Understanding Click Fraud and Why One Company has Chosen to Fight it.

As technology continues to permeate every aspect of our lives, online related fraud also continues to increase. As long as we continue to monetize anything online, we open ourselves up to someone who is inevitably trying to game the system. One of the most common forms of online fraud is the click fraud that occurs with online advertisements. Click fraud is an intentional click on an advertisement from a malicious software — these fraudulent clicks costs the industry billions of dollars in lost revenue, specifically around pay per click advertisements. Not all internet advertisers are aware of this fraud and a good number of them, including website owners fall victim. With this reality, publishers are desperate to find a legitimate companies that will solve this problem sustainably and conveniently.

What are the different kinds of click fraud?

There are various types of click fraud — bots and automated tools are just the beginning.

1. Clicks that lead to an increase in the cost of advertising

This is one of the most feared scams by most advertisers and it is estimated to be among the most widespread. It occurs when a competitor business or a malicious individual, deliberately clicks on your ads without the aim to convert, driving up the cost of the advertising. Click fraud is problematic because it not only increases the cost of your ads, but it affects the data between your customers, traffic numbers, and spend. This can cause you to target the incorrect demographics, put more spend into the wrong advertisements, and can force you to discontinue use of a channel all together. When operating on a limited budget, click fraud can make it so your budget runs out before you even have the opportunity to get traffic.

2. Clicks by use of automated tools

Automated tools allow fraudsters to infect large networks of computers with malware. Without the consent of the owners, the machines silently visit to specific sites and click on a particular ad. It is among the hardest fraud to detect unless you have a system for fraud prevention and detection.

3. Click Bots

In this version of click fraud, a complex computer software scrapes and scans the web, copying user behavior. The bots trigger impressions, click on ads, or visit sites and then bounce immediately. Sometimes these fraudsters create clusters of fake websites, where they serve ads based on the cookies or data they collected previously, targeting advertisers who are willing to pay a higher amount.

Why One Native Advertising Company is Fighting Click Fraud

Digital advertising is a billion dollar business. According to a recent article in TechCrunch, one research firm is predicting, “the U.S. digital ad spend will increase 19.1 percent this year, to $129.3 billion, while traditional advertising will fall 19 percent, to $109.5 billion.”

What does this mean for online advertising? More opportunities to game the system.

Fraud prevention can be challenging, since it is hard to know the person who is behind the fraud and their intentions, but turning a blind eye and not actively combating disreputable companies or scammers that game the system causes major disillusionment and adverse affects to advertising industry.

With this in mind, one native adverting company has actively decided to take a stand against bot driven fraud. Ad.Style, a relatively new native advertising network based in Florida, has developed a technology to specifically fight bot drive fraud. Operating under the pretense that any formidable activity associated with native advertising can be detrimental to the industry as a whole, Ad.Style is doing its part to raise the bar and the industry standard.

Aside from their unique technology, Ad.Style can even help you identify if you have click bots, as they monitor abnormally high click rates, weird referrals or irrelevant referral sources in your analytics reports.Through the use of the latest technology and industry best practices, Ad.Style guarantees you a safe advertising space that attracts and retains target customers. Click fraud costs businesses a huge amount of money but thankfully fraud prevention policies and companies like Ad.Style ensures that publishers are not victims of click fraud.