It is a type of fraud that manipulates legitimate user clicks to redirect them to another unknown page.
What is Click Redirection?
Click redirection is a type of fraud where many fraudsters manipulate genuine user clicks and redirect them to unknown pages (eg, fake landing pages, unauthorized affiliate links, or competitor websites).
This type of fraud activity disturbs user interactions, increases CTR, and consumes competitors’ advertisement budgets. It causes financial losses in the marketing budget for advertisers and reduces their trust in affiliate marketing channels.
How Click Redirection Works?
Fraud affiliates use many ways and processes to do click redirection by exploiting tracking systems and also using some of the advanced tools to do these types of frauds. Here is the process of how they do this:
- Setting Up Malicious Websites/Landing Pages: Fraudsters create scripts, use cloaked URLs, or set up hidden redirects on their advertisements and redirect users to the fake landing page or website.
- Intercepting User Clicks: When a user clicks on a legitimate ad or link, a fraudster fake script activates. Those scripts redirect users to an unwanted URL or advertisement.
- Manipulating Attribution: Fraudsters also insert tracking parameters into the redirected URL to claim the attribution for the user’s action (eg, filling out a form or making a purchase). In affiliate marketing channels, they use fraud activities to claim undeserved commissions.
- Final Redirection (Optional): They also get one step ahead to cover their fraud activities to get commission into genuine one, they redirect their users again to the genuine destination (website or landing page) to avoid any fraud detection.
Common Signs of Click Redirection
There are some common signs which you can view to identify any type of click redirection such as abnormal spikes in your CTR, sudden drop in your conversion rates, or inconsistent traffic.
1. Abnormal Spikes in Click-Through Rates (CTR)
If you see any sudden increment in your CTR, it may be a sign of some fraudulent activity. This can happen as fraudsters send a high amount of clicks to your advertisements, or landing pages to manipulate performance metrics to get the false attribution.
Example: You can identify a click redirection if you are running a campaign that has a typical CTA of 3%, but suddenly it jumps to 20% without changing any ad placement or A/B testing.
2. Sudden Drop in Conversion Rates
With the click redirection, your CTR may rise, but your conversion rates will not as the redirected traffic is not interested or doesn’t want to purchase or fill out a form.
You can also identify this by analyzing your campaign reports. There will be a huge gap between the number of clicks and conversions.
Example: If any of your campaigns have a 5% conversion rate it drops to less than 1% even when your clicks are increased.
3. Inconsistent Traffic Sources or Quality
In your Google Analytics, if you can see that you are getting traffic which is getting from unusual locations or countries, or it can be low-quality sources, it may be a sign of click redirection. Fraudsters often use bots, click farms, or fake devices to generate traffic or clicks.
Indicators: There are some indicators that you can view to identify fraud like if you are getting traffic from unknown or suspicious IP addresses. If your users spend minimal time on your landing page or your overall bounce rate increases immediately.
The Impact of Click Redirection
Click redirection can have many consequences on advertisers, affiliate marketers, and performance marketing campaigns. Other than financial losses, these activities disrupt the campaign integrity, affect the brand reputation, and affect partnership relationships.
1. Loss of Advertising Budget
Click redirection consumes your ad spend without getting any genuine leads or conversions. Because of the click redirection, they manipulate clicks to claim attribution for getting the commission.
2. Misrepresented Campaign Metrics and Misleading Data
Because of click redirection, in your reporting metrics, you can see sudden spikes in your performance metrics like CTR, CTC, and conversion rates.
In your analytics, you can see higher CTR but the traffic is not genuine also those are irrelevant which makes it difficult to optimize your campaigns effectively and allocate budget.
Example: You are running a campaign, and you see an increased engagement rate that pushes you to invest more in that channel to get the best results. But, if there will be fraudulent traffic, then there is no point in increasing your budget.
3. Damage to Brand Reputation and Partnerships
Other than your ad budget, click redirection can also harm your brand reputation. Users may have to think of your brand with their negative experiences (eg, spammy ads or irrelevant websites). These activities can also affect relationships with affiliates, partners, and ad networks.
Example: If a user clicks on your ad and reaches a phishing page, they might lose trust in your brand, even if you were not directly involved in the redirection.
Prevent Click Redirection with Trackier
Click redirection is a major threat to performance marketing campaigns. However, with the right tools, you can reduce these risks. Implement using the best performance marketing software like Trackier to reduce click redirection and protect your campaigns and your advertising budget.
1. Real-Time Fraud Detection and Prevention
With Trackier’s fraud detection feature, you can identify and block click redirection in real time and save your ad budget. We monitor clicks, traffic coming patterns, and user behavior to detect if there is fraud or not.
Example: If there is a click that has a mismatched IP or minimal time on your website, Trackier system will flag or block them instantly.
2. Traffic Quality Analysis
On Trackier dashboard, you can do a deep analysis of your traffic sources to identify if there are any inconsistencies in your usual traffic. You can review different metrics like device information or geolocation and understand URL terminologies to identify click redirection.
Example: If you identify that there are multiple clicks that are coming from the same IP address or a non-targeted region in your campaign, there is a strong possibility that there is click redirection fraud.
3. IP and Device Blacklisting
Trackier allows you to blacklist suspicious IP addresses, devices, and domains that might be associated with the click redirection. These will help you to block click redirection while saving your campaign budget.
4. Comprehensive Reporting and Insights
If you are running different campaigns for different regions, you might need to view customizable or specific reports. With Trackier, you can view detailed yet customized reports that help you to take necessary actions like optimizing your campaigns and protecting your campaign budget from click redirection.
