What is Click Spam and How Can You Stop It? 

Do you know? What is Click Spam and how can you stop it? Click Spam is defined as the practice of inflating the number of clicks online by an automated means. In recent years the malware concerns are on a great increase. This is a form of click fraud which mostly affects mobile ad fraud. There are various ways to stop the click spamming that includes Bot detection, IP filtering, machine learning, Ad fraud detection services and strict policies and enforcement. Magic Shield by Magic Tag also helps to beat click spamming that offers website owners to easily detect the unwanted traffic. 

What is Click Spam? [Definition]

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. There are several ways through which you can detect and stop The Click spam. Bot detection, user behaviour analysis, IP filtering, strict policies and enforcement, ad fraud detection services and traffic quality monitoring are some of the frequent methods to stop the same. 

There are several ways through which you can detect and stop the Click Spam. Bot detection, user behaviour analysis, IP filtering, strict policies and enforcement, ad fraud detection services and traffic quality monitoring are some of the frequent methods to stop the same. 

How Does Click Spam Work?

When a user downloads an app, be it of any kind like the calculator or any other tempting downloads that considers a game app. Every application contains an inbuilt feature which can conduct the activities in the background on the users behalf. This includes the clicking on ads that converts it in the number of views or Impressions count on ads in the app into clicks. Magicbid by magic shield investigates the ad fraud in an instant way and protects the ads spamming. 

Working of Click Spam

• After the user downloads an already infected app. 
• The app has an inbuilt code that helps in creating a number of clicks known as spam clicks. 
• Therefore, all the clicks of the ad is then assigned to a developer and in case of an unrelated download from the app store, the developer gets paid for the same. 
• The click spam twists the data that often looks effective as they are. 

Types of Click Spam

1. Background Clicks

By this method, the background click is installed which gives rise to two scenarios: 

• When the spammer clicks the background from where the user has engaged with the application, it appears as though the user has himself engaged with a Mobile ad. 
• The application generates a click all the time in case it is running in the background. 

2. Impressions As Clicks

The fraudsters use Impressions as click to mislead the advertiser and portray that they are actually doing conversion. Hence the Impressions as click usually increases the spend of ad creating the uncertainty of ad network. 

3. Device Clicks

When the spammer sends the click to the tracking vendors from the fake if device, it’s called the device clicks. 

What Are the Effects of Click Spamming on Advertisers?

Click spamming has various harmful effect on the advertiser that not only impacts finances but also turn effective for the advertising campaign. Let’s have a look at several effects: 

Increased Ad Spend

The market budget is adversely affected by the click spamming. Therefore the spammers try to generate fake likes to receive the payment for the ad click. 

Inaccurate Organic Traffic

Usually the click spam is tracked by the organic user. Therefore, without having deep analytics it is not easy to differentiate between who is the real user and who is the fake one. Therefore, the ad campaign report should highly turn out to be inaccurate. 

Bad Marketing Decisions

Today’s world is wholly based on data therefore the marketers often try to take the decisions that are data driven. In the fraudulent act, advertisers gets access to the inaccurate data. 

How Can You Detect and Stop Click Spam?

You may detect and stop the click spam by some proactive measures and continuous monitoring and several other ways: 

Analyze Traffic and Conversions

Invalid traffic is attributed to a high amount of crowd visits in a short span of time. The projection in the number of clicks and the unusual pattern refers to a fraudulent click. Therefore, this does not lead to conversion. 

The fake traffic does not lead to conversion. Hence, if a higher amount of traffic is dealt with by you with a lower conversion, there is something that needs to be looked after. Magicbid protects the ad spamming by verifying users and affiliates. 

Analyze Publisher Analytics

The ads which are from click spamming does not interact in a way like the real users. You can identify the pattern and by clicking distribution indicates when the app generates the fake click. 

App Validation

By the advertising networks the apps are usually reviewed. To ensure the exchange the code in the app is malicious. It is necessary to not validate and the bad code will go undetected. 

App validation takes a longer time as all the developers will share the code. 

Be Proactive in Fighting Click Fraud

The measures that are stated above are then helpful in the identification of click spam. By using such a proactive algorithm and using a sophisticated solution we can help identify and block fraudulent activity before it consumes the budget of advertising. 

As you manually choose what ad network and placement to use. This turns out to be time-consuming. This minimizes and even automates your work. 

Conclusion

As a digital advertiser, you should stay aware of the negative impact. Click fraud activity like click spam can have on marketing activity. The primary step in preventing click spam is to stay updated on how it works. While taking preventive action that ensures the click spam is identified and blocked as soon as it happens. 

When it comes to digital publishers they get most of the ads on websites. Advertisers and the online platform employ multiple measures that detect and prevent click spam to maintain the credibility and effectiveness of the advertising ecosystem. Magic Shield uses the magic of filters, proprietary intelligence, and last-mile integrations with the best customer support. Therefore, to protect ad spamming this should be your first choice.