How to Detect Fraudulent Clicks in Google AdWords

Invalid detect fraudulent clicks are not only costly to your ad campaigns but also hurt the reputation of search engines. It is no wonder that search engines and other ad networks have dedicated teams to investigate and quash click fraud – after all, the revenue from ads is their bread and butter!

In the most basic click fraud scenario, individuals (competitors or disgruntled customers) manually click on an ad without any intention of engaging with the product or service. This results in inflated CTRs and drives up advertising costs for the advertiser. More sophisticated click fraud techniques include automated click bots, hit inflation attacks, and SDK spoofing. These tactics are difficult for a firewall to stop.

Behind the Clicks: Unmasking and Confronting Invalid Traffic in the Online World

Detecting and preventing fraud requires an in-depth analysis of your campaign performance and vigilance by your team. Identify patterns that indicate a high probability of click fraud and take action accordingly. Often, a few changes to your campaign settings or an exclusion from suspicious websites can be enough to keep your ad campaigns clean of fraudulent traffic.

Look for anomalies in the number of PPC visits recorded in your analytics platform compared to the number of Google Ads clicks. If there is a large discrepancy, it’s likely that you’re experiencing click fraud. Additionally, check your AdWords account for the number of invalid clicks – you’ll find this in your “campaigns” tab. If you see a high percentage of invalid clicks coming from the same IP addresses, this is a good indicator that you’re being targeted by fraudsters. You can then use IP exclusions in Google AdWords to prevent these clicks from being displayed to your audience in the future.