Click fraud, a deceptive tactic used to artificially inflate the number of clicks on PPC and CPC ads, is a pervasive form of fraud that can significantly impact your business. As much as 22% of global ad spending is lost to fraud, meaning it’s a threat that shouldn’t be overlooked.
To help you combat it, we wanted to talk about the leading types of click fraud today. We’ll tell you what they are, give you some real life examples, and show you how to fight these significant issues. Let’s begin.
What Is Click Fraud?
Click fraud is a form of ad fraud in which cybercriminals create large amounts of fake clicks, typically on pay-per-click ads (PPC) and cost-per-click ads (CPC).
They do this manually, where large numbers of people click and impersonate genuine buyers, or by using special programs to do the same on a larger scale.
Cybercriminals do this in an effort to:
- Earn revenue
- Drain the finances of a company
- Damage the brand’s reputation
This type of fraud affects companies of all sizes in almost all industries.
Main Types of Click Fraud
Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to examine the most pervasive types of click fraud today.
Manual Click Fraud
Manual click fraud is a type of click fraud where the perpetrators manually generate fraudulent clicks, typically on ads.
For example, one or more attackers can start clicking on your ad to deplete your ad budget without ever buying anything. Besides wasting your ad budget, it also skews your performance metrics.
The problem with manual click fraud is that it can be harder to detect as fraudulent users behave similarly to regular users. One of the best ways to notice this type of fraud is to check the bounce rate. If it’s higher, it’s likely an indication of manual click fraud.
Click Farms
Click farms are organized groups of people paid to click on ads and generate fraudulent clicks.
A standard click farm exists in a low-wage country, and despite the workers being paid to click on your ads, the impressions won’t lead to anything, and they’ll deplete your ad budget and skew metrics just like manual click fraud, only faster.
Some click farms can be massive in size, and most are typically hard to detect. Read our more detailed article on the topic to learn how to detect and prevent click farms.
Bot Traffic
Bot traffic is caused by automated programs or bots that are made to mimic human behavior online, most notably human clicks on ads.
A standard botnet can generate thousands of clicks on your ads, making it seem that many people are interested in your product or service.
The latest research shows that as much as 42% of all internet traffic belongs to bots, with 65% of those being malicious. This just goes to show how big of a problem bot traffic is. What’s more, bots drastically alter metrics, which can lead to much higher ad spend. Detecting botnets requires deeper analysis of website requests and user sessions.
Ad Stacking
This type of mobile ad fraud involves hidden ads, or better said multiple ads that are located beneath a single placed ad. In this case, only the top ad is visible to the user, but clicks are registered for all ads beneath. This leads to the user seeing only one ad, while fake impressions and clicks are registered for the remaining hidden ones.
For example, a website has stacked five ads in a single ad slot, and once you click on the visible ad, that click will be registered on all five.
All of this can lead to financial losses and misleading performance metrics.
Ad stacking is detected when multiple ad engagements are registered at the same time stamp in a single ad placement. Noticeably low conversion rates on high impression numbers can also indicate this type of click fraud.
Pixel Stuffing
Pixel stuffing is similar to ad stacking but in this case, the ad is displayed in a tiny 1x1 pixel frame on a fraudulent site, making it completely invisible to the user. However, traffic is still funneled through it. This also means that even though it's invisible to the naked eye, it’s not to bots, which can still click on it.
Fraudsters do this in order to register ad impressions and clicks, but without actually offering user interactions.
This method leads to you paying for ads but receiving effectively nothing, as the ads aren’t seen by anyone except for bots, which can only lead to significant ad spend for next to nothing to show for it.
To fight the issue, you need to look for discrepancies between impressions and engagement metrics or use click fraud protection.
Domain Spoofing
This type of click fraud involves fraudsters who impersonate high-value domains to attract more ad revenues. The impressions and users it serves are certainly real, but the sites are still low-quality making them not worth the premium prices.
A good example of this is a low-quality site that tries to pass as a reputable news site to get premium ads.
This can lead to misplaced ad spend and a tarnished brand reputation despite bringing decent traffic and user engagement.
The easiest method for fighting domain spoofing is using click fraud protection services.
Click Injection
Click injection is similar to click spamming, but on a more sophisticated level. This is actually a type of malware that generates clicks before legitimate users can click themselves.
This type of click fraud often occurs during app installations. In essence, the mobile app will inject the clicks during the installation process to make it appear as if the user has interacted with the ads.
The problem with click injection is that it’s very hard to detect, while it still significantly affects app marketing budgets.
How Spider AF Can Help
Now that you’ve seen all major types of click fraud, you’re probably wondering what you can do to combat them all at once.
That’s precisely where Spider AF can help. Our click fraud protection solution uses complex algorithms to identify and prevent almost all known types of click fraud. The algorithms continuously monitor interactions with your ads and block fraudulent activities automatically.
More than that, our solution comes with detailed reports with robust info, charts, and graphs showing you exactly how your ads are doing and whether there’s any fake activity.
Conclusion
You’ve seen how click fraud works, the most common types, and how they affect businesses like yours.
Knowing the most pervasive types of click fraud is crucial in learning how to prevent and combat them. However, we’ve only covered the types here, so you should read our complete guide to click fraud to learn more about this major issue.
To stay protected from click fraud and minimize its effects on your business, consider Spider AF's comprehensive click fraud protection services. Take a look at what we offer and contact us to learn how we can help you.
