How Do Click Fraud Protection Platforms Protect Campaigns?

By Author: Selins Jesse
Total Articles: 20
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Click fraud, also known as pay-per-click fraud, is a type of fraud that inflates traffic stats for affiliate ads. Affiliate ad click fraud is gaining prominence at an alarming rate. Numerous marketers leverage affiliate marketing to get high-quality traffic and organic leads.

Click frauds prevent your marketing team from reaping the large-scale advantages of affiliate marketing. The primary purpose of click fraud is to increase the ad hosting website’s revenue. Threat actors may also leverage click fraud to drain your marketing team’s ad budget.

Thanks to advanced brand protection solutions, you can now ensure the integrity of the affiliate marketing programs. It can be tough to manage all potential sources of click fraud on your own. You will need some professional expertise to control affiliate click fraud.

The worst part about affiliate click fraud is that you may fall victim without even noticing it. Your in-house marketing team will incur a loss as they have to pay commissions for fake sales and clicks.

What is Affiliate Click Fraud?
Digital marketing and affiliate ads are ...
... the preferred advertising methods for most modern brands. Click fraud refers to the act of clicking on a paid link with malicious intent. The paid link can be sponsored search results or display ads.

The primary motive of click ad fraud is to deplete your marketing team’s ad budget. Affiliate click fraud can affect every industry. By leveraging automated clicking platforms, threat actors create an illusion that many users are clicking ads.

But in reality, none of these clicks will be beneficial to your affiliate campaign. Nefarious affiliates rely on click ad fraud to boost the rankings of malicious websites. Click fraud is the subset of ad fraud. Click fraud is widespread in today’s world of digital marketing. It is crucial to ensure affiliate marketing compliance to prevent click fraud from happening.

Ways in which Malicious Affiliates commit Fraud
Nefarious affiliates tend to deploy unique means while committing affiliate click frauds. Here are some standard procedures with which they commit fraud.

Faking Conversions
Faking conversions is the ideal way to commit affiliate click fraud. By faking the conversions, they can collect commissions that don’t belong to them. Nowadays, malicious affiliates rely on bots to fake conversions.

Click Stuffing
Apart from cookie stuffing, malicious affiliates also leverage click stuffing to create fraud on a larger scale. Click stuffing refers to a malicious affiliate simulating clicks on ads. They also use bots to execute click stuffing. When the user installs the app, the malicious affiliate will receive a commission without any real effort.

Duplicate Content and Click Fraud
The legitimate affiliates of your company leverage original and good content to drive traffic. Threat actors scrape the websites of legitimate affiliates to re-create and redirect traffic. The threat actors take credit for the conversions. The legitimate affiliates of your company don’t receive their due commissions.

Why should you Invest in Click Fraud Protection Platform?
It is challenging to observe the occurrence of click fraud on your own. Click fraud protection platforms can identify malicious bots and notify you. They notify your affiliate network and website traffic and offer accurate insights.

Click fraud protection platforms will also assist in ensuring the integrity of your affiliate marketing network. No legitimate affiliate will agree to work when there is click fraud. You can reinstate the belief of legitimate affiliates on your brand with click fraud protection platforms.

Repercussions of Click Frauds
Click frauds can have severe repercussions on your brand’s marketing budget. Here are some repercussions associated with click fraud.

Wasted Ad Budget
Legitimate affiliates often deploy advanced tracking algorithms to keep track of every click. Modern-day threat actors can design programs to bypass detection. It can increase your ad budget. Wasted ads can affect the confidence of your marketing team.

Lower Conversion Rates
Click fraud augments your advertisement cost of sales without providing results in reality. It also boosts your click-through rate without any accurate conversions. Getting numerous clicks without the action of users reflects a poor conversion rate.

Improper Campaign Data
Affiliate marketing relies on campaign data to derive insights. But the frequent occurrence of click fraud can result in improper campaign data. Your marketing team won’t be able to forecast leads and traffic based on actual data.

Role of Click Fraud Identification Platforms
Click fraud identification platforms can recognize and decrease click frauds across affiliate marketing campaigns. These platforms provide you with analytical insights into branded keyword promotions. They also secure the interests of your company from any affiliate violation. You can even eliminate unwanted ad placements.

How do Virus Positive Technologies help you Counter Click Fraud?
Virus Positive Technologies (VPT) offers you superior click fraud protection. It monitors your online marketing platforms and alerts you during violations. VPT’s advanced brand compliance tools help you to maintain the integrity of your affiliate network.