By Gesten van der Post

Over $600 billion was spent on PPC ads in 2023. With this huge volume of revenue bad actors continue to manipulate ads to make money using fraudulent practices. While you might have heard the terms ad fraud and click fraud, and perhaps used them interchangeably, they are related but different.

However they do share a lot of characteristics. Lets look at what is ad fraud and what is click fraud, and the differences between them.

What is click fraud?

The act of fraudulently clicking on pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements to boost website income or deplete an organization’s advertising budget is known as click fraud. In contrast to invalid clicks, which are repetitive or created by the ad’s host or publisher, click fraud is deliberate, malevolent, and has no chance of generating a sale.

When pay-per-click advertising is used, click fraud occurs when a person, computer program, or automated script poses as a genuine user and clicks on sponsored search advertisements without intending to make a purchase.

So, referring to the facts presented above, it’s obvious that click fraud can negatively affect your business in several ways, including squandering ad money.

What is ad fraud?

When click fraud is managed on a larger and more organized scale, this is referred to as ad fraud. In order to redirect a business’ marketing budget to their own pocket, fraudsters employ massive ad clicker botnets, malware, and spoofing websites.

Ad fraud can be committed by cybercriminals in several ways. Let’s look at some of them:

• Hidden ads: When a user is not able to see an advertisement because of how it is displayed. Ad networks that base payments on impressions are the focus of this type of fraud.
• Click hijacking: This is the act of a hacker “stealing” a click by tricking the browser into thinking it is a click on a different advertisement. The attacker must get access to the user’s computer, the website of the ad publisher, or a proxy server for this fraud attack to be successful.
• Botnet ad fraud: Botnets are typically used by scammers to create thousands of fake clicks on advertisements or visits to the websites that display the adverts.

The main thing to remember when talking about ad fraud vs click fraud is that ad fraud is a more complex and larger click fraud.

Both click fraud and ad fraud are more often referred to under the blanket term, invalid traffic. This covers any form of non-genuine traffic to your paid ads whether it is malicious or accidental. 

Who commits these types of fraud?

Ad and click fraud can be perpetrated by various actors, such as:

• Rivals: Ad fraud is a tactic used by rivals to sabotage the effectiveness of their competitors’ marketing initiatives.
• Publishers: To boost their ad revenue, fraudulent publishers often falsely exaggerate the …read more

  Source:: Social Media Explorer

        

  

  Author: Aaron