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Tired of losing money to Click Fraud? Find out who is doing it and stop them now!If you are fed up of your competitors clicking on your Google Adwords Pay-Per-Click adverts then you need Cliktrak. Cliktrak will catch them and stop them in their tracks! Send reports to Google, Yahoo, MSN and all other PPC search engines to request a refund for suspected click fraud abuse. |
What is Click Fraud?
Click fraud is when someone clicks on your advertising link with no intention of making a purchase, to browse, or gaining information from the website. Usually it is commited by your competitors to drain your marketing budget.
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How prevalent is Click Fraud?
It is estimated that on average 10 to 20% of clicks are fraudulent. If you are specifically targetted by a competitor however then it will be considerably higher.
The problem of click fraud has recently attracted a great deal of media attention.
- Financial Times - Click fraud rattles web marketing budgets
- Washington Post - 'Click Fraud' Threatens Fuondation of Web Ads
- Business Week Online - Click Fraud The dark side of online advertising
- B to B Marketing Magazine - Click fraud remains a threat
- Economist.com - “Click fraud” poses a threat to the boom in internet advertising
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Who commits click fraud?
Click fraud is usually committed by your competitors. They do it to;
- Drain your marketing budget and cost you money.
- If you have set a limit to your daily spend then ultimately your advert will not appear for the rest of the day.
- Increasing your advertising costs with little return could force you to lower your bids or drop out of keyword bidding altogether.
If you adertise on other peoples websites setup through one of the search engines you may also experience click fraud from this. Many website owners work with search engines in a revenue sharing system. They agree to feature adverts supplied by the search engines on their website, in return for receiving part of the revenue generated by every click sent to the advertsiser. Some website owners attempt to increase their revenue by clicking on adverts themselves or encouraging their visitors to do so with no intention of making a purchase.
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How is click fraud committed?
Manually - Clicks are generated manually by your competitors. They will often vary the search terms they use, and the location they click from.
Software - Software programs exist that can create worthless computer generated clicks on PPC ads. These clicks can appear to come from different computers at different IP addresses.
Click Networks - Networks of clickers organized by either publishers or competitors to click PPC ads. While often loosely organized (competitor asking several friends to click on your ads daily), there have been reports of armies of clickers in third world countries paid to click on ads.
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Do the Search Engines Monitor click fraud?
Search engines claim to have systems in place to stop this but we catch instances of click fraud every second of every day so they are obviously not that effective. If you think about it though it is not in their best interest to catch them all since they make their money this way.
| Scenario | Would Cliktrak pick this up? |
| Someone clicks on my advert 5 times in 10 seconds | Yes |
| The search engine would probably charge you for 1 click | |
| Someone does a search for red widgets, clicks on my pay per click advert and then does a search for blue widgets and clicks on my PPC advert - all within a minute or so. |
Yes |
| The search engine would probably charge you for both clicks | |
| Someone does a search and clicks on my ad once every day for 30 days straight, all from the same computer | Yes |
| The search engine would probably charge you for 30 clicks | |
| Someone does 5 different searches over the course of a day from the same computer, and clicks on my ad each time | Yes |
| The search engine would probably charge you for 5 clicks | |
| Someone on the same exact computer clicks on my advert once per day for a full year. |
Yes |
| The search engine would probably charge you for 365 clicks |
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How do I monitor and stop click fraud?
1. Monitor your clicks - Use Cliktrak click fraud detection system to monitor who is clicking on your advert.
2. Deter click fraud - Many people who are committing click fraud do not know they are being monitored. You can setup a polite message to make them aware they are being monitored when they reach a click fraud threshold.
3. Get back your money - When presented with clear evidence the major PPC companies will often give refunds.
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Can I get a refund for fraudulent clicks?
The PPC companies will often refund money for click fraud when they are presented with strong evidence. Click fraud is becoming a serious problem for the PPC companies, so they hear about it on a regular basis. Success in getting refunds varies on a case by case basis, and it is important to have data to back up your claims. Having independent data from a 3rd party that you can present them is extremely helpful.
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