If your PPC budget is being used up sooner than you expected, then PPC fraud may be to blame.
PPC fraud (often known as click fraud) is when people or bots fraudulently click on a PPC ad. This falsely inflates the number of clicks and causes businesses to spend their budget more quickly, with no conversions to show for it.
It was estimated that $24 billion was lost to PPC fraud in 2020, causing frustration to large and small businesses alike.
The good news is that there are ways you can protect yourself against PPC fraud. Here are some of our top PPC fraud protection tips.
1. Use exclusion lists with display ads
Display ads are often prone to PPC fraud as website owners receive money for every click an ad gets. Unscrupulous web owners may click on a display ad several times in order to get extra revenue.
You can have a say on which websites you want your ads displayed on and most importantly, which type of websites you don’t want your ads displayed on. Focusing on high-quality websites will mean the people who click on your PPC display ads are more likely to be genuine.
You can determine the category of the site you don’t want your ads to appear on, or if you know the URL, you can exclude specific websites. This can be useful if you see many clicks come from a particular referring website.
Retargeting ads can also help with PPC fraud protection. This is because these ads will only be seen by people who have previously visited your site.
2. Block specific regions and countries from seeing your ads
One of the easiest ways to protect your business against PPC fraud is to only serve your ads in appropriate locations.
For example, if your PPC ad is an exclusive offer for people based in the US, review your settings so it can only be shown to people in the country. This will limit the number of people who can see the ad, reducing the risk of PPC fraud.
Many ‘click farms’ are found in low-income, developing countries, so unless you are targeting these particular countries with your ads, you may want to block them.
If you think a rival company is committing PPC fraud by clicking on your ads, you can exclude their location or IP address.
3. Use Click Report to monitor fraudulent clicks
While PPC platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft advertising do take steps to protect customers against PPC fraud, their systems aren’t always reliable. Using a specialist service to track fraudulent clicks can help your business save money.
Click Report will keep an eye on all the web users who click on your PPC ads, monitoring their actions and keeping an eye on repeating patterns. When it identifies a potential fraudster, you can block them straight away.
You can even show a popup ad on your website to help prevent visitors from repeatedly clicking on your ads.
We hope that our PPC fraud protection tips will help you to stop fraudulent clicks on your ads and thus save money.