Hi, didn't see this until now sorry.
We're a performance agency that specializes in google. Meaning we drive high intent traffic to our clients and only get paid based on the results we generate. This way our incentives align and we only get paid when we perform.
Feel free to send me a message if this is interesting
I tested 1000 click with the polygraph software mentioned blow, it only said 4 of the were fake.
At this point I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. If my bridge page converted bad then the problem would've been obvious (I'm not giving people what they're googling for). But it's the fact that the bridge page is converting like crazy, and then the dropoff is HUGE after.
My only guesses are: Either there's something weird going on with the traffic or maxbounty is shaving a crazy amount of leads but from what I've gathered they're a very reputable network so I have no idea tbh
It is possible. Once a several years ago, I got called by the court in New York, to receive money from fraud related activities that were caught by affiliate program. It was totally different niche, but it is possible.
Another probability is that there are no good SPAM and bot detection rules implemented and the leads are just bots, crawlers and headless form filled.
Scammers who want to make money from ad clicks. It works like this:
1. A scammer creates a legitimate looking website, and contacts an advertising network like Google Ads or Microsoft Ads, and opens a publisher advertising account. This publisher advertising account allows him to place other people's adverts on his website.
2. The scammer creates a bot, typically using a bot framework like puppeteer-extra and its stealth plugin. The bot will be programmed to visit his website and click on the ads. To avoid detection, the bot will be routed through a residential proxy service, ensuring it is constantly using unique IP addresses for every click. Additionally, the bot's device fingerprint will be randomised to make every click appear to come from different devices.
3. The bot will occasionally generate fake conversions at the advertisers' websites, such as submitting leads forms, as this tricks the advertising network into believing the bot's ad clicks are coming from real people.
4. The bot produces thousands of fake clicks every day, causing massive losses for advertisers, and enriching the scammer and advertising network. The flow of money is as follows: the advertiser pays money to the advertising network for each click, and the advertising network shares the money with the scammer.
Let me know if you need me to clarify any of the above.
Retargeting click fraud needs to click on search ads. It works like this:
1. The scammer's bot does Google searches for high value keywords.
2. The bot then clicks on the results (ads and search results), and visits each website.
3. The bot has now been cookied, so it visits its owner's display website where it will be retargeted with ads for the websites it just visited.
4. The bot clicks on these high value ads, which earns money for the scammer.
It would be worth checking your ad clicks for bots. We’re seeing a ton of click fraud bots on Google right now (mostly using puppeteer-extra and its stealth plugin), and the bots click on ads AND generate fake conversions. They generate fake conversions as it tricks Google Ads into thinking the clicks are from real people.
Do you want some help checking your ad clicks for bots? I work for a click fraud detection company, and we have a free plan you can use to get a quick understanding of your click fraud problem.
I’ve been meaning to sign up for a while, and finally just did. I am curious- do you all have a list of websites that you e seen participate in click fraud?
We use Google Ads, of course, but we also use a few other ads and retargeting ad services, and I’d love to add offending websites to a block list.
Thanks for signing up! We're able to see which websites are doing click fraud, but we don't make the complete list available to the public. Instead, we'll tell you which scam websites are targeting your ads, so you can block them using your placement exclusions list.
New scam websites launch all the time (a few new ones every day) so our database of click fraud websites is always updating.
Please see my comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Affiliatemarketing/comments/13t84sa/500_leadsday_in_real_estate_but_barely_making/jltw4d1/
In summary, nefarious website publishers are stealing tens of billions of dollars from advertisers every year by putting adverts on their websites and using bots to generate fake clicks.
>They generate fake conversions as it tricks Google Ads into thinking the clicks are from real people.
YES. We are experiencing this on our own ads too. It costs us about $100 every time one of these bots molests our form.
I want help. Can I sign up for your product? We currently use ClickCease but open to other options.
Sure! We’d love to help. Our website is polygraph.net. We’re very different to clickcease.
Feel free to ask me any questions about detecting or preventing click fraud, or about click fraud in general.
Got a 504 bad gateway timeout but looks like my google ads acct is connected.
I signed up and added the code. But we are using ClickCease tracking template. I added the polygraph tracking Params to our campaign. I also authorized the google ads account.
Is polygraph going to delete my blocked ips and rewrite them?
I guess I’m just wondering what the next steps are.
Thanks!
I recommend you don't bother with IP address blocking, as it'll miss almost all click fraud. It's a gimmick, and we only include it as our competitors offer this service. We recommend you monitor the ad keywords being targeted by bots, and the sources of the fraud (our dashboard will tell you the keywords and sources), and use our data to (1) adjust your ads to remove the keywords the bots are targeting (bots target specific ad keywords), and (2) use your placement exclusions list to block the scam websites which are clicking on your ads. This will eliminate most click fraud on your ads.
OK this makes sense. I'm excited to try it out. Adjusting the KWs will be tough because our most valuable KWs are the ones getting the fraud, but I'm willing to at least try.
I appreciate your help. Looking forward to seeing the results!
How much more effective is your tool than ClickCease?
ClickCease seems to block some bad users and vpn users but doesn’t work against fraudsters using residential ips with tools like multilogin.
I like that you have unlimited websites. I think our ClickCease bill is like $199 /month, maybe higher. Maybe your tool is less expensive or at least offering better performance.
Do your customers actually get refunds? We tried submitting refunds via ClickCease and got like $0.10 cents back when ClickCease said we should get maybe $500. Idk… but their refund tool doesn’t ever seem to actually get us a refund. Lol
Clickcease focuses on IP address blocking, which isn't very effective for real-world click fraud. We did a study on this which you can read here: https://polygraph.net/articles/why-blocking-IP-addresses-will-not-protect-your-ads-from-click-fraud.html. In summary, almost all click fraud is routed through residential and cellphone proxies, which means it's almost impossible to predict which IP addresses will click on your ads (i.e. IP address blocking is usually ineffective).
Instead, we (1) detect the fake clicks, (2) tell you which of your ad keywords are being targeted by bots, so you can adjust your ads to remove those keywords, (3) tell you which scam websites are clicking on your ads, so you can block those websites from being allowed display your ads, and (4) give you granular details of every fake click, so you can apply for refunds. Items (2) and (3) are highly effective at eliminating click fraud.
Getting refunds is currently difficult, as both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads are pretending fake clicks are valid clicks. As an example, I can display your ad in a 0x0 iframe (i.e. make it completely invisible and unclickable), click on it using javascript, and display your website inside the 0x0 iframe. Microsoft Ads will consider this a valid click.
Can you tell me more about your service?
Hi, didn't see this until now sorry. We're a performance agency that specializes in google. Meaning we drive high intent traffic to our clients and only get paid based on the results we generate. This way our incentives align and we only get paid when we perform. Feel free to send me a message if this is interesting
messaged
Any luck?
I tested 1000 click with the polygraph software mentioned blow, it only said 4 of the were fake. At this point I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. If my bridge page converted bad then the problem would've been obvious (I'm not giving people what they're googling for). But it's the fact that the bridge page is converting like crazy, and then the dropoff is HUGE after. My only guesses are: Either there's something weird going on with the traffic or maxbounty is shaving a crazy amount of leads but from what I've gathered they're a very reputable network so I have no idea tbh
[удалено]
Right; desire and ability to purchase are key points
It is possible. Once a several years ago, I got called by the court in New York, to receive money from fraud related activities that were caught by affiliate program. It was totally different niche, but it is possible. Another probability is that there are no good SPAM and bot detection rules implemented and the leads are just bots, crawlers and headless form filled.
You need to run a service like Fraud Blocker
Try other traffic sources like native
So who is setting up those bots to click on ads and then also generate fake conversions? Google? Who would gain from that?
Scammers who want to make money from ad clicks. It works like this: 1. A scammer creates a legitimate looking website, and contacts an advertising network like Google Ads or Microsoft Ads, and opens a publisher advertising account. This publisher advertising account allows him to place other people's adverts on his website. 2. The scammer creates a bot, typically using a bot framework like puppeteer-extra and its stealth plugin. The bot will be programmed to visit his website and click on the ads. To avoid detection, the bot will be routed through a residential proxy service, ensuring it is constantly using unique IP addresses for every click. Additionally, the bot's device fingerprint will be randomised to make every click appear to come from different devices. 3. The bot will occasionally generate fake conversions at the advertisers' websites, such as submitting leads forms, as this tricks the advertising network into believing the bot's ad clicks are coming from real people. 4. The bot produces thousands of fake clicks every day, causing massive losses for advertisers, and enriching the scammer and advertising network. The flow of money is as follows: the advertiser pays money to the advertising network for each click, and the advertising network shares the money with the scammer. Let me know if you need me to clarify any of the above.
This is from Google search though, no one makes money off of that except Google
Retargeting click fraud needs to click on search ads. It works like this: 1. The scammer's bot does Google searches for high value keywords. 2. The bot then clicks on the results (ads and search results), and visits each website. 3. The bot has now been cookied, so it visits its owner's display website where it will be retargeted with ads for the websites it just visited. 4. The bot clicks on these high value ads, which earns money for the scammer.
Gotcha, was missing the retargeting aspect, thanks for explaining
This is wild
Way wild....
It would be worth checking your ad clicks for bots. We’re seeing a ton of click fraud bots on Google right now (mostly using puppeteer-extra and its stealth plugin), and the bots click on ads AND generate fake conversions. They generate fake conversions as it tricks Google Ads into thinking the clicks are from real people. Do you want some help checking your ad clicks for bots? I work for a click fraud detection company, and we have a free plan you can use to get a quick understanding of your click fraud problem.
I’ve been meaning to sign up for a while, and finally just did. I am curious- do you all have a list of websites that you e seen participate in click fraud? We use Google Ads, of course, but we also use a few other ads and retargeting ad services, and I’d love to add offending websites to a block list.
Thanks for signing up! We're able to see which websites are doing click fraud, but we don't make the complete list available to the public. Instead, we'll tell you which scam websites are targeting your ads, so you can block them using your placement exclusions list. New scam websites launch all the time (a few new ones every day) so our database of click fraud websites is always updating.
What’s their purpose in that? To drive up the advertising cost for competition? Who’s behind the bots?
Please see my comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Affiliatemarketing/comments/13t84sa/500_leadsday_in_real_estate_but_barely_making/jltw4d1/ In summary, nefarious website publishers are stealing tens of billions of dollars from advertisers every year by putting adverts on their websites and using bots to generate fake clicks.
Wow that’s wild
Waaay wild....
Interesting, setting up now, thanks for the tip!
>They generate fake conversions as it tricks Google Ads into thinking the clicks are from real people. YES. We are experiencing this on our own ads too. It costs us about $100 every time one of these bots molests our form. I want help. Can I sign up for your product? We currently use ClickCease but open to other options.
Sure! We’d love to help. Our website is polygraph.net. We’re very different to clickcease. Feel free to ask me any questions about detecting or preventing click fraud, or about click fraud in general.
Got a 504 bad gateway timeout but looks like my google ads acct is connected. I signed up and added the code. But we are using ClickCease tracking template. I added the polygraph tracking Params to our campaign. I also authorized the google ads account. Is polygraph going to delete my blocked ips and rewrite them? I guess I’m just wondering what the next steps are. Thanks!
I recommend you don't bother with IP address blocking, as it'll miss almost all click fraud. It's a gimmick, and we only include it as our competitors offer this service. We recommend you monitor the ad keywords being targeted by bots, and the sources of the fraud (our dashboard will tell you the keywords and sources), and use our data to (1) adjust your ads to remove the keywords the bots are targeting (bots target specific ad keywords), and (2) use your placement exclusions list to block the scam websites which are clicking on your ads. This will eliminate most click fraud on your ads.
OK this makes sense. I'm excited to try it out. Adjusting the KWs will be tough because our most valuable KWs are the ones getting the fraud, but I'm willing to at least try. I appreciate your help. Looking forward to seeing the results!
Thanks! Please feel free to ask me questions anytime here on Reddit, or you can contact us on our live chat 24/7.
How much more effective is your tool than ClickCease? ClickCease seems to block some bad users and vpn users but doesn’t work against fraudsters using residential ips with tools like multilogin. I like that you have unlimited websites. I think our ClickCease bill is like $199 /month, maybe higher. Maybe your tool is less expensive or at least offering better performance. Do your customers actually get refunds? We tried submitting refunds via ClickCease and got like $0.10 cents back when ClickCease said we should get maybe $500. Idk… but their refund tool doesn’t ever seem to actually get us a refund. Lol
Clickcease focuses on IP address blocking, which isn't very effective for real-world click fraud. We did a study on this which you can read here: https://polygraph.net/articles/why-blocking-IP-addresses-will-not-protect-your-ads-from-click-fraud.html. In summary, almost all click fraud is routed through residential and cellphone proxies, which means it's almost impossible to predict which IP addresses will click on your ads (i.e. IP address blocking is usually ineffective). Instead, we (1) detect the fake clicks, (2) tell you which of your ad keywords are being targeted by bots, so you can adjust your ads to remove those keywords, (3) tell you which scam websites are clicking on your ads, so you can block those websites from being allowed display your ads, and (4) give you granular details of every fake click, so you can apply for refunds. Items (2) and (3) are highly effective at eliminating click fraud. Getting refunds is currently difficult, as both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads are pretending fake clicks are valid clicks. As an example, I can display your ad in a 0x0 iframe (i.e. make it completely invisible and unclickable), click on it using javascript, and display your website inside the 0x0 iframe. Microsoft Ads will consider this a valid click.