Ad Fraud Detection with Keyword Analysis

Success in digital advertising is all about reaching the right audience with the right message. The cornerstone of this equation is keywords. However, your carefully chosen keywords can attract not only potential customers but also ad fraudsters. Click fraud and other types of invalid traffic can specifically target your campaigns through certain keywords.

So, how can we gain an advantage in the fight for fraud prevention by analyzing keywords? Let's explore how to reduce PPC fraud with a search terms report and negative keyword strategies, from the ClickSambo perspective.

High-CPC Keywords Are a Primary Target: Keywords with a high cost-per-click (CPC), especially in sectors like finance, law, and insurance, are attractive to fraudsters. Fraudulent clicks on these keywords either quickly drain a competitor's budget or generate more revenue for a fake publisher. Closely monitoring the performance of these keywords allows for early detection of anomalies.

Detection of Irrelevant Clicks: Bots or click farms can often click through keywords that are completely irrelevant to the ad or landing page content. The Search Terms Report shows which actual queries triggered your ads. Even if your keyword and ad are relevant, if the triggering search term is irrelevant, it's a suspicious sign and requires adding a negative keyword.

Performance Anomalies: If highly relevant keywords that are normally expected to bring in good conversions suddenly receive a high number of clicks with zero or very low conversions, this could be a sign of fraudulent click activity. It's important to track conversion rates and costs on a keyword-by-keyword basis.

Brand Attacks: Competitors or malicious actors may try to exhaust your budget or damage your brand reputation by attacking your brand keywords specifically. Sudden increases in clicks and low engagement rates for brand keywords should be investigated.

Geographic Mismatch: For locally targeted keywords, clicks coming from irrelevant or known fraudulent IP locations indicate a mismatch between the keyword and targeting, and point to potential fraud.

• Regularly Review the Search Terms Report: See the actual user searches that triggered your ads. Identify any irrelevant, unexpected, or nonsensical queries.
• Strengthen Your Negative Keyword List: Immediately add the irrelevant queries you find in the search terms report as negative keywords. This significantly reduces invalid traffic and bot traffic.
• Monitor Keyword Performance Metrics:
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR): Abnormally high or low CTRs can be suspicious.
  • Conversion Rate (CVR): A conversion rate close to zero despite a high number of clicks is a strong indicator of fraudulent clicks.
  • Cost-Per-Click (CPC): Pay attention to sudden increases in clicks, especially on high-CPC keywords.
  • Impression Share: Abnormal fluctuations can be a sign of competitive attacks or bot activity.
• Focus on High-Cost Keywords: More strictly audit the performance and traffic quality of the keywords that consume most of your budget.
• Use Segmentation: Segment your data by device, location, or time to more easily detect anomalies (e.g., unusual clicks coming only at a certain hour or only from mobile devices).

Hidden Threats: Sophisticated bots can mimic clicking behavior and even post-conversion interactions, skewing keyword metrics.

Delayed Detection: Anomalies in metrics are often noticed after the fraud has already occurred, which means a portion of the budget has already been spent.

Lack of Broad Scope: Keywords are only one piece of the puzzle. Many other signals are required, such as IP address reputation, device information, and behavioral analysis.

This is where ClickSambo comes in. ClickSambo analyzes keyword data in real-time along with hundreds of other signals:

• It instantly recognizes suspicious IP addresses and bot networks.
• It identifies abnormal click speeds and behavioral patterns.
• It detects device fraud and user-agent manipulation.
• It prevents your budget from being wasted by blocking fraud in real-time.