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How Can Behavioral Analytics Help Detect Click Fraud?

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Behavioral analytics is a powerful tool in the world of digital marketing that provides a deeper understanding of user behavior.

By tracking and analyzing the interactions between users and websites, apps, or other digital properties, marketers can get a better idea of what drives user behavior and make more informed decisions.

But aside from user insights, marketers also have the advantage of identifying what is potentially click fraud. In this article, we'll discuss behavioral analytics, its benefits, and how marketers can utilize it to identify click fraud.

What is Behavioral Analytics?

Behavioral analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing data about the actions and interactions of website visitors. Popular heatmap tools like Hotjar, Crazy Egg, and Mouseflow to name a few, provide valuable insights into how users are interacting with your website.

By tracking user actions, such as clicks, scrolls, and mouse movements, behavioral analytics provides a rich source of information that can help marketers optimize the user experience.

How Do Marketers Benefit From Behavioral Analytics?

As a marketer, you're constantly seeking ways to understand your target audience and measure the impact of your marketing efforts. This is where behavioral analytics tools come in. As these tools help you track and analyze user behavior, you get valuable insights into what works and what doesn't.

Let’s take a closer look at how behavioral analytics tools benefit marketers.

User Insights

Behavior analytics tools provide a wealth of information about your visitors on your website. You can see how they interact with your website, what pages they visit, how long they stay on a page, and what actions they take. With this information, you can gain a deeper understanding of your target audience, their preferences, and their pain points.

Increased Conversion Rates

Behavior analytics tools can help you identify areas of your website that are causing friction for your visitors. By fixing these issues, you can improve the user experience and increase conversion rates. 

For example, if you see that a high percentage of visitors are abandoning your trial signup page, you can use behavior analytics to identify the possible reasons and make changes to the copy or click-through action (CTA) to reduce signup abandonment.

Better Targeting

Behavior analytics tools allow you to segment your audience based on their behavior. With this information, you can create targeted marketing campaigns that are more likely to resonate with each segment. This helps you reach the right people with the right copy, improving the impact of your marketing efforts.

There are multiple ways marketers can benefit from using behavioral analytics tools to optimize websites. But there’s actually more to these tools than just providing insight into user behavior. Behavioral analytics tools can also help identify click fraud.

Behavioral Analytics and Click Fraud Detection

Click fraud is a serious issue in the world of digital marketing, and it's crucial for marketers to protect their ad spend and ensure that their campaigns are reaching the right audience. Behavioral analytics tools can help in this regard by providing a comprehensive view of fraudulent behavior and identifying any suspicious activity.

How to identify click fraud with behavioral analytics tools

Click Tracking

A behavioral analytics tool can track clicks on a website and identify that multiple clicks are coming from the same user in a short period of time. This can indicate click fraud, as it suggests that a bot or fraudulent user is clicking on the ad rather than a real user.

User Behavior Analysis

A behavioral analytics tool can analyze user behavior, such as mouse movements and scrolling, to identify that the behavior patterns are not consistent with a real user. If a click ends with a user not moving through the page or bouncing after a few seconds without movement, this can be an indication of click fraud.

Conversion Tracking

A behavioral analytics tool can track conversions, such as form submissions or purchases, and identify that multiple conversions are coming from the same user in a short period of time. For example, multiple registrations to a single signup page within a single session can indicate click fraud.

Screen Recording

Screen recordings of user behavior can provide a visual representation of how users interact with your website, identifying multiple interactions that are happening in a short period of time. One fraudulent pattern is when a user copy-pastes information into your signup form. A valid lead oftentimes inputs information manually, but this behavior indicates the possibility of fraudulent lists being used to create multiple signups skewing conversion data.

Spider AF mouseflow screen recording showing fraudulent user signing up using copy pasted information
Fig. 1 & 2 showing copy-pasting behavior on signup page

Why a Click Fraud Detection Tool is Essential

Identifying click fraud, whether clickbots or fraudulent users, using behavioral analytics tools can be a time-consuming and manual process. While these tools can provide valuable insights into user behavior and detect suspicious activity, they often require manual review and analysis to confirm the presence of click fraud.

This can be a significant burden on digital marketers, who already have a full plate of tasks to manage. Instead, digital marketers may consider using a click fraud detection tool to help mitigate these challenges and ensure that their campaigns are protected from click fraud.

Learn more: 6 Benefits of Deploying an Ad Fraud Prevention Tool

Conclusion

Behavioral analytics is a crucial tool for digital marketers looking to improve the customer experience and drive business growth. With the right tools and techniques, it can provide valuable insights into customer behavior and help detect click fraud. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, incorporating behavioral analytics into your digital marketing strategy is a smart move.

Having a click fraud prevention tool identify and eliminate bots and fraudulent users for you is also an added benefit that can help save you your time and effort. Check out Spider AF's 14-day free trial today to see for yourself!

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Click fraud
Behavioral Analytics
Heatmap Tool
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