A Leeds-based business has helped US online retail brand, Island Jay, save thousands in online advertising spend by eliminating fraudulent Facebook clicks.
Beacon, which specialises in click fraud protection, has helped the Florida-based brand achieve quarterly savings of $12,000 by assessing how much of its budget was being wasted on invalid, non-human clicks.
Click fraud is when fake clicks target pay-per-click [PPC] ads, boost the search rankings of a webpage, or artificially inflate the popularity of a post on social media, and is most commonly carried out with the use of automated programmes known as click bots.
Island Jay, which attributes much of its success to its Facebook and Instagram ads, had some awareness of click fraud prior to approaching Beacon but, without any data on this available from Facebook, did not know exactly how much of its advertising spend was being wasted on fake clicks.
The business deployed Beacon’s click fraud protection across its Facebook campaigns for an initial trial period and it found that, in Island Jay’s worst month for bot traffic, 66% of its budget had been wasted on click fraud.
In the three-month period that the company has been using Beacon, it has achieved savings of $4,000 per month, resulting in a much stronger Return on Investment [ROI].
Jason Guarino, founder of Island Jay, said: “Before discovering Beacon, we thought click fraud was a problem that we just had to live with.
“Initially, we started looking for a solution that could detect click fraud and provide evidence to Facebook so we could claim refunds, but soon we learned that Facebook doesn’t actually issue refunds for advertising spend wasted on bots.
“We didn’t know a solution existed that would remove fake clicks from our Facebook campaigns, and the support from Beacon has been excellent throughout.
“Right from the US representative to the UK customer success team, the service has been great across the board.”
Nigel Bridges, founding CEO of Beacon, said: “We are proud to have played a vital role in helping Island Jay measure and improve its Facebook campaign performance using our click fraud protection platform.
“The very heart of Beacon is our highly capable bot detection engine, from which we can block bots from engaging with paid adverts.
“Typically, 50% of clicks are fraudulent. This means that, for example, an advertiser spending £100,000 a month on Google and Facebook is wasting around £50,000 on fake clicks.
“Beacon achieves as much as a 60% reduction in bot traffic, so the average advertiser could get back as much as £30,000 a month in ad spend that could otherwise be used to reach more genuine customers.
“Our focus, therefore, is to continue detecting and blocking bots faster and more effectively, and to carry on saving our customers from wasting their budgets on non-human traffic.”
Shortlisted as one of Yorkshire’s 5 Rising Stars and listed by Tech Nation as one of 16 top AI companies to watch out for in 2020, Beacon was announced as the winner of the Tech Nation Rising Stars 3.0 Cyber Award, recognising it as one of the UK’s best cyber security companies, and has recently been shortlisted in the Innovation category at this year’s UK Digital Growth Awards.
Beacon is driven by a proven board of directors with extensive experience in the tech and artificial intelligence sectors, supported by seasoned investors that recognise the potential of the Beacon platform.
