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You must have heard of fake bot clicks, right? But what are bot clicks? They're automated clicks on ads generated by software programs instead of real people. This type of ad fraud is becoming increasingly common. What’s more? It can have a significant impact on your lead-generation efforts.
Fake bot clicks can be hard to detect. Why? They're designed to look like genuine clicks from potential customers. But in reality, they're 100% fake and meant to elude.
In fact, some estimates suggest that almost 40% of all web traffic comes from fake users or invalid traffic (IVT).
That means a significant portion of the clicks you get on your pai ads might be fake. As you can already guess, the consequences of not detecting fake bot clicks can be severe.
Ad fraud costs businesses a staggering $35 billion globally – according to a study by the University of Baltimore.
Now, if you're not careful, your digital ad budget could go toward fake traffic that doesn't generate any sales. That's why it's crucial to take steps to recognize and prevent fake bot clicks in lead generation.
Hence, to help you out in navigating this serious issue, we’ve come up with this comprehensive article. In the following sections, we'll explore the major types of fraudulent clicks and their consequences. We’ll then discuss tried-and-true methods to pinpoint and stop fake bot clicks. As a result, you’ll be able to get the most out of your advertising budget.
What Are the 3 Types of Fake Bot Clicks?
To better understand fake bot clicks, it's important to know the different types that exist. Hence, let’s discuss the three most common types of fraudulent bots and how they can impact lead generation.
- Click Farms
- Botnets
- Ad Fraud
Click Farms
These are operations where people are paid to click on ads. The process often happens in large numbers. In fact, click farms can generate up to 100,000 clicks per hour. However, they're not genuine. Moreover, they can quickly use up your advertising budget without producing real results. Hence, they’re quite harmful to your business.
Botnets
Botnets are networks of infected computers that are controlled by a central server. The server can direct the computers to click on ads. As a result, it ends up giving the impression of genuine clicks from potential customers. As such, botnets can generate large volumes of fake clicks and can be difficult to detect.
Ad Fraud
This is a broader term that refers to any type of fraudulent activity related to online advertising. This can include fake click bots. It can also define other types of fraudulent behavior, such as impression fraud and click injection.
Plus, bots, humans, or both can perpetrate ad fraud. However, they can be challenging to detect and prevent.
What Are the Consequences of Fake Bot Clicks?
Now that you have an idea about the major types of fake bot clicks let’s move to the next part.
First, you must understand the potential consequences of falling victim to them. In this section, we'll look at some of the major impacts that fake bot clicks can have on your lead generation efforts.
1. Wasted Advertising Budget
One of the most obvious consequences of fake bot clicks is the waste of your advertising cost. With fraudulent traffic, your budget can quickly be used up without generating any real leads.
Hence, it causes a significant decrease in your ROI. And with Forbes predicting online ad spending to reach $1 trillion by 2026, it’s a golden opportunity for crooks!
2. Decreased Credibility and Trust
Fake bot clicks can also harm your brand's reputation. As such, it can decrease consumer trust in your business. Imagine a scenario where your target audience discovers that your ads are being clicked on by bots instead of real people.
They may even begin to question the authenticity of your business as a whole. In fact, 69% of consumers say they’re more likely to trust brands that use 3rd-party verification for ad viewability and fraud prevention.
3. Inaccurate Lead Data
When fake click bots are present in your lead generation efforts, they can skew your lead data. Thus, it negatively impacts your lead-gen strategies. This is because the data you collect will be inaccurate and misleading.
As a result, making informed decisions about your marketing campaigns becomes difficult.
To corroborate our claims, here’s an interesting stat. Bot traffic can account for as much as 37% of all traffic to digital ads.
4. Reduced Impact of Email Marketing
Email marketers faces the brunt of fraudulent activities, particularly when it comes to lead generation. You may run an advertisement to raise awareness for your brand and garner 24,000 impressions. Based on this data, you may run similar ads with a sign-up form.
However, you notice that a few sign-ups. This could be because bots generated a significant portion of the initial impressions!
In another scenario, you may have received sign-ups during the second ad run. But how many of them are genuine?
With human-operated bot farms, the individuals responsible for these fraudulent activities can fill out numerous forms all day long. They may be downloading your lead magnets without any actual interest in your offerings.
The outcome of these criminal activities can include:
- Leads that consume your company's time to manage them
- Deceptive analytics that skews future ad planning
- Access for fraudsters to free accounts and trials
- Earnings to crooks via CPL performance marketing
- Damaged email sender scores, resulting in spam complaints
To combat these issues, you must implement effective strategies to prevent bot activity and other forms of ad fraud.
By doing so, you can safeguard your company's reputation, save ad budget, and generate more accurate and trustworthy lead data.
How Can You Detect Fake Click Bots?
Yes, the prevalence of fake bot clicks continues to rise. Hence, it's become increasingly important for businesses to understand how to detect and prevent fraudulent activity.
So, in this section, we’ll answer two vital questions: How can you tell fake clicks? How are fake clicks on ads identified? So, let’s dive right in!
1. Analyzing Website Traffic Patterns
Bots often generate traffic patterns that differ from those of real users. So, looking for unusual traffic patterns is beneficial. Check for signs like sudden spikes or dips in traffic. It can be an effective way to detect bot activity.
For example, if you notice a rapid rise in traffic to a particular page, it could be a sign of bot activity.
2. Identifying Suspicious IP Addresses
Checking IP addresses for suspicious activity can also help you identify fake bot clicks.
For example, let’s assume that you notice frequent clicks from the same IP address. This could signal fraudulent acts.
Additionally, there are certain IP addresses that are known to be associated with botnets.
3. Monitoring Click-through Rates (CTRs)
Tracking CTRs for your ads and campaigns can help you identify sudden or abnormal changes. Weird occurrences usually indicate fake bot clicks.
For example, say you notice a sudden increase in CTR for a specific ad or campaign. This could be a sign of fake bot clicks.
4. Utilizing Third-party Fraud Detection Tools
There are a variety of tools available to help detect fake bot clicks and other forms of ad fraud.
For example, Google Analytics provides reports on bot traffic. The stats allow you to filter out known bot traffic. Other fraud detection software, such as Forensiq and DoubleVerify, can also be effective in identifying fake bot clicks.
There are several intriguing examples of how companies have utilized the above methods. Some of them include tracking user behavior to identify patterns that bots typically follow.
For example, bots usually pursue a set path through a website. It can be scrolling down a page and clicking on a link.
Therefore, tracking these patterns can help identify bot activity.
How Can You Prevent Fake Bot Clicks
Fake bot clicks can be a costly problem for your business. They can end up draining your advertising budget and negatively impacting lead generation efforts. So, your next two questions may be – How can I stop fake clicks? Or, how can I stop bot clicks?
Fortunately, there are several measures that you can take to prevent fake bot clicks from occurring in the first place. Let’s check them out!
1. Using ‘Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart’ (CAPTCHA)
First up is the most effective measure. Implement CAPTCHA and other security measures on your website. Google reported that embedding CAPTCHA reduced bot traffic by 99.9%.
Additionally, the reCAPTCHA adaptive risk analysis engine can detect attacker patterns by analyzing their behavior across multiple pages on your website. By checking the reCAPTCHA admin console, you can see the distribution of scores and detailed information on the top 10 actions taken on your site.
This helps you identify the specific pages targeted by bots and assess the level of suspicious traffic on those pages.
2. Adhering to Industry Standards and Best Practices
Next up, we strongly advise you to follow industry-recognized guidelines and practices for ad campaign management and security.
How?
It ensures that your ad campaigns are being monitored and managed effectively. And that too, as per global standards!
3. Conducting Regular Audits
Last but not the least, carry out frequent audits and analyses of your lead data. This can be effective in preventing fake bot clicks. By regularly reviewing such stats for accuracy, you can identify any sources of fraud.
Hence, you can take corrective action to prevent future occurrences. In fact, 79% of advertisers claim that regular audits and analysis of traffic quality help reduce ad fraud and fake bot clicks.
Bonus Tips
Here are a few bonus tips to ensure that your ad campaigns are secured against the threat of fake click bots negatively impacting your lead-gen results:
Monitoring Competitors
When running a digital advertising campaign, it's essential to keep an eye on your competitors in search results to measure your success. Remember that your online competition may differ from your offline competitors. Hence, be mindful of the domains you monitor regularly.
Reducing Ad Visibility
The more you customize and control your advertising campaigns, the less likely it is for malicious attackers or competitors to click on your ads and engage in click fraud. Utilize strategies like device targeting, long-tail search terms, and geo-targeting to limit ad visibility.
Monitoring Campaigns
The most effective PPC advertising campaigns require daily maintenance and attention. By monitoring these campaigns regularly, you can improve their performance and identify potential click fraud more quickly.
Invest in Outbound Marketing
When you implement outbound marketing campaigns such as cold emailing and calling, you can reach your target customers directly and gain 10X more conversions.
Safeguard Your Lead Generation Efforts from Fake Bot Clicks
It’s no secret that the threat of fake click bots is on the rise. Hence, it's becoming increasingly critical for businesses to detect and prevent fraudulent activities. To get started, you can follow the methods outlined in our article. Also, stay vigilant and up-to-date on the latest trends and techniques for pinpointing and stopping invalid traffic.
