How to stop your competitors from clicking on your Google Ads ads?
In recent years, Google Ads has become the centerpiece of the company's business model. Indeed, it is thanks to this tool that Google manages to remain the leader in the search engine market.
Professional works on Google Ads, formerly Google Adwords. A true leader in the paid search market, Google Ads has billed millions of businesses for the use of the tool. Today, the use of Google Ads, formerly Google Adwords, has become very competitive. Indeed, with saturated markets and increasingly high auctions, companies no longer know how to differentiate themselves from their competitors by using Google Ads campaigns. The reason for this competition is simple. Paid referral campaigns are very profitable and allow you to be referenced in the first results of the search engine while obtaining quality targeted traffic. Every market is different, but overall all markets tend to be saturated with the demand for Google Ads ads and the competition is getting tough. Thus, some advertisers are desperate to get rid of their competition. We have therefore seen fraud appear in certain sectors such as clicks on competitors' links in order to make them spend money unnecessarily. As some CPCs can go up to 50 $, this method can be penalizing.
How can we prevent our competitors from clicking on our ads?
1) Click-bombing and its repercussions
Click-Bombing is an operation that involves clicking several times on the Google Ads of its competitors in order to generate unnecessary clicks, but which will be billed to them. There are several methods to generate clicks on the ads of its competitors: manual clicks “farm-to-click” clicks, also carried out manually but en masse by employees paid to click all day, particularly in India robots: software configured to generate clicks similar to manual clicks This technique has many implications for targeted account Google Ads campaigns:
Spend paid SEO budget on lost clicks Distort acquisition costs: it is possible that the competitor, to make it look like a real customer, clicks on the call-to-action once they arrive on the site (which will trigger a conversion) Deactivate ads more quickly, if the monthly budget is limited Increase the visibility of the malicious competitor to the detriment of the targeted account
Decrease return on investment and profitability
2) Google's intervention in the face of Google Ads fraud
Google Ads has become Google's primary business model. It is therefore obvious that Google seeks to maintain a certain trust with its customers. To do this, it intervenes in three ways in order to limit Google Ads fraud attempts: Filters: firstly, it is possible to detect fraudulent clicks using IP addresses. Once the IP address has been identified, you can block it using a filter in Google Ads (Exclude IP in your account settings) and also in Google Analytics. Unfortunately, this method has limitations as the clicks are usually generated through different IP addresses.
The Google Fraudulent Clicks Team: If you detect an abnormal increase in clicks, you can contact Google Ads support who will put you in touch with a specialized team. This team will help you to detect fraudulent clicks thanks to tools set up for Google. You may receive compensation from Google Ads. Fraudulent click detection tools via external companies: there are bots developed by external companies that can detect and block the clicks of competitors based on the suspicious actions of certain IP addresses (which come up several times, which have long very short visits, which use a VPN, etc.)
3) fight against Google Ads fraud yourself
In order to counter fraudulent clicks, you will need to collect the IP addresses of visitors to your website. To do this, you must extract them from your server logs. Also, you can use User Agent which determines if two visitors from the same IP address are one and the same person. To understand and analyze suspicious behavior, we advise you to look if: An IP address appears several times a day An IP address appears and disappears in a very short time An IP address that belongs to a VPN provider The IP address must be fixed and not variable otherwise you risk blocking potential customers. When you are sure that an IP address is malicious and makes fraudulent clicks, we recommend that you exclude it from your Google Ads interface in the settings. In addition to excluding the Google Ads interface, you can:
Use platforms specializing in the detection of fraudulent clicks such as ClickCease
Use remarketing lists: they allow you to show content only to potential customers and hide ads from other visitors
Follow the movements of the mouse to understand if it is a fraudulent click Use the geographic position of the IP address: If you notice that most of the fraudulent clicks are coming from the same place, you can exclude the area from the Google Ads campaign.
In conclusion, we advise you to be vigilant with your campaigns, because the use of Google Ads fraud can have a huge impact on your budget and thus have serious consequences. However, fraudulent clicks should not be an easy answer to using a poorly managed campaign. Our agency Digiberries, specialized in digital SEO, aims to implement effective strategies for the positioning of your website in the Google search engine. We manage Google Ads campaigns on a daily basis and continuously monitor any suspicious activity.
Stop adwords click fraud, and apply for Clickcease 14 Days Trial