Click Fraud Prevention Firm Urges Caution When Placing Adverts Online

Polygraph offers further advice to protect against click fraud when advertising on publisher websites

Cyber-security firm Polygraph is offering further guidance to protect advertisers against click fraud, a sophisticated internet crime targeting online ads.

Criminals, who set up scam websites to act as hosts for genuine adverts placed by online advertisers, earn fees every time an ad is clicked. To maximize earnings, the fraudsters use technology and trickery to generate huge numbers of fake clicks on the ads.

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While some advertising networks, such as those run by search engines, make some effort to detect fraudulent clicks, a lot of click fraud goes undetected. This means advertisers can end up wasting their ad budgets due to this devious online scam.

Polygraph is ahead of the game, having already created a playbook of methods to protect its clients against click fraud. The Polygraph team monitor the activities of criminal gangs, so they have learnt how to detect and defend against their schemes to defraud advertisers. There are thousands of gangs posing as legitimate website owners, who trick the advertising networks into allowing them to place genuine adverts on their scam websites.

The loss to advertisers is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars each year.

While some instances of click fraud occur on adverts which appear in search engine results, Polygraph is urging extra caution when advertisers place their ads on publisher websites, typically known as the Display or Audience network.

According to Trey Vanes, Chief Marketing Officer at Polygraph, most click fraud occurs on publisher websites.

“Ads are typically displayed within search engine results – for example, when you search for something using Google – and on publisher websites, such as news feeds, blogs, and forums.

“Dishonest publishers have realized they can earn money by clicking the ads on their websites. We’ve seen some of these websites generate tens of thousands of fake clicks each day, with most of these fraudsters running tens or hundreds of concurrent scam websites. The damage they’re doing is enormous.

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“The fact of the matter is, it’s easy for publishers to commit click fraud and steal money from advertisers.”

Polygraph’s team can identify click fraud, both on ads appearing in search results and on publisher websites.

“The easiest way to prevent click fraud is to restrict advertisements to search results, and exclude publisher websites,” added Mr. Vanes. “However, by refusing to display your ads on publisher websites, you’re going to miss out on genuine clicks and sales, so a better approach is to let your ads appear on publisher websites but use a click fraud detection service like Polygraph to protect your ad budget.”

To minimise fraud, and to protect marketing spend, advertisers are advised to use Polygraph to monitor their ad clicks.

Polygraph’s team are experts at detecting click fraud, and by constantly monitoring the techniques used by cyber-criminals, can ensure cutting-edge protection.

Advertisers must always remain cautious, but Polygraph is available to help by sharing its expertise with clients, so they don’t fall victim to click fraud.

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