Click fraud is fraudulent behaviour in the digital advertising landscape that aims to artificially drive up costs for advertisers or increase revenue for publishers without any real interest in the advertised service or product. As a rule, this involves automated scripts, bots or human users who deliberately click on an online advert without intending any real interaction or conversion. The motives for click fraud can vary: Competitors may be trying to increase advertising costs for rivals, or publishers may be trying to maximise their revenue from pay-per-click ads.
Click fraud is a serious problem as it significantly affects the efficiency of online advertising campaigns and can lead to false assumptions about performance. For advertisers, this often means wasting budget on untargeted clicks, while for publishers it can lead to penalties or even expulsion from advertising networks.
Combating click fraud requires advanced technologies and algorithms to recognise unusual click patterns or IP addresses. There are also specialised services and software solutions that focus on identifying and filtering fraudulent activity. Despite these efforts, click fraud remains an ongoing challenge in digital marketing that requires constant monitoring and adaptation.