Compared to other ad types, display ads are visually appealing, cheaper, and excel in remarketing campaigns.

Yet many PPC advertisers often don’t get the most out of their display ads.

Unknown to many, Google’s placements can be very questionable and many times just be completely wrong. If you run a campaign about cat food, you’d expect your ads to show up on pet-related websites, but most of the time that’s not the case.

To get the most out of display ads, you need to optimise your campaigns to ensure you only pay for the best placements. Here’s how to do it.

What are display ads?

You’ve probably heard the term display ads when talking about pay-per-click ads, but for those who haven’t run any display campaigns before, what exactly are they?

Originally known as banner ads in the late ’90s, they had a much-needed upgrade in the early 2000s thanks to new technology. Instead of just being static adverts that webmasters updated every month, big networks came along such as Google’s Display Network (GDN) and created dynamic widgets that could be changed regularly.

This meant that webmasters only needed to place the code on their websites once and Google would automatically update their ads to optimize the placements. The results where that webmasters got more clicks on their ads and made more money, while advertisers got more relevant traffic.

Since then, the popularity of display ads has grown exponentially and with the introduction of new campaign types (such as re-marketing campaigns) thousands of businesses use them today.

One of the largest display networks out there at the moment is the Google Display Network (GDN). It currently has over 2,000,000 third party websites and can reach 90% of online visitors. If you’re looking to promote your brand, service or products, then you would definitely consider Google’s display network.

Display ads vs other ads

Compared to other types of ads out there, display ads are very unique in how they work and how they target people.

Traditionally many online ads used to be part of a closed network, such as Google’s search ads. Every ad was displayed on Google’s own search engine and was triggered when a user typed in a specific keyword or phrase. If the user never used Google and opted for Bing or Yahoo! instead, then they would never see the ads.

But unlike search ads, display ads are only found on third party websites and the specific ad shown to the user depends on their browsing habits. Almost any website can sign up to Google’s AdSense program and have display ads on their website in a matter of hours. This means that even if someone has never used Google in their life, they’re still very likely to see display ads.

This is one of the biggest advantages of display ads, its reach. Will millions of websites running display ads you can quickly target tens of thousands of websites and users.

However, it’s not all positive, one of the biggest downsides of display ads are that they can ruin a user’s experience. Especially when they are plastered all over the website, which in turn can slow down the loading and interaction of the page. You might think having more ads on the page is good for advertisers, but having too many can be a big problem.

The dangers of display ads

From what we’ve covered so far, display ads are probably in your good books by now. But unfortunately, it’s not all good news.

Display ads currently have some of the highest levels of ad fraud compared to any other type of ad campaign.

Why?

Because many fraudsters can cheat the system and earn money thanks to Google’s AdSense network. Unlike search ads that only appear on Google’s search engine, every time a user clicks a display ad, Google pays the website owner for displaying the ad.

Depending on the niche of the website and what ads are displayed, this can range from a few pennies per click to a few pounds.

Currently, all webmasters get 68% of the revenue derived from the click. So the more ad clicks they get, the more money they make.

This “easy money” has attracted plenty of shady figures who purposely absolute and cheat the system to make themselves more money. And in recent years, there has been a huge increase in the number of ad fraud rings specifically designed to steal advertiser’s money.

With plenty of shady websites out there who participate in ad stacking, hidden ads and other unethical tactics, it seems like nearly everyone is out to get your money!

Optimising display campaigns

Thankfully, Google and other networks give users a lot of control when it comes to display ads optimisation. To get the most out of your ad budget, advertisers can specifically define which websites they don’t want their ads running on.

There are many reasons why you might choose to exclude a specific website or webpage from displaying your ads. And it’s not just down to fraud and malicious behaviour. Sometimes, some websites just don’t perform well for a range of reasons and end up wasting money. Or sometimes advertisers just don’t want their brand associated with a certain website or topic.

To find which websites you should exclude from your display ads, there are several paths to take. The first and most obvious way is to check your campaign data and look for any low-performing websites that don’t convert. If you’re getting lots of clicks but no conversions, then it’s probably best to exclude them and stop them from wasting any more money going forward.

Another method is to do a visual inspection of each website. Although it can be fairly time-consuming considering your ads could appear on thousands of different websites, taking a look at websites with the highest click-through rate is recommended.

You never know if it has a high CTR because the website is relevant to your ads, or because the website has ads in places people are likely to misclick. Without looking at the website you won’t be able to know.

Grab our free exclusion list

Luckily there is a much faster and easier way to exclude the websites that are only going to waste your money. We’ve done all the hard work for you.

As part of our ad fraud detection service, we track fraudulent clicks and invalid traffic every single day.

Having tracked thousands of campaigns from thousands of different advertisers in different niches, we’ve discovered the top sources you should exclude from your display ads.

Spanning across websites, mobile apps, and YouTube videos, we’ve compiled a list of 60,000+ different placement exclusions you can copy and paste into any campaign.

No matter if you’re running your first display ad campaign, or you’re currently managing thousands of different clients, this list is sure to come in handy.

Download our free 60,000+ exclusions list here.

But behind the scenes, there is a shady figure stealing advertisers precious ad spend, without them even realizing! Known as click fraud, this type of fraud has plagued advertisers for decades, and it’s only getting worse.

No matter if you’re a PPC beginner or experienced paid search manager, click fraud can affect everyone.

To ensure you understand what you’re up against, we’re taking a deep dive into the world of click fraud and everything to need to know. By the end of this article, you’ll understand exactly what click fraud is and how you can fight back against this hidden monster.

By now you’re probably wondering what click fraud is, well don’t worry, we have plenty of answers!

What Is Click Fraud?

For many people working in paid search, you’ve probably never heard of the term click fraud before.

Although you might have only heard of the term today, it’s actually been around for several decades since the dawn of pay per click advertising.

Back when PPC networks were first designed, they had very little to no ad fraud systems in place. This means that for every click an ad received, the advertiser had to pay money for it. Not exactly ideal when it’s the same person over and over!

And that, in simple terms, is exactly what click fraud is.

To explain it further, click fraud is the act of fraudulently clicking on pay per click ads with no intention of buying a business’s services or products. Anyone can do it from their PC or mobile device and the effects on advertiser’s budgets can be devastating.

No matter if you use Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or any other platform, click fraud is a growing problem in the advertising industry and costs advertisers billions a year.

But who exactly is purposely clicking on other people’s ads? And what incentive do they have to do it? The main culprits can be split into three main categories.

1. Competitors

The first main culprit of click fraud is direct competitors who often sell the same products or services and therefore bid on the same keywords.

As these competitors are already running their own ads and know how expensive a single click can be, they purposely click on other businesses’ ads to cost them money. By doing this, they can achieve several things.

If a business is running a limited ads campaign with a daily budget, then clicking the ads will speed up how fast that daily budget is used up. Once the daily budget has been reached, in most cases the ad will stop running and disappear from the results altogether. This means that any ad with a position below them is likely to move up to a higher position once the ad is paused for the day.

So by clicking other businesses ads, not only do they increase their competitor’s cost per acquisition, but in some cases, they can also temporarily disable their ads.

In the long term, some competitors can actually click their competition off paid search by making it not profitable for them to continue to run ads anymore.

2. Webmasters

If it’s not competitors clicking your ads, then there’s a good chance it could be webmasters instead.

As part of Google’s display network, there are currently over 2,000,000 partner websites signed up to their AdSense program. This program allows webmasters to display Google ads on their websites in exchange for a percentage of the ad revenue.

Currently, for every click a webmaster gets on their display ads, they receive 68% of the revenue share recognised by Google.

The obvious question for most webmasters is: how can I get more ad clicks to make more money? And this is where the fraud begins.

Instead of spending their time and efforts on growing their website traffic, some webmasters take the lazy options and simply click their own ads.

At low levels, it can just be a click every now and then. But in some cases, there have been webmasters that have built their own automated software to repeatedly click their own ads hundreds of times a day.

3. Fraud Rings

It’s not just competitors and webmasters who are to blame for click fraud. In recent years there has been a huge increase in organised fraud with criminal groups targeting advertiser’s precious ad spend.

With low start-up costs, high profitability, and potentially millions to be made, making money from click fraud is big business.

And with mobile devices being more popular than ever, many fraudsters have utilized the power of mobiles to turn them into money-making machines. In 2020 alone, Google has removed over 600 mobile apps for being related to ad fraud and click fraud.

Unknown to the users of the app, many of them contain malicious code that operates in the background automatically clicking ads and watching videos. Making these apps on a large scale can generate these fraud rings bags of money every single day at the expense of advertisers.

What Are PPC Networks Doing To Stop It?

As click fraud has become more and more common in recent years, PPC networks such as Google Ads have been forced to tackle these fraudulent clicks.

To fight back and ensure that advertisers don’t give away their precious ad spend, Google set up its own traffic quality centre to detect suspicious clicks. Referred to as invalid clicks by Google, these clicks are any type of click that Google doesn’t think is from a real person or has any interest in the ad. Sometimes these invalid clicks can be purely accidental, such as a misclick, whereas other times it can be deliberate clicking by competitors or fraud rings.

Once an invalid click has been detected, Google will automatically issue the advertiser with a credit refund to their account. This significantly helps reduce the amount of ad spend and money advertisers lose to invalid traffic.

Of course, Google isn’t always right, and not everyone trusts Google to be the judge! After all, Google does make over 90% of its revenues from selling PPC ads.

That’s why many third party traffic verification and click fraud protection services have joined the fight against click fraud. Many advertisers want a second opinion on whether their clicks are legitimate or not and the confirmation that their traffic is genuine.

How You Can Tackle Click Fraud In 2020

As you can probably tell by now, click fraud is a big problem for advertisers and it affects plenty of PPC networks besides just Google.

Platforms like Google Ads might have their own traffic quality centres in place, but with little incentive to actively block fraud, how can advertisers trust them?

To combat the threat of click fraud, many advertisers have decided to take fraud prevention into their own hands and look for additional layers of protection. As fraud rings keep getting smarter and more cunning, simple detection systems are becoming less effective by the week.

PPC Protect and ClickCease are services that offer advertisers an additional layer of protection against ad fraud. By utilizing the power of machine learning and AI, the software analyses every click on an advertiser’s ad and quickly learns which clicks are fraudulent.

The clicks that are detected as being fraudulent are automatically flagged and blocked from clicking the advertiser’s ads in the future. By being proactive on blocking click fraud and working in conjunction with Google’s owns invalid clicks detection, the chances of being a victim of click fraud are reduced significantly.

Don’t rely on Google to catch all the fraudsters, and don’t risk wasting your precious ad spend. Sign up to a trial of PPC Protect today, and see how much money you’re losing to click fraud.

TL;DR

• PPC stands for pay-per-click. It works by costing you only when someone clicks on your ads.
• It works well for small businesses because you can easily make changes and track your results.
• Strategies include competitor bidding, structuring your account well and utilising tools.

No matter what industry you’re in, PPC marketing helps businesses get the leads and customers they need, FAST.

If you’re a small business looking for ways to increase the amount of traffic and leads you get on your website, then PPC marketing is something you should consider. But with pay-per-click marketing being such a vast topic, where do you start?

Luckily, you don’t have to be a professional to run a successful PPC campaign, and by following some simple strategies, you can take advantage of this incredible marketing tool. No matter if your current marketing budget is £100 or £10,000 a month, PPC is an excellent marketing strategy.

Before we cover the most effective strategies every small business should be using on their pay per click campaigns, let’s learn a little more about what pay per click marketing is.

What is pay-per-click marketing?

Pay-per-click marketing is a form of online marketing in which advertisers pay a fee every time someone clicks on their advert, hence the name pay per click. This fee can vary depending on the level of competition and usually involves a bidding system in which advertisers bid for the top spot. Depending on the PPC network, this can be anything from a few cents to hundreds of pounds per click.

The biggest PPC ad network out there by far is currently Google Ads which serves hundreds of millions of ads every day via its search results and display network. If you want to target users that are searching for products and services that you provide, then Google is the go-to.

With various targeting options available, advertisers can pick from a range of placements to display their ads to ensure they get the best return on investment. With as little as $100 a month, small businesses can test drive the network to see just how much potential it has.

But why would a small business choose PPC marketing over other traditional methods of advertising?

Does PPC work for small businesses?

With so many different marketing options available for small businesses, why is PPC advertising so important? And does it work for small businesses?

The answers are speed, flexibility, tracking, and yes!

Pay-per-click advertising allows small businesses to create ads and start bringing in leads almost instantly. Once a business’s advertisements are approved by Google (which usually takes a few hours), the ads will begin receiving clicks and directing traffic to the business’s website.

Compared to traditional methods of print, TV, and radio, these advertising strategies take significantly longer to plan and produce the final adverts. But with PPC ads taking just a few hours to be approved, you can start receiving targeted traffic much faster, which means less waiting around.

Another massive benefit of PPC for small businesses is flexibility. Since all the ads are digital, they can be quickly edited to reflect any changes such as a change in the phone number, address or can even be turned off if you run out of stock. With traditional methods of advertising, you’d be stuck with out-of-date leaflets and banners which would mean spending more money on getting them replaced.

But one of the best benefits of PPC marketing by far has to be the targeting options available. PPC networks like Google allow you to target users on a range of options including keyword, area, gender, age and device type. With so many targeting options, you can run campaigns that will only target users with the highest chance of converting, thus maximising your budget. What other advertising methods allow you to do that?

The best PPC strategies for small businesses

Now you understand the power of pay per click marketing for small businesses; it’s time to take a look at some strategies. As with any marketing medium, there are various trends and strategies that many businesses use. If you want to get the most out of your monthly PPC budget, then these are some of the strategies you should be using.

Bidding on competitor’s brand names

What’s the simplest way to target potential customers that are looking to buy your goods and services? User’s who are searching for your competitors!

No matter if you run a local or nationwide business, the chances are you’ll have a competitor nearby. Many established chains and franchises often receive many searches on Google as people are searching to find their nearest store. Being the PPC marketing pro that you are, you could set up PPC ads that display when a user searches for your competitors brand name while limiting it to a specific area.

If you bid enough so that your ad appears in the top 3 positions, you’ll be able to intercept users searching for your competitor and hopefully win them over. Not only is this strategy incredibly effective for getting clicks, but you’ll often experience a much higher conversion rate.

To protect yourself from other companies doing the same to your brand name. Always be sure to set up your own ads targeting your brand name. With a well-optimised page, you’ll be able to secure the top spot without paying much per click.

Copy your competitors’ keywords

When you first start running a PPC campaign, it can be incredibly hard to decide which keywords you want to target. With literally billions of keywords out there, how do you refine the never-ending list to only target the most profitable keywords?

Why waste hours of your time when you can piggyback off your competitor’s success? Using tools such as SEMRush, Mangools and Answer the Public, you can enter your competitor’s website and find all the top keywords they are bidding for. You can then extract these keywords and run your own adverts on them.

If your competitor is bigger than your business, then the chances are they’ll have a dedicated PPC team whose job it is to manage their campaigns and ads. Since they’re spending money on PPC professionals and tools, you can piggyback their success without having to spend a cent on research.

Structure your account and campaigns correctly

To get the most out of your PPC campaigns and budget, you’ll want to be paying as little as possible for your clicks. Not only will this mean you can get more clicks for your budget, but it should also give you a higher return on ad spend.

Google uses a metric known as the Quality Score to decide how much an advertiser should pay per click. Advertisers who have more relevant and optimised campaigns pay less per click compared to those who don’t. To get the most out of your monthly ad spend, you should be organising campaigns into the correct ad groups and pointing them to relevant landing pages. Even if it means making ten new landing pages for each ad group, you’ll be saving lots of money in the long run from the savings.

Write captivating ads

There’s no point spending money on PPC networks such as Google Ads, just to bore people to death with drivel. If people aren’t interested enough to click on your ad, then you won’t get any leads or sales and could be losing out to your competitors.

Depending on what type of ads you are running and what industry you are in, the average click-through rate can range from 2.09% to 6.05%. Moreover, since the click-through rate has an impact on your quality score and sales, making sure it is as high as possible is essential to your success.

To boost your click-through rate and attract more clicks, your ads need to be attention-grabbing and stand out from your competitors. This means making the ads straight to the point while also including any benefits such as warranties, free trials, money-back guarantees or free shipping into the ad copy. The best place to get inspiration on what to write and include is by looking at your competitor’s ads or other Google Ads examples. It might take a bit of trial and error, but once you master the art of writing captivating ads, the difference will be clear as day.

Limit your budget

As a small business, when you’re first starting in the world of pay per click marketing, you should take things slow and steady. The last thing you want to do is accidentally blow through thousands of pounds and have nothing to show for it! With some clicks on Google Ads costing tens and even hundreds of pounds per click, ensuring you know what you’re doing is crucial.

Luckily, ad networks such as Google Ads let you set daily budgets to be safe. This means that once you reach your daily budget, your ads will be paused for the day and you won’t spend any more money. This is great when you’re first starting out as it allows you to not go over budget, while also not blowing through all your money in a single day.

Once you have a profitable and successful campaign that is generating your leads, you can then start to increase your budget slowly. By following this simple strategy of having a daily budget, you’ll be able to get the most out of PPC marketing without wasting all your money in a day.

Protect your ads from click fraud

It’s no secret that the world of PPC is exceptionally competitive. With hundreds and sometimes thousands of businesses bidding on the same keywords, everyone wants to be number one. This competitiveness often leads to some shady tactics, which include competitors clicking on your ads.

By clicking on your ads, you’ll still incur a charge for the click, but you won’t receive any sales or leads from it. Now imagine your competitor doing this to you every single day, your monthly ad spend will quickly be exhausted.

To stop this from happening, it’s crucial you protect yourself from harmful clicks by using click fraud detection software such as PPC Protect and ClickCease. Not only will the software monitor all the clicks your ads receive, but it will also automatically fraudulent users from seeing your ads in the future. In the long run, this saves you money by only showing your adverts to legitimate users.

Save time with tools

Once you get to the point where you are spending a few thousand pounds a month on PPC ads, it can become incredibly tedious to manage your campaigns and individual ads. Especially if your entire PPC team is just one person, who works part-time.

Luckily, there are plenty of PPC automation tools out there that will save your hours of optimisation and adjustments by doing them all for you. Tools like Adzooma help automate the boring stuff and provide a range of suggestions to help optimise your ads. No matter if you’re trying to make sense of your Google Ads reports or trying to reduce the money spent on low converting keywords, AdZooma can help. With a range of automated features, you’ll save yourself hours managing your PPC campaigns which you can spend on more important things, such as running your business!

Now you know some excellent PPC strategies for small businesses, what are you waiting for? It’s time to go out there and put this all into practice.