2024 Top Click Fraud Statistics

With the expansion of digital marketing, we have also seen a commensurate rise in click and ad fraud. The question is, though, how much click fraud exists? How much does it cost you, too? It was discovered that in 2021, ad and click fraud percentages stayed at 14.08%. However, click fraud’s financial impact increased with ad spending (on Google Ads), from $149 billion in 2020 to $209 billion in 2021.

According to data from 2022, the entire cost of advertising fraud was estimated to be over $61 billion. Click fraud is a problem for anyone running PPC advertising, whether from resentful competitors or illicit businesses looking to steal your advertising revenue. This article discusses the top click fraud statistics and their implication on businesses.

Understanding click fraud

In digital advertising, click fraud has become a big problem, endangering companies that depend on pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to generate leads and sales. Click fraud happens when competitors, criminal actors, or bots purposefully click advertisements without intending to buy or interact with the advertised good or service. This dishonest technique can significantly increase advertising expenses, distort marketing data, and lessen the efficacy of advertising efforts.

Click fraud has more negative effects on firms than merely wasting marketing budgets. Fraudulent activity distorts key performance indicators, making it challenging to assess a campaign’s effectiveness and plan out future tactics. This has an adverse impact, making it difficult for advertisers to identify their target market and make wise choices.

Click fraud persists despite sophisticated fraud detection techniques and attempts to reduce the problem by advertising networks such as Google and Bing. Businesses have suffered significant losses because fraud is more difficult to identify due to the growth of sophisticated bot networks and click farms.

Statistics for search platforms

Some of the statistics for search platforms include:

• With more than 90% of the search market, Google is the largest search engine.
• Google Ads was used by almost 7 million businesses in 2021.
  Worldwide, 80% of companies rely on Google Ads PPC.
• According to Statista, Google made $209.49 billion from Google Ads in 2021.
• WordStream says the average cost per click is $0.89 on Google Ads search results.
• WordStream says the average cost per click is $0.64 on Bing Ads search results.
• 4.12% is the average click-through rate on Google’s sponsored search results (WordStream).
• WordStream says Bing’s average click-through rate for sponsored search results is 3.09%.
• According to Statista, 65% of clicks on sponsored search results come from mobile search results.
• According to SmartInsignts, 76% of retail search ad spending is driven by Google’s Shopping Ads.
• According to SmartInsights, Shopping links generate 85.3% of all clicks on Google Ads.
• According to SearchEngineLand, between 2018 and 2019, spending on Google Shopping Ads increased by 41%.
• According to Feefo, 94% of shoppers research internet products before purchasing.
• Customers who know a product they need or want is in stock first are 80% more likely to visit a physical store.
• 64.6% of users will click a sponsored link when trying to make a purchase (WordStream)
• Buyers usually complete a transaction within five days of their initial search (Webmarketer).
• PPC ad visitors have a 50% higher likelihood of purchasing than organic traffic.
• The top three sponsored results receive 41% of all clicks on search queries (WordStream).
• The Google Display Network (GDN) (WordStream) serves 2 trillion monthly ad impressions.
• As of 2020, over 2 million websites, including some of the most popular ones, such as Gmail, YouTube, CNN, Forbes, and MailOnline (WordStream), are available on Google Display Network.
• Every day, GDN reaches 2.5 billion internet users, including 90% of users globally and 94% of users in the US (WordStream).
• Google Ads is run by 65% of SMEs (WebFX).
• The typical SME pays $10,000 monthly for display advertisements and sponsored searches (WebFX).

Top Click fraud statistics

Some click fraud statistics are:

• Third-party bots account for about 38% of all online traffic (Imperva).
  Of them, 24% are regarded as “bad bots,” or bots employed for stealing and fraud (Imperva).
• An average of 14% of clicks on sponsored search advertisements come from fraudulent sources (click fraud).
• At least 15% of sponsored traffic cannot be traced back and is probably the result of fraud
• Up to 60% of click fraud occurs on paid advertisements in on-demand service sectors such as pest control and plumbing.
• Marketers are predicted to have lost $61 billion to ad fraud in 2022
• According to Statista, ad fraud costs are expected to increase from $19 billion in 2018 to $100 billion by 2025.
• Click fraud affects 90% of all PPC ad campaigns on Google and Bing
• When the coronavirus epidemic started, click fraud rates increased by 21%.
• The industries that see the highest rates of click fraud include rubbish disposal (45%), locksmiths (53%), pest control (62%), photographers (65%), and plumbers (46%).
• In 2020, about 25% of traffic to financial and legal services was invalid or comprised of bogus clicks.
• Businesses that spend $10,000 monthly on Google Ads are thought to lose between $12,000 and $15,000 annually due to click fraud.

The click fraud business

Facts about the click fraud business:

• In 2020, the paid-to-click (PTC) sector gave remote workers over $13.2 million in exchange for their clicks on advertisements.
• Clicks can be easily purchased online; thousands of clicks may be purchased for as little as $5.
  Click farms may create thousands of clicks for approximately $100 per month by openly advertising on many platforms, such as YouTube.
• Click farms frequently use actual people and a network of devices to generate clicks that appear authentic on paid links and social media (Diggit).
• Strong criminal networks have been exposed as operating botnets for ad fraud. Among the most successful are Hydra, 3ve, Methbot, and Hyphbot. The operators of the majority of these earned millions of dollars annually. (Ad Campaign)
• Click fraud can falsely attribute software installs or downloads to dishonest developers, a practice known as attribution fraud, and inflate publishers’ compensation.
• According to the NYTimes, click bots are basic scripts that may be used for various tasks, such as clicking on display adverts or leaving comments on social media accounts.
• Although some aspects of their activities, such as wire fraud and data theft, can be prosecuted under various laws, click farms and botnets are not unlawful.

Regional impact of click fraud

The Asian Pacific region (APAC) is severely affected by click fraud, with an estimated $17 million lost daily. This increases opportunities for mobile and digital ad fraud in this area. Based on projections, click fraud will continue to rise, with the Asian Pacific leading the charge with substantial losses that will nearly double in value from $33 billion to $75 billion.

Jupiter Research and Traffic Guard collaborated in 2019 to develop a detailed percentage of click fraud in different countries. China, the largest country in Asia, loses $11 million annually to click fraud, or around 17% of advertising expenditures, for every $63 million they spend on digital ad fraud. In the US, click fraud costs the country $62 million annually for every $407 million spent on advertisements, or around 15% of the entire amount spent on advertising.

Click fraud costs Africa and the Middle East about $1 million for every $19 million spent on advertisements, or roughly 5% of the entire amount spent on advertising. This is a significant amount compared to China and the US.

Click fraud: What every marketer needs to know

All businesses operating pay-per-click (PPC) ads are vulnerable, but the most vulnerable sectors are those with high costs and large ad platforms like Google. Marketers looking to safeguard their investments and ensure their ads reach potential customers must comprehend the extent of the issue and implement strong fraud detection systems.

As industry collaboration and technology advance, effective countermeasures against click fraud may become possible. Businesses need to remain aware and cautious to navigate this constant threat successfully.

FAQs

Q. 1 Which industries are most impacted by click fraud?
Click fraud is common in high-cost industries, including finance, insurance, and legal services. Significant fraud rates are also seen in service industries like plumbing, locksmithing, and pest management.

Q. 2 How can businesses protect themselves against click fraud?
Companies can safeguard themselves in several ways, such as monitoring traffic sources, employing click fraud detection technologies, blocking dubious IP addresses, and collaborating closely with ad networks to spot and stop fraud.