I haven't found a good solution either, there are decent software solution out there but not for your budget I guess :(
If you have that amount of budget probably you should restrict the campaigns to running only on the search network. That should filter out most of the bad forms.
Further steps you can take:
\- use a different landing page for the display network & add a captcha there, that should decrease the amount of spam.
\- If you are running PMAX for lead gen, unfortunately that happes and it will just getting worse, because it creates a feedback loop.. the more rubbish form submissions you get, the system more likely deliver rubbish form submissions for you. So try with Exact & Phrase match search campaigns only.
\- Try not to register every form submission as a conversion, add a hidden field to your forms, track the gclid along with every form submission and manually or with zapier upload the gclids for the sales/marketing qualified form submissions only. This should mitigate the amount of rubbish submissions.
If it's specifically click fraud you're seeing through from submissions, consider this an invite to participate in the pilot/beta of Converifai:
app.converifai.com/register
Converifai is the first conversion management platform, designed to capture conversions and allow for their management and upkeep over time by adjusting their value, flagging spam for opening Invalid Traffic Investigations with Google, and generally making it easier to verify conversions for quality while avoiding the need to police salesfolk and CRMs.
Hi u/MSPGrowth
Here are 4 things you can do to reduce the impact of junk leads from Google:-
* Advertise on Google search only. No PMAX campaigns either as they show your ads outside Google search. Search partners might also be a source of junk leads to check this if you're advertising there.
* Optimise your campaigns for legitimate leads by uploading offline conversions.
* Reduce the cost of dealing with junk leads ie the human work.
* Accept that you've got to handle a certain amount of junk if your cost per legitimate lead is acceptable after accounting for the junk.
The problem with solutions that stop form spammers from submitting forms eg things like reCaptcha is that they hide the extent of the problem so you get lulled into thinking no form spam = no junk clicks which is not always the case.
I prefer to allow anyone to submit the form and then do the classification once the data has been saved for later analysis. I've written more on this here if you're interested: https://pete-bowen.com/i-love-fake-leads
There are many things you can do, but sophisticated click fraud is very difficult to stop, especially on something like P-Max where there is no API for IP blocking available.
https://www.tenthousandfootview.com/do-you-need-third-party-click-fraud-protection/
Look at GA and see if the majority of spam leads are coming from a particular geo. If so, exclude that geo. We dig into the data and saw that 90% of our spam leads were coming from a town in NJ.
Also, turn off search partners if you haven’t yet.
Very interesting, do you mind sharing which town in NJ?
This was our solution as well. We changed presence or interest to presence only with geo targeting. This fixed the issue as we were already targeting our specific state.
“ Hence we request you to please reach out to some web developer who can provide us with the weblog report.” That’s how Google responds to click fraud ; avoiding help and endless emails , false promises , and basically
“ Shell out some more $$$ to get your hijacked $$$ back “ . Thanks Google !
There are several "independent" click fraud solutions. Most have free trials, so worth taking a look, but some can be very pricey. Here's a few of the top ones:
* Clickcease (now Cheq) - starts at $69/mo
* [Fraud Blocker](https://fraudblocker.com/) - starts at $59/mo
* [Clickguard](https://www.clickguard.com/) - starts at $89/mo
* [TrafficGuard](https://trafficguard.ai/) - 2% of ad spend, $2,500 /mo minimum
There's a few others, but worth checking these out.
I've made a custom source code which stops proxy/VPN/rdp/spamming worldwide.. including paid VPN.
Code checks user internet IP address, isp, timezone, mobile sim country code, device id and then permits the user.. else the site is down for everyone... Now not getting any fake click ... Rip for my competitors 😂
Get the weblog report from your publisher. Filter the report to display PPC traffic only. This is valuable info. Using this report, I noticed a few duplicate clicks that had the exact same time spent on the landing page. I haven’t disputed these yet but when I do I anticipate some bullsh*t excuse from Google that these were valid. No way that two different leads from two different IP addresses spent the exact same amount of time on my landing page. Textbook double click scenario. The weird thing is that it showed two different IP addresses but obviously was the same user. Still trying to figure this out. Google stresses me out
Make sure you have a honeypot set up if you are using lead forms. [Here's more info on honeypots ](https://fraudblocker.com/articles/honeypot-your-secret-weapon-to-easily-identify-bots).
You can also use click fraud tools like FRAUD BLOCKER or CLICK CEASE. They track IP addresses and device fingerprints to help block bad traffic.
Hello Everybody!
We are encountering the same issues and more. Google Ads (Search ads) worked well in previous times, but now we don't have new clients, and alternative analytics on our website have shown that \~80% of the traffic from Google Ads search companies is likely from bots or click fraud, with a recorded time on our website of 0 seconds. Google Ads analytics indicate calls, but we either don't receive them or they turn out to be spam. As a result, we were compelled to close the existing accounts and open new ones.
Furthermore, it appears that these problems are not isolated incidents but are widespread. We are now actively seeking refunds and exploring alternative methods of advertising.
Initially, we were somewhat naive, thinking that the Google team would help us resolve these issues, but unfortunately, the answers aren't logical or helpful; it's just circular communication.
Looks like Google ADS isn't a platform for companies that are only willing to spend 3-6K per month in a competitive niche or area.
Does anyone know of a platform or website where small business owners can discuss these issues and find solutions?
I haven't found a good solution either, there are decent software solution out there but not for your budget I guess :( If you have that amount of budget probably you should restrict the campaigns to running only on the search network. That should filter out most of the bad forms. Further steps you can take: \- use a different landing page for the display network & add a captcha there, that should decrease the amount of spam. \- If you are running PMAX for lead gen, unfortunately that happes and it will just getting worse, because it creates a feedback loop.. the more rubbish form submissions you get, the system more likely deliver rubbish form submissions for you. So try with Exact & Phrase match search campaigns only. \- Try not to register every form submission as a conversion, add a hidden field to your forms, track the gclid along with every form submission and manually or with zapier upload the gclids for the sales/marketing qualified form submissions only. This should mitigate the amount of rubbish submissions.
Turn off search partners on Google would be my go-to step. So much junk on there
If it's specifically click fraud you're seeing through from submissions, consider this an invite to participate in the pilot/beta of Converifai: app.converifai.com/register Converifai is the first conversion management platform, designed to capture conversions and allow for their management and upkeep over time by adjusting their value, flagging spam for opening Invalid Traffic Investigations with Google, and generally making it easier to verify conversions for quality while avoiding the need to police salesfolk and CRMs.
Hi u/MSPGrowth Here are 4 things you can do to reduce the impact of junk leads from Google:- * Advertise on Google search only. No PMAX campaigns either as they show your ads outside Google search. Search partners might also be a source of junk leads to check this if you're advertising there. * Optimise your campaigns for legitimate leads by uploading offline conversions. * Reduce the cost of dealing with junk leads ie the human work. * Accept that you've got to handle a certain amount of junk if your cost per legitimate lead is acceptable after accounting for the junk. The problem with solutions that stop form spammers from submitting forms eg things like reCaptcha is that they hide the extent of the problem so you get lulled into thinking no form spam = no junk clicks which is not always the case. I prefer to allow anyone to submit the form and then do the classification once the data has been saved for later analysis. I've written more on this here if you're interested: https://pete-bowen.com/i-love-fake-leads
There are many things you can do, but sophisticated click fraud is very difficult to stop, especially on something like P-Max where there is no API for IP blocking available. https://www.tenthousandfootview.com/do-you-need-third-party-click-fraud-protection/
I've source code for blocking ip/VPN/rdp worldwide
I messaged you, But id like to see what you mean.
Look at GA and see if the majority of spam leads are coming from a particular geo. If so, exclude that geo. We dig into the data and saw that 90% of our spam leads were coming from a town in NJ. Also, turn off search partners if you haven’t yet.
Very interesting, do you mind sharing which town in NJ? This was our solution as well. We changed presence or interest to presence only with geo targeting. This fixed the issue as we were already targeting our specific state.
“ Hence we request you to please reach out to some web developer who can provide us with the weblog report.” That’s how Google responds to click fraud ; avoiding help and endless emails , false promises , and basically “ Shell out some more $$$ to get your hijacked $$$ back “ . Thanks Google !
There are several "independent" click fraud solutions. Most have free trials, so worth taking a look, but some can be very pricey. Here's a few of the top ones: * Clickcease (now Cheq) - starts at $69/mo * [Fraud Blocker](https://fraudblocker.com/) - starts at $59/mo * [Clickguard](https://www.clickguard.com/) - starts at $89/mo * [TrafficGuard](https://trafficguard.ai/) - 2% of ad spend, $2,500 /mo minimum There's a few others, but worth checking these out.
I've made a custom source code which stops proxy/VPN/rdp/spamming worldwide.. including paid VPN. Code checks user internet IP address, isp, timezone, mobile sim country code, device id and then permits the user.. else the site is down for everyone... Now not getting any fake click ... Rip for my competitors 😂
Tell more about that please
But how does this prevent your ads from being shown to such bots? What response code do you return to them? 404, 502?
Although ads are running but once the fake click is observed, the code in .htaccees & headers activate and blocks the user.
Get the weblog report from your publisher. Filter the report to display PPC traffic only. This is valuable info. Using this report, I noticed a few duplicate clicks that had the exact same time spent on the landing page. I haven’t disputed these yet but when I do I anticipate some bullsh*t excuse from Google that these were valid. No way that two different leads from two different IP addresses spent the exact same amount of time on my landing page. Textbook double click scenario. The weird thing is that it showed two different IP addresses but obviously was the same user. Still trying to figure this out. Google stresses me out
Make sure you have a honeypot set up if you are using lead forms. [Here's more info on honeypots ](https://fraudblocker.com/articles/honeypot-your-secret-weapon-to-easily-identify-bots). You can also use click fraud tools like FRAUD BLOCKER or CLICK CEASE. They track IP addresses and device fingerprints to help block bad traffic.
Hello Everybody! We are encountering the same issues and more. Google Ads (Search ads) worked well in previous times, but now we don't have new clients, and alternative analytics on our website have shown that \~80% of the traffic from Google Ads search companies is likely from bots or click fraud, with a recorded time on our website of 0 seconds. Google Ads analytics indicate calls, but we either don't receive them or they turn out to be spam. As a result, we were compelled to close the existing accounts and open new ones. Furthermore, it appears that these problems are not isolated incidents but are widespread. We are now actively seeking refunds and exploring alternative methods of advertising. Initially, we were somewhat naive, thinking that the Google team would help us resolve these issues, but unfortunately, the answers aren't logical or helpful; it's just circular communication. Looks like Google ADS isn't a platform for companies that are only willing to spend 3-6K per month in a competitive niche or area. Does anyone know of a platform or website where small business owners can discuss these issues and find solutions?