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Fraud permeates all areas of society, from ID fraud to financial fraud and the like. Advertising fraud is no exception and has become a major issue as internet use accelerates, and our society becomes more entrenched in the digital era.

Ad fraud impacts most companies that advertise online, draining their advertising budgets and harming their ability to generate sales from real human users. To counter this, independent click fraud services have emerged to help identify the fraud and block it in real-time, saving time and money for advertisers. Fraud Blocker is a leading solution and our top pick for 2022.

Click Fraud Definition

'Click fraud' is fraudulent activity occurring on the Internet as part of pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising. In this form of advertising, website owners are paid each time a user clicks on an ad on their website.

In click fraud, publishers or malicious actors intentionally employ robots or low-wage workers to repeatedly click on ads on their sites illegally. Unaware of the fraud, the advertisers pay for the clicks as if they were humans with real intent for their products.

To do this type of fraud, a computer program or an auto clicker impersonates a legitimate web browser user by clicking on an advertisement posted or embedded in a website. However, they don't click for genuine reasons, but instead, only to collect fraudulent revenue.

Why Is Click Fraud a Problem?

In today's digital age, click fraud remains rampant, much like malware and phishing still proliferate in today's computers and cell phones. According to Juniper Research, advertisers spend approximately $450 billion annually and $42 billion was lost due to ad fraud in 2019.

Advertisers can often run millions of ad impressions across thousands of websites and multiple ad networks. Thus it can be extremely difficult to detect click fraud in action at such a large scale.

In addition, fraudsters can take a number of steps to make the web traffic look real, such as using IP addresses from actual homes (not data centers). They can also manipulate the data of the ad traffic sources to make it appear as if clicks are coming from a legitimate site, such as CNBC.com, but in actuality, they're coming from fraud-site-news.com. In that case, advertisers are likely to continue running the ads even if performance appears to be lower due to the site's reputation.

In some cases criminals create malware that is unknowingly installed on a user's phone or desktop PC that is entirely used to click on ads in the background unbeknownst to the user. In February 2020, a large-scale click fraud scheme called "Tekya" installed malware onto popular games in Google's app store that imitated organic human clicks as the user played the game.

Other examples of ad fraud include pixel stuffing, cookie stuffing, ad stacking, geo spoofing, and more. Some of these techniques load ads that are invisible to the human eye and then charge the advertiser as if it was shown to real users.

About Fraud Blocker

Fraud Blocker is the newest entrant into the market, offering comparable features to other platforms in the field, but with a reasonable monthly price point and a longer free trial than the others. The software also recently received the top rating by Tech Times for click fraud software.

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It was developed in the U.S. in 2019 and has been operating with a team of former marketing executives and other established experts. Fraud Blocker assisted countless companies in minimizing their ad spend against click fraud worldwide.

One of the best click fraud protection softwares available for marketing professionals in 2022 is Fraud Blocker. The software uses automated algorithms to easily detect fraudulent ad clicks committed by bots or malicious attackers and then block those sources in real-time.

Fraud Blocker's Core Features

Here are Fraud Blocker's core features to help combat click fraud:

  • Offers best-in-class click fraud detection, such as device fingerprinting, IP monitoring, VPN detection, and more
  • Provides fraud scoring to immediately determine the level of malicious activity on sites
  • Has automatic IP blocking that will deliver suspicious IP addresses to an exclusion list (see 'How it works' figure below)
  • Provides direct integration with Google Ads--with Facebook Ads coming soon
  • Has customizable detection rules to modify the sensitivity of fraud detection, including avoiding all data center traffic and limiting how often ads are shown to website visitors
  • Easy management of subscription and teams so colleagues can join the platform
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Equipped with these features, advertisers will have the chance to fight off types of click fraud. Furthermore, a free 30-day trial of Fraud Blocker's click fraud software is available to clients to assess how efficient it is. There is no credit card or contract necessary. The free trial gives more businesses the chance to try the anti-click system without being concerned about hidden fees.

Pros

  • Fraud Blocker offers a robust number of tools, including providing a 'network effect.' This feature detects fraud on one site and blocks that source on other client's sites
  • Pricing starts at $25 per month and is lower than most competitors
  • US-based in Los Angeles, California
  • Developed by an experienced team of former advertising executives
  • Longer-than-usual free trial for 30 days
  • Credit card is not necessary to begin the trial
  • Lets you block fraud in minutes

Cons

  • A relatively newer platform to the market
  • No demo preview is available; however, a free trial is provided to all new clients

How To Prevent Click Fraud Using Fraud Blocker

With Fraud Blocker, advertisers can easily prevent click fraud by following these steps:

Step 1: Place its fraud detection pixel on your website (works on any website).

Step 2: Connect your Google Ads account.

Step 3: Let Fraud Blocker analyze your web traffic for fraud.

Step 4: Fraud Blocker then prevents ads from displaying on fraudulent sources.

Their turn-key solution enables clients to start blocking fraud just a few minutes after signing up. It's available for all types of websites, and they provide a support line for technical questions.

Advertisers interested in learning more about Fraud Blocker or signing up for their 30-day free trial can visit fraudblocker.com.