Protect Ad Budget From Click Farms With AI
Explore how AI-based click fraud detection software and Google’s ad policies are preventing click farms.
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Click farms, commonly known as fraud farms, aren’t new. They are constantly haunting global marketers, especially post the COVID19 pandemic, when consumers rapidly shifted from traditional TV ads to digital channels. A study forecasted that global digital advertising fraud will increase from 88 billion to 172 billion US dollars between 2023 and 2028. How are brands and advertisers preparing to fight these scammers?
Understanding Click Farms and Impact On Advertisers
Click farms or fraud farms are operations where large groups of workers use fraud attacks at scale to boost website search rankings or artificially inflate a post’s popularity on social media. These fraudulent clicks show legitimate visitor behaviour, such as browsing a site or signing up for a newsletter, avoiding detection via click bots.
Other outcomes can include higher-value account takeover attempts or activities that require human intelligence, such as writing fake reviews, upvoting or commenting on videos, or sending phishing or spam messages to genuine platform users.
They are problematic for PPC advertisers who have to pay for every click on their ads with the expectation that they’ll have a reasonable conversion rate, resulting in a decent return on ad spend (ROAS).
Here are a few ways these click farms continue to negatively impact advertisers:
- Damage to reputation among stakeholders, leading to loss of loyalty
- Difficulties in understanding genuine consumer behaviours
- Exhaustion of ad budget without any ROAS
- Misguided strategic decisions with false campaign success metrics
Also Read: Why Does the MFA Mayhem Continue to Persist?
AI Click Fraud Detection Software
Click fraud software employs sophisticated genAI algorithms and data analytics to identify abnormal click patterns, such as an unusually high number of clicks from the same IP address or device, clicks originating from known bot networks, or clicks that do not result in meaningful user engagement.
This software detects and blocks fraudulent clicks in real time, helping advertisers protect their ad spend, improve the accuracy of campaign performance metrics, and ensure a fair and transparent digital advertising ecosystem. For instance, Datadome’s recently launched Ad Protect detects fraud from the first click, eliminating wasted ad spend and improving advertisers’ ROI.
Google’s Response To Click Frauds
Google’s Ad Traffic Quality Team leverages live reviewers, automatic filters, machine learning, and deep research to detect and filter invalid and fraudulent activities. They constantly monitor and analyse traffic to prevent advertisers from paying for invalid clicks, impressions, views, or interactions.
For instance, in its 2023 Ads Safety report, Google revealed that it suspended 12.7 million advertiser accounts in 2023 for violating its policies, up from 6.7 million in 2022.
Consequently, it prevents publishers from generating invalid activities through undeserved advertising income. These efforts protect advertiser spending, allowing advertisers to maximise ROI while increasing legitimate publishers’ chances of monetising their valuable content. Here is how Google’s ad traffic quality team is preventing fraudulent ads:
- Leverages AI, ML and complex algorithms in its automated detection systems to protect its partners and keep its ad platform clean.
- Google reviews suspected cases of invalid activities manually that are not detected by its automated systems. For instance, whenever Google finds unusual traffic or an advertiser or publisher raises a valid concern, the team investigates the data and makes a decision or creates a new filter.
- Utilises advanced research to uncover sources of invalid traffic and to develop solutions to keep them from entering its networks and platforms.
Recent Innovations Prime In Preventing Ad Frauds
Microsoft advertising’s recent partnership with IAS offers advertisers insights to engage with verified users and align with brand-safe content. Utilising it, brands can verify media quality and assess global campaign performance using IAS metrics for a unified view.
Growthloop, a CDP platform, also collaborated with TransUnion, a global information and insights company. This partnership solves a significant pain point for marketers: overspending on ad campaigns that often fail to reach their target audience.
The new tie-up helps marketers spend their advertising dollars wisely, reaching the right customers without disrupting audiences who might benefit from a different campaign in the future.
