Click fraud software detects and/or protects against fraudulent clicks related to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. These tools are used by advertisers to detect manual or automated efforts to inflate click numbers on their ads. Click fraud software gathers data with each click, such as IP address, location, device information, and more. This data is analyzed and cross-referenced with the click fraud products’ repository of fraudulent activities and devices to determine whether a click should be deemed fraudulent. Many click fraud tools offer features to immediately block any documented fraudulent clickers from seeing future ads. Within these solutions, advertisers can also access dashboards to review reporting and monitoring on threats and/or fraudulent activity.
Without these tools, advertisers may not be aware of illegitimate clicks that would raise their costs to ad networks and publishers. Click fraud software can help advertisers purchasing PPC ads be more confident that their budget is going toward valid visitors, and give them evidence to mitigate any situation where click fraud is suspected.
To qualify for inclusion in the Click Fraud category, a product must:
Gather data to identify and warn advertisers of fraudulent PPC click activity
Offer dashboards and reporting to monitor PPC-ad fraud
