ID’s and much more as a means of making sure they are never able to see anything relevant to you.
Benefits Of Anti-Click Fraud
- Peace of mind that every click is a real prospect, a real customer and, basically, anyone truly interested in your business and it’s products and/or services.
- Assurance that your budget is going to be utilised efficiently and effectively, with all of your top keywords having the optimum bids and not being driven up by illegal activity.
- A guaranteed, permanent blacklist so that fraudsters cannot try and weasel their way into sight. Our software isn’t limited by Google’s 50 IP limit, we can block as many as necessary.
- Your site has genuine, fruitful activity. This can lead to higher organic activity on your site as its performance constantly improves.
Click fraud may feel like something that you cannot prevent without spending mass time, effort and man-power into halting. This doesn’t need to be the case anymore. Let our intelligent, machine-learning software do the hard work for you, so you can focus on what matters to you.
Want to find out more about how click fraud may be affecting your Google Ads campaigns? Get in touch with us today!
