Internet advertising has been a wonderful innovation for businesses of all sizes. Even small businesses can reach a huge audience by purchasing a variety of ad types to put on high-traffic or local sites. Click ads, in particular, offer you the chance to buy affordable advertising that allows you to quickly change the content, attracting “hot” keyword searches. Since you pay only for the clicks your ad generates, what could be better?
If everyone were honest, click ads would possibly be the most attractive form of advertising for small business owners. However, people will try to take advantage of you, so you need to use practical methods to fight click fraud.
Click Fraud Villains
In order to minimize click fraud, you need to identify the culprits. Who would go to a website and repeatedly click on your ad without interest in your product? For one, your competition. While many companies have integrity, there are always a few bad apples. A business rival might have an employee click on your ad to run up your advertising bill. Larger businesses may have their ads attacked by bots with the ability to quickly click on ads. The resulting advertising bill has actually caused some companies to fail.
Preventing Click Fraud
Experts disagree on how much click fraud takes place. Some estimate marketers may have lost $11.6 million to click fraud in 2014, so the problem probably affects your business. If you are not particularly tech-savvy, you may wonder if you can battle this issue.
There are simple steps you can take to alert you to click fraud and help you fight it. You need to monitor the response to your ads. If you are getting the expected additional inquiries and new customers, you are probably fraud-free. If you get clicks but no results, you may be the victim of click fraud.
You have several options to fight this fraud. You can hire an outside firm to analyze your ad clicks and search for the perpetrators. If you are internet savvy, you can look for repeated clicks from the same IP addresses, although you will have to pull up your server logs and do a search. If you find suspicious activity, most servers will allow you to blacklist that user.
Click fraud can cut deeply into your profits, so you need to be aware of the problem and be prepared to fight it. Make certain your platform of choice is taking steps to fight this problem, as well. Vigilance is the first step to winning this battle.
Related: ID Theft vs. Fraud & How They Can Affect Your Business Finances