With the advent of pay-per-click advertising, small businesses can now afford targeted, content-related Internet marketing campaigns. Google’s Adwords service, for example, allows advertisers to set the price they are willing to pay every time someone clicks on one of their ads. The ads are placed on websites that display content that is relevant to what the advertiser is selling, thereby ensuring that a targeted audience will see them. This approach has been invaluable to the success of many small businesses. Unfortunately, it has also created opportunities for fraud.
The websites that run your ad get paid based on the number of clicks each ad receives. Although this amount is usually only a few cents, fraudsters have realized that thousands of clicks per day can add up to a lot of money. Typically, they will set up multiple sites that feature nothing but pay-per-click advertisements. They then pay other people small fees to continually click on the ads, earning ad revenue without actually producing any sales for the advertisers. Some estimates place the average number of fraudulent clicks at 10-15% of the total click-thru rate, costing small businesses thousands of dollars.