An estimated 54 percent of the world population now has access to the internet. And that number is on the increase rapidly. Research also shows that people around the globe are spending considerably more time online now than they are watching TV. That global phenomenon has opened online marketing floodgates. Companies and marketers are turning to digital ad channels to compete like never before for the attention of their viewers. Because of the increased need for an online presence and overall market demand, digital advertising spending is expected to reach $237 billion, or 44 percent of all global advertising revenues. That well surpasses television as today's single most popular marketing channel.
Despite the fact that a large portion of well-established marketers flock to PPC and digital ads as a whole, the challenges that issues such as Ad Click Fraud can create make it increasingly difficult to build a successful online marketing camp. Clicking fraud, along with various other forms of undesirable money-wasting clicks, comes in different forms and happens for different reasons.
All of them however have detrimental effects on the advertising efforts of any company. Mitigating the negative effects of illicit traffic is extremely important for any marketing endeavor to succeed. Marketers, therefore, need to monitor, track, understand the source and study the specific way in which each of these different types of money-wasting clicks is generated to establish effective protective mechanisms.
Today, counterfeit clicks that waste money and generate no meaningful value or revenue cost advertisers billions of dollars ($6.5 billion in 2017). They are the single biggest obstacle facing PPC marketers.
For those of you who don't know, clicking fraud is often used as a paragliding term to describe all non-revenue-generating sources of traffic such as robots, competitors, and criminal organizations. However, ad-click fraud can be described in its purest form as a deceitful interaction between a consumer and a PPC ad that is taken to generate illegitimate marketer charges. These fraudulent users can be human, robots or a mix of the two.
Image Credits- Pixbay
Competitors and bots could just click on your ads! Click Fraud will cause harm to your company by spending money instead of real users on the fraudulent click operation. The latest research shows Click Fraud is 1 out of every 4 clicks. This rising issue is costing trillions of dollars annually to businesses around the world.
Unfortunately, illegitimate clicks can ultimately constitute a huge portion of the PPC spending for most companies. In addition, every instance of ad click fraud has a culprit, be it a competitor or organization that somehow benefits from draining the PPC budget of a company. There are also many cases where illegitimate clicks are more complex than just clicking fraud, complicating and messing the issue.
Automated software to protect against fraud by clicking allows you to detect, log and automatically block click fraud. This saves you money wasted on PPC and increases your ROI! The program secures your budget for Google Advertising & Bing Ads by consistently preventing fraud activity by clicking. If you are reading this article, then I'm sure you too are looking for the right reliable software to protect your online business or website from click frauds. So, in today's post I will be giving you an in-depth comparison between not 2, not 3, but 4 popularly used click fraud protection software to make your search and selection easier.
The software to be compared today are:
So, let's dive in!Clixtell Vs ClickGuard Vs ClickCease Vs PPC Protect 2020 (REVIEWED) Best Click Fraud Software
Here is a tabular representation to give you a quick overview of the four platforms, their prices, features and more. All platforms are almost at par when it comes to the tools and features offered to clients, it is however the price tag that is the actual deal-breaker here.
Best ForA program designed for small and medium business owners, digital marketing agencies, data-driven marketers and companies who are looking for the full marketing image.
Crafted for Google Advertising PPC account managers and marketers looking to optimize their ROI from pay-per-clicks by deleting clicks from advertisements that are fake, illegal and wasting money.
A platform ideal for those interested in eliminating their client competitors from the fraudulent clicks by optimizing their campaigns. This includes user types including PPC managers and advertisers.
Digital marketers and agencies, paying agencies by click, paying professionals by click, advertisers for Google Ads, global brands, etc.
The List of 4 Best Click Fraud Detection Software (2020)
Clixtell is a software-as-a-service company specializing in the detection and prevention of invalid click activity in Google Ads & Bing Ads campaigns and call tracking services, providing advanced solutions for businesses and digital marketing agencies. The professional track record of the company is based on the expertise gained from years of experience in developing state-of-the-art software which provides well-established solutions for all types of business.
ClickGuard provides a proven, tested service for fraud prevention clicks. Your gross margin will increase by 22% and your conversion rates will increase by 38%. Most importantly, 100 percent of your illegal clicks will be eradicated! ClickGuard has created a plugin for Google Ads, which takes into account all the methods listed in this document. They are also the only platform that is "Google Verified" in this comparison. If you have reached this point, then you know that fraud by clicking is a serious risk.
ClickCease is software for click-fraud detection, prevention, and protection. Our anti-click fraud service protects our customers using our industry-leading detection algorithms, using Google Adwords and Bing. ClickCeaseTM automatically blocks out fraudulent IPs. ClickCeaseTM has no search engine association and is an independent company.
Only 100 percent automated, AI-driven click fraud detection solution in the world to stop fraud clicking on Google Ads. Comes standard with auto IP blocking, unlimited protected domains, unlimited users and our industry-leading, advanced AI & self-learning click fraud detection algorithms. Benefit from the insight of our expert analysts & account managers to keep your advertising accounts safe at any time. Built for advertisers of digital agencies & enterprises.
Let's have a look at some of the top features and functionalities that are provided by the four platforms for the users.
Secure campaigns for your Google Ads & Bing Ads using their automated software for fraud protection against clicks.
Track, identify and Avoid fraudulent activity on Google Ads & Bing advertising.
Watch and consider the actions of your Website users with simple, valuable visual insights.
Track and see Converting channels, keywords, and ads.
- Click-to-Call Ads Tracking & Recording
Calculate and record call extensions and call-only advertising track.
High success rates to receive a full refund for invalid activity using our detailed report on fraud clicks.
Real-time clickstream information with insight into everything about your ad clicks you 'd like to know.
360 ° Forensic insight into who's behind every click on your ads, where, why and what.
Effective click preventing fraud and protecting against any type of money wasting clicks on your campaigns.
Deterrence and mitigation of the wasteful click sources that negatively impact your campaigns on Google Ads.
Optimizations of campaigns based on visitor behavior after click eliminate sources of low-quality traffic.
Powerful and actionable reporting enabling complete auditing and accountability for each click on your account.
Watch your landing page for a screen recording of your visitors' behavior. See how they moved, scrolled and clicked their mouse.
Uncover the information behind the clean customer clicks and click on your ads by the dirty competitor and set fraud-fighting rules that are customized to your market.
They 're telling AdWords not to show your advertising to fake outlets, saving you time and much money.
Stop wasting time and money with manual changes to your IP list for the campaign. ClickCease tells AdWords which IPs to block in real-time.
Analyze hundreds of unique criteria to ensure that you only block legitimately fraudulent traffic without turning it entirely. Best of all, just a single line of code is required.
- Block Fraudsters Instantly & Automatically
PPC Protect will automatically decide when abuse happens when clicking and will prevent the IP from ever seeing your advertisements. Clever-and also saves money!
Easily add your admin dashboard with multiple domains. Be billed on total ad spending only ever, not the number of domains you choose to protect.
Need to make your dashboard access to your team for reporting or monitoring purposes? No problem ... No problem! With every PPC Protect plan, we allow for an unlimited number of users per account!
All four platforms are equally competent in this niche and put up a great battle when it comes to delivering the goals they have been designed for. When it comes to ease of use, all of them have made a name for themselves in specific areas that cater to some specific types of developers and businesses. Here is a brief outline of the areas where they score in terms of ease of use!
When it comes to Clixtell, most users agree that they are given advanced analytics just as valuable as the fraud detection service. It is certainly useful to spot the scammers and bad guys but learning about the behaviors of regular visitors is considered a nice touch. Each click is scrutinized and rated; even those not necessarily unscrupulous but invalid.
As far as customer support is concerned, not many reviews can be found, and this can be indicative of the user interface itself. There's always help with setting up rules. With only a few clicks, the integrations can be enabled, and the service runs as long as the marketing campaigns are successful. Most users consider the monthly subscription to be pretty reasonably priced.
In addition to protecting their accounts against fraud, ClickGuard is praised by some product reviewers for its ability to help improve the overall performance of their ads. In addition, users of ClickGuard can exercise full control over their spending by blocking placements that tend to be fraud-inducing. Meanwhile, users also praise the software's real-time statistics.
Some ClickGuard reviews from local businesses say the software helps them avoid paying for click fraud, especially when people click on ads intentionally to cause increased expenses. Additionally, the app enables them to submit custom alerts to click criminals to help prevent further violence. Lastly, many reviewers have good things to say about the reporting capacities of ClickGuard. They can easily detect patterns using charts and graphs, and track performance over time.
With ClickCease, users receive real-time notifications on their ad campaigns regarding any suspicious activity. In addition, users may automate the blocking of fraudulent IPs, or they may do so themselves by reviewing the notifications received. The users can easily recognize the repeated IPs that click on the ads repeatedly and block them for good. In addition, working with ClickCease is very simple, and no special knowledge is required by the users to use the solution on their site.
Blocking fake IPs from stopping ad campaigns ensures that the advertisements are attracting more and more actual viewers to screen. User reviews suggest that using ClickCease has boosted their CTR compared to the rate at previous campaigns where the solution was not used. The solution offers detailed information on any ad campaign that clicks on the IP. This includes the IP address, location, device ID and ISP information. This helps the users to identify whether or not their ad campaigns reach the right audience.
PPC Protect is an AI-enabled solution for fraud protection through clicks. The program will spot click fraud using advanced machine learning algorithms based on the rules set by the advertisers. They can create rules that are specific to their own business or industry, and the software will automatically learn and apply those rules as it performs operations to discover anomalous and illegitimate ad clicks.
Developers will not only be able to track the traffic coming in and out of their PPC ads, but they can also check all the visitors on the website even if they don't click on the PPC ads before. Advertisers can block click fraud perpetrators immediately, even before they take their first action, by tracking web traffic too.
If you ever run into any kind of trouble, be it technical or knowledge-based, all 4 platforms make sure that you can instantly get in touch with their customer support team and have your issues solved as soon as possible so that the progress and growth of your business is not hindered!
Here is a quick run-through over the various plans offered by these platforms, including details of their prices and the features that come along with those price tags. You can visit their respective official websites to get more information regarding the plans, especially those custom plans for which you will have to contact their support team!
BASIC- Price: $15 per month ($12 per month - Annually)
- 24/7 Click Fraud Detection
- Live Fraud Notifications
- Website Video Recorder
- Google Ads Integration
- Live Online Dashboard
- Conversion Intelligence
- Up to 5,000 Ad Clicks
- Price: $50 per month ($40 per month - Annually)
- Price: $75 per month ($60 per month - Annually) (Starting)
- Price: $59 per month ($47 per month - Annually)
Click forensic monitoring with highly customizable protections to protect against rising sources of threat and optimize for performance.
PremiumGUARD- Price: $79 per month ($63 per month - Annually)
Advanced multi-layered protection with granular controls and triggers with built-in campaign optimization for advanced sources of threat.
EliteGUARD- Price: $99 per month ($79 per month - Annually)
Unlimited configuration options for unrivaled all-around protection from very persistent sources of threat and maximization of ROI campaigns.
Enterprise/Agency- Price: Contact the support team for quotes
With dedicated account manager and expert support, World-class PPC optimization and protection against all sources of threat.
- Price: $15 per month ($12 per month - Annually)
- Price: $50 per month ($40 per month - Annually)
- Price: $75 per month ($60 per month - Annually) (Starting)
- 24/7 Monitoring
- Email notifications of Fraudulent Clicks
- Insightful Dashboard
- Domains Included: Unlimited
- Ad Clicks: According to the slider
- IPv6 Support
- AdSpy - Competitor Ad Intel
- Account Sharing
- Dedicated Account Manager
- Price: $70 per month ($50 per month - Annually)
- UNLIMITED Clicks
- UNLIMITED Domains
- Auto IP Blocking
- Dedicated Account Manager
- Best in Class Protection
- Price: Contact support team
- All-Pro features
- UNLIMITED Budget Protection
- Advanced Reporting
- Exclusive Partnership Access
- Log Analysis Reports
If you are a small business with budget constraints, then Clixtell and ClickCease will be your choice to go for, with plans starting at just $12 per month (billed annually). ClickGuard and PPC Protect come with more powerful features and tools, but at a higher price tag starting at $47 per month (billed annually) and $50 per month (Billed annually) respectively!
When it comes to supported platforms, then Clixtell is the only Click fraud protection platform in this comparison which apart from the web version, is also available for users on iOS and Android. The rest of the platforms only support the web version. This clearly gives Clixtell the win in this round.
When it comes to training options, resources and knowledge base to help users around with generic problems that can be solved through videos, webinars and more, all 4 platforms are pretty much at par with one another in terms of the options provided to them. However, PPC Protect takes a slight edge over the others since it offers "In-person" training, which is not offered by the other three.
Quick LinksCustomer Ratings and Reviews
ClickGuard Reviews
ClickCease Reviews
PPC Protect Reviews
Conclusion- Clixtell Vs ClickGuard Vs ClickCease Vs PPC Protect 2020 (REVIEWED) Best Click Fraud Software
The average customer ratings mentioned above clearly show that all four platforms are almost equally competent when it comes to providing protection against click fraud and related issues that most developers, publishers and businesses face today. While all platforms score pretty well in all categories of comparison, the customer ratings show that users have responded better to the services provided by ClickGuard and the corresponding results achieved from it. Another reason why ClickGuard may have taken this slight edge over others is the fact that it is the only "Google Verified" click fraud protection tool in this comparison. However, it is also slightly expensive!
Apart from these aspects, I can convincingly say that all of these tools fair pretty well at sufficing the purpose they have been developed for, putting up a close fight against one another. It really will depend on what your requirements are from software like these. If you are a small business with budget constraints, then Clixtell and ClickCease will be your choice to go for, with plans starting at just $12 per month (billed annually).
However, if budget is not an issue for you and the trust of Google matters to you, along with unlimited clicks and domains, then ClickGuard and PPC Protect can be your best friends. IT'S REALLY UP TO YOU!
