Do you also like to experience your Google search indicator in the top position of the Bidey Keywords? You’re not alone. It is the marketer equivalent to meet the jackpot – if you increase the click and impression figures, increase traffic flow and increased ROI.
But let’s be honest, their competitors also strive for this first -class place. And in the fight for this first -class place, many competitors are “playing dirty”. Competitors who click on their Google ads is nothing new. In fact, it falls under one of the most important click fraud, which makes up 17% of all click fraud.
In this blog article we withdraw the curtain in the mysterious world of competitors who click on your Google ads. Why you do it and above all what you can do to steer your advertising budget towards real users.
What is competitor -klick fraud?
The definition of the click fraud of competitors can clearly explain why competitors click on their Google ads. The competitor -Click fraud is the practice of competitors who repeatedly click on their Google ads.
These competitors may be the company’s employees, committed people or even (and most frequently) automated bots to impair the performance of their ads. Later in this article we will check the methods you use and that are involved in the provision of these clicks.
Let us now focus on what motivates them to damage their ads.
Why do competitors click on their Google ads?
The final goal of the competitors who click on their Google ads is simple. You definitely want to improve your ad performance and effectiveness in one way or another.
As already mentioned, it is the goal of every marketer to see his search ad in the top position, to maintain more impressions and clicks or to increase the website of the Display display website. If you click on your ads, you can achieve this in two ways:
Collecting information about your ads by collecting information
Competitors may click on their ads to collect valuable insights into their advertising strategy. By analyzing your ad copy, target options and keywords, you can adapt and improve your own campaigns.
This type of clicks can be seen as a “fair” competitive analysis and is not really fraudulent. However, you should be aware that your advertising data can indirectly help improve your advertising efforts.
By locking your advertising budget
And this is the malicious intention behind competitors who click on their ads that you should worry about.
It is an unethical and unfair strategy in which your competitors want to exceed your ad for the same keywords. And not only click once or twice a day on your ad. Instead, click on it repeatedly and can do this for the same or different keywords.
This practice can quickly consume your budget and boom out of nowhere your ad will receive an advantage over yours. You can better classify for the same keyword/s and have a higher potential to achieve the target group.
If you want to avoid being a competitor, read This guide How to create your perfect (and non-painting) PPC strategy.
Now let’s take a closer look at what happens when your ads are aligned with the clicks of the malicious competitors.
How does this affect your advertising budget and your campaign performance?
Rule number one in PPC advertising is that you pay every time someone clicks on your ad. You know that, your competitors know this and when you click on your ad, you know that part of your budget for … nothing is given out.
Click on click, your campaign budget has disappeared and the lifespan of your ad is shortened. And everything should be good as long as this budget is assigned to potential customers.
Unfortunately, competitors (or the bad bots you have set) land on your website or advertisements. These are not the types of display clicks that bring value. You are not here to learn more about your company or to buy your product or service. Your task is done as soon as you click on your ad.
Because of these clicks, they not only spend their advertising budget faster. Your general campaign performance decreases, your use of advertisements towards real potential customers is limited and your return on investment (ROI) is reduced.
In addition, the fake clicks that are delivered by competitors pollute their analysis. If you do not recognize this distorted data in good time, this affects your long-term decision-making process for both marketing and wider business strategies.
In summary, the negative effects that you probably have from malicious competitor clicks are:
- Wasted advertising budget
- Shortened advertising life
- Reduced campaign performance
- Lower ROI (return on investment)
- Dirty analysis
- Affected long -term decision -making
The methods you use
In general, there are two main methods of how competitors provide clicks on their Google ads.
- Manual human clicks
The first thing that comes to mind are your competitors or your employees who sit at your desks and click on your Google ads. And you are right; In its most basic form, the competitor click form if competitors or your employees simply click on your ads.
Another variant is that competitors hire people (usually workers in click companies) who are paid for clicking on ads. This advanced form of manual competitor -klick fraud is more difficult to recognize, since these clickers and click companies use a combination of techniques such as VPNs and proxies to hide their location and IP addresses, which makes detection more difficult.
Find out more about Click Farms in this article and how to contribute to the competitor -Click fraud.
- Bot clicks
The next and more advanced form of the competitor’s click fraud is delivered via bots. Bots are software programs that can be used, among other things, to automatically click on displays. For example, your competitor can simply buy a certain number of clicks from a bot farm. Bot Farms are places with many devices, such as smartphones or computers that are installed with the software scripts (the bot) and provide these clicks in loose fills.
Bot clicks are the most advanced form of this fraud for several reasons. They are designed in such a way that you imitate human behavior and also use techniques to mask your location, your IP and nature. It is the most difficult form of fake clicks and the most difficult to identify. As a result, they are often used for high -quality keywords in which the potential effects on your advertising budget are most important.
How can you recognize whether competitors click on your ads?
The monitoring of your Google Ads campaign data and website analyzes is everything. Here you can see some patterns that usually represent a fake traffic. If you do this regularly, you can see early signs that indicate that competitors click on your Google ads.
Frequent signs of competitor clicks on Google ads include:
- Unusual spikes in click rates (CTRS) that differ from historical patterns
- Suddenly in clicks that come from certain locations or IP addresses
- Consistent click volumes without a corresponding increase in real conversions or the website engagement
- Click on patterns that occur during working hours or the times of non -business times when your target group is normally inactive
- Inexplicable fluctuations in the bounce rates
- Increasing the clicks that do not accompany the proportional increase in time that visitors spend on their website
The earlier you identify such activities, the more efficient you can implement protection strategies to reduce potential damage to your campaigns.
How can you avoid their clicks?
When stopping this sneaky click, it’s not just about saving money. It is about keeping your ads on the right track by turning to a real audience and delivering real traffic that has the potential to convert.
Here are some protective measures that you can take:
- Block suspicious IP addresses: Implement filters to block IP addresses that shows suspicious click behavior. For example, if you recognize several clicks from the same IP address, this may be a result of manual clicks of the employees of your competitors.
- Set the daily budget limits: Fix the daily budget limits for your advertising campaigns. This prevents fraudulent competitor clicks, but it can help limit the financial effects by limiting the amount that can be spent on a single day.
- Activate the tracking on click: Google ads offer this function to set up click trackers. They enable you to see how many people click on your ads and how many clicks lead to desired actions such as purchases or registrations. If you have this data, it is easier to see whether competitors click on your ads.
- Use Geo-Targeting: Limit your advertisement audience to certain geographical regions. This reduces exposure to irrelevant clicks of people or bots that were set for the delivery of clicks.
- Update negative keywords regularly: Refine your negative keyword list to filter out non -related search queries.
These are helpful tactics to minimize competitor clicks on your Google ads, but it is important to recognize your restrictions. For example, bots and manual clickers can often change their IP addresses or change their actual location.
If this is the case, the IP address will block, it won’t help much, right? Let’s see what you can do next.
The easy way to protect your ads from the competitors’ clicks
Clicking fraud protection tool is clearly the only way to ensure full and precise protection of your ads.
These tools overcome the restrictions that are delivered with manual protective measures. You can recognize and stop the clicks of malicious competitors before influencing your budget.
Read this case study about how Clickcease a law firm helped to prevent competitor clicks in preventing the competitor to prevent clicks.
If you also want to prevent competitors from clicking on your Google ads and using your advertising budget optimally, check the growdigitalhub for free.
Start your free trial version.
