One of the first things I discovered about PPC marketing was that not everyone who clicks on an ad will make a purchase. It was my mistake to think that all of my loyal visitors would make a click from my sight. After all, not everyone who visits a department store buys anything. And yes, there will also those that will click through who never had any interest in making a purchase. They just want to look at your website for informational purposes and you have to pay for these clicks regardless. I would get annoyed and irked over this type of activity but I learned not to take things so serious. The way to overcome the problem is to maximize your potential as far as converting customers.

This I can deal with, but what I cannot stand is someone is purposely committing click fraud. Luckily, I figures out the key to dealing with these folks.

Who are these characters?

There are the ones who purposely click on your PPC ads solely for the purpose of driving up your costs and reducing the number of ads you place on the internet. This also depletes the money in your account reducing the amount of time your ads are floating on the internet. Such problematic people need to be stopped from further eroding your business’ ad campaign. The way to do this is to review your campaign’s analytical data and look for suspicious details that would indicate such a problem is occurring.

How is this possible? It can be achieved through the use of tracking tools that can display information in a clear manner. A close overview of highly detailed and accurate statistical data will show when and where a click fraud problem is emerging. From this, it becomes possible to take the steps required to cease such fraud and abuse and protect your business. Once again, proper ad tracking tools can help deliver such help.

Here is something I figured out: People who commit malicious click are no different than any other type of person – they are creatures of habit. That means they will have a tendency to be very predictable in their behavior. Upon looking at an analyzer tool or PPC tracking program, you can pinpoint a number of their common traits in order to take proper steps to deal with them.

For example, the data on your click through statistic will notate the time of the clicks, the date, where the person was referred, and even URL and IP information. If the same IP has clicked on 10 ads on the same day this might be a clear indication of click fraud. If a pattern of this type of behavior starts becomes evident in your PPC tracking stats, then it may be likely you are dealing with malicious click fraud.

Logging such data becomes helpful when it comes time to report the information to the PPC host. Simply stating you believe you are a victim of click fraud may not be enough to receive a refund. You may need to prove your case. Presenting the host with detailed analytical data can definitely help sway opinions on your favor. This may allow you to receive a return credit for the money you were charged due to fraud.

But, the key here is that you must stay on top of all your statistical data and analytical reports. If you fall behind and do not notice the click fraud when it occurs, it can prove difficult to fix things after they are too far gone.

Follow this advice and you will learn what I learned: you can defeat those trying to commit click fraud.  They can be outsmarted if you know how to deal with them.

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