What is Click Spam?Â
Click spam is a type of fraud where fraudulent parties use a mobile app or website to generate non-human clicks, making them look like real impressions. This fraud involves non-human traffic, often known as bot traffic. The process starts when a genuine user interacts with an infected app or visits an infected webpage. These infected assets have malware built in to generate clicks on ads. In simple terms, a user browsing the web or using an app may be unaware of click spam happening in the background.
In the programmatic ecosystem, publishers are also susceptible to click spams, which can occur unintentionally or be initiated by competitors aiming to get a publisher's Google AdX account suspended.
Now that we understand the severity, let's look at the types of click spam publishers should be wary of.
Types of Click Spam
1. Manual Spam Clicks
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- Originating from real people clicking on ads, these are easily detectable but challenging to prove as spam, often mistaken as accidental clicks.
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2. Competitor Spam Clicks
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- Competitors may manually click your ads using a network of people. While each click is paid, zero conversions can trigger Google's algorithm, leading to severe consequences.
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3. Affiliates Spam Clicks
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- Affiliates, matched with advertisers, earn revenue from clicks on ads displayed on their sites. The problem arises when affiliates click on their own ads, causing losses for others.
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4. Accidental Spam Clicks
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- Refreshing your site's ad, even by accident, can generate worthless clicks, distorting marketing data and depleting the campaign budget.
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5. Automated Spam Clicks
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- Bots and click farms are common in automated spam clicks. Bots mimic human behavior, clicking on ads repeatedly. Click farms employ individuals with access to multiple devices to inflate click numbers, resembling human clicks but controlled by fraudsters.
