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How To Prevent Pay-Per-Click Fraud: An Easy ClickCease Fraud Prevention Software Guide 2023

In this article, we will guide you on how to prevent Pay-Per-Click fraud using ClickCease so you can protect your advertising investments.

Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are one of the best online advertising strategies for businesses that are looking to reach their target audience, drive traffic to their websites, and increase their ROI. However, there is a growing concern over click fraud. Click fraud can drain your advertising budget and hinder your campaign’s effectiveness. This is where ClickCease comes into play – an amazing click fraud prevention tool that can help you protect your PPC investments.

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What is a Click Fraud?

Click fraud is when click farms or click bots target online ads by clicking them with the intention of eating up an advertiser’s budget and messing up campaign data analytics. This happens a lot specifically with PPC campaigns similar to Google Ads and Bing Ads.

According to statista.com, advertising fraud resulted in economic losses of 35 billion U.S. dollars worldwide last 2020. Click fraud is typically carried out for malicious or financial purposes, and it can have several negative consequences, including:

  • Sabotage Competitors: Some individuals or companies engage in click fraud to deplete the advertising budget of their competitors, effectively diminishing the competitors’ online visibility.
  • Deplete Advertiser Budgets: Click fraudsters may repeatedly click on an advertiser’s ads to exhaust their daily or monthly budget quickly. This can harm the advertiser’s ability to reach genuine potential customers.
  • Inflate Cost Per Clicks (CPCs): Advertisers are charged for each click on their ads. Click fraud artificially inflates advertising costs, as advertisers pay for clicks that do not lead to genuine customer engagement.
  • Generate Illicit Revenue: Click fraud can be used by website owners or individuals to generate income by clicking on their own ads or encouraging others to do so. This is particularly common with affiliate marketing programs that pay commissions for clicks or conversions.
  • Mislead Analytics: Click fraud can distort the analytics data used by advertisers to evaluate the performance of their campaigns, making it challenging to make informed decisions based on that data.

What is ClickCease?

ClickCease is a software platform designed to prevent businesses from getting click frauds in their online advertising campaigns, particularly in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, such as Google Ads and Bing Ads. Click fraud refers to repeatedly clicking on a competitor’s ad with the intention of depleting their advertising budget, or clicking on one’s own ads to boost statistics without any genuine interest in the products or services being advertised. This fraudulent activity can lead to wasted ad spend and misleading analytics.

ClickCease offers features and tools to identify and prevent click fraud. These features may include:

  • Real-time monitoring: ClickCease continuously monitors clicks on your ads to detect unusual patterns or behaviors that may indicate fraudulent activity.
  • IP blocking: The software can block specific IP addresses or IP ranges associated with fraudulent clicks, preventing them from accessing your ads.
  • Custom rule creation: You can set custom rules and criteria to identify potentially fraudulent clicks, allowing you to take action when these rules are triggered.
  • Detailed reporting: ClickCease provides detailed reports and analytics on click activity, enabling you to track the effectiveness of your click fraud prevention efforts.
  • Automated refunds: Some versions of ClickCease may offer assistance in requesting refunds from advertising platforms for fraudulent clicks.
  • Integration with ad networks: ClickCease often integrates with popular advertising platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads to facilitate a streamlined click fraud prevention process.

With a range of features geared towards detecting and preventing click fraud, ClickCease empowers advertisers to maximize their return on investment (ROI).

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How To Prevent Pay-Per-Click Fraud Using ClickCease

Let’s dive into the steps to effectively utilize ClickCease for your campaigns:

Step 1: Start Free Trial

Go to the ClickCease website and click “Start free trial”.’

Start free trial with ClickCease. How To Prevent Pay-Per-Click Fraud Using ClickCease

Then, create your ClickCease account, or you can sign up using your existing Google account.

Sign Up With Google to create ClickCease account

Then, add the website domain that you want to protect from invalid traffic. Click “Start your 7-day free trial”.

Enter your website URL under ClickCease "Add A Domain To Protect"

You should receive a verification code on your Gmail account, copy that 6-digit code and paste it here. Then click “verify”.

Insert the 6-digit verification code sent to your Gmail account

You can watch this quick comprehensive live demo just to have an idea of the entire ClickCease software.

Watch a quick ClickCease demo

Now, select the plan that suits your needs. You can select if you want to be billed monthly or yearly, just click on the toggle above the pricing.

Select ClickCease pricing tier that suits your business

Here, you need to enter your credit card details. Once done, you can click “Start your 7-day FREE trial”.

Enter your credit card details

Step 2: Connect Your PPC Accounts and WordPress Website

After creating your ClickCease account, you’ll need to connect your PPC advertising accounts. ClickCease supports various advertising platforms, including Google Ads, Facebook Ads/Meta Ads, and more. You can also connect your website (WordPress supported).

To prevent fraud clicks on your Google Ads campaigns, click on “Connect Google Ads”.

To prevent fraud clicks on your Google Ads campaigns, click on “Connect Google Ads”.

Click “Link with Google” and follow the instructions. You can also link it manually if you don’t have direct access to the Google Ads account. You can also connect to Facebook Ads if you have one. Just click on “Connect Facebook Ads” and follow the instructions.

Click “Link with Google” and follow the instructions

Now to install ClickCease on your WordPress website, click “Start set up” under “Bot Zapping”.

Click "Start Set Up" under "Bot Zapping"

Implement ClickCease tracking code

If you click on “Use Google Tag Manager”, it will give you instructions to copy and paste code to Google Tag Manager.

ClickCease tracking code

Once the setup is done, it will immediately start detecting and blocking fraudulent activity on your accounts and websites.

Step 3: Set Up Your Click Fraud Detection Rules

ClickCease allows you to set up custom rules to detect click fraud based on your specific campaign needs. You can define criteria like the number of clicks from a single IP address, the time between clicks, and more. These rules help ClickCease identify suspicious activity and take action accordingly.

To do this, go to “Domain Settings” and you should see these settings for “Click fraud threshold”. You can get ideas by clicking on “Suggest rules” or you can set it yourself.

Just make sure to not set rules that have low ad clicks or you’ll automatically block real people who are checking your ads. But if these do happen, you have the option to manually check automatically blocked IPs from these rules and manually exclude them from the list if you decide that they are not fraud clicks.

Manage ClickCease detection rules

You can also block IPs based on device IDs automatically and specific countries. Just turn on the toggle button.

block IPs based on device IDs automatically and specific countries using ClickCease

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Step 4: Monitor Your Campaigns And Review Click Fraud Reports

Once your PPC accounts are connected and your detection rules are in place, ClickCease will start monitoring your campaigns in real time. It will analyze clicks and visitor behavior to identify potential click fraud patterns.

It should provide detailed reports and insights into the traffic coming to your PPC ads. These reports include information about blocked clicks, potential click fraud sources, and the overall impact on your campaign performance. Regularly review these reports to stay informed about the effectiveness of your click fraud prevention efforts.

This is what your ClickCease dashboard should look like:

clickcease dashboard

You’ll have a full analytics report containing how many visits, blocked IPs, and unique visitors you’ve gained on the date range that you’ve set to view. You can also see how your campaigns are fraudulent, and which countries are most fraudulent based on your data.

fraudulent data

You’ll also have the opportunity to check Google Ads Fraud Analytics data. You can view specific IP addresses that were blocked due to fraudulent activities from your campaign. Just click on the specific tab that you want to see.

Google Ads Fraud Analytics data from ClickCease

google ads fraud analytics - campaigns from clickcease

If you scroll down, you can also watch recordings of how these website visitors behaved on your website or landing page.

Click reports from clickcease

If you have multiple accounts on your ClickCease dashboard, you can click “Dashboard”, and then “Account Overview” to see your fraudulent activities overall in your account.

Clickcease dashboard overview options

ClickCease specific account overview

Step 5: Take Action And Optimize Your Campaigns

With ClickCease actively protecting your PPC campaigns, you can focus on optimizing your advertising strategy. Allocate your budget more effectively and adjust your targeting based on genuine user behavior rather than fraudulent clicks.

All these data are useful so you can make changes to your PPC campaigns. You can remove specific devices, locations, and so on. Here are some relevant articles on Google Ads optimization:

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Conclusion

Click fraud remains an issue in the advertising industry, but fraud prevention tools like ClickCease empower advertisers to fight back effectively. By following the steps outlined in this guide on how to prevent pay-per-click fraud, you can utilize ClickCease to detect and prevent fraudulent activities, ensuring that your PPC campaigns deliver a higher ROI and better results. Investing in a robust click fraud prevention solution like ClickCease is a wise decision to safeguard your digital advertising efforts and channel valuable, legitimate traffic to your website. Stay ahead of the game, protect your investments, and ensure your PPC campaigns flourish with ClickCease. If you don’t know where to start, you can schedule a free strategy call with our experts to further protect your Google Ads investments!

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