How to set up and use Polygraph

October 21, 2022 ∙ 5 minute read

In this article we show you how easy it is to set up and use Polygraph. We provide step by step instructions, so you won't get lost. Getting everything up and running will only take a few minutes.

Step 1: Add the Polygraph tracking code to your website

Polygraph looks at every ad click to see if it's real or fake. To do this, we need to analyze visitors after they click on your ad and arrive at your landing page.

Simply add the following text to the <HEAD> section of your landing page:

<!-- Polygraph fraud detection -->
<script src="https://cdn.polygraph.net/pg.js"></script>
<!-- /Polygraph fraud detection -->

Some of our customers find it easier to add this code to the <HEAD> section of every page, rather than on the landing page only. That's fine! As long as it's on the landing page, our system doesn't mind if the code is also on your contact page, about us page, or anywhere else on your website.

Step 2: Make sure your ads are using UTMs

We wrote a fairly thorough article on UTMs, What are UTMs and why should they be used?, but we'll cover everything you need to know here.

UTMs allow you to track useful marketing data every time someone clicks on your ads. For example, utm_campaign tells you which campaign the ad belongs to, utm_source tells you which ad network sent the click, and utm_term tells you which of your ad keywords was triggered by the visitor's search terms.

UTMs are automatically added to your URLs by the ad network. They make your URLs look something like this:

https://<your website>/?utm_campaign=<your campaign>&utm_source=<some ad network>&utm_term=<one of your ad keywords>

For example, if someone did a Google search for "click fraud" and then clicked on one of Polygraph's ads, the URL might look like this:

https://polygraph.net/?utm_source=google-ads&utm_term=click%20fraud&utm_campaign=summer-sale

Polygraph requires your ads use utm_campaign, utm_source, and utm_term.

Adding UTMs to a Google Ads' campaign is easy:

  1. From within your Google Ads account, choose a campaign and click on Settings and expand the menu by clicking on Additional settings.
  2. Click on Campaign URL options.
  3. In the Final URL suffix section, add the following:

    utm_source=google-ads&utm_term={keyword}&utm_campaign=summer-sale

    You can replace summer-sale with whatever campaign name makes sense to you.
  4. Click Test to see what the URL looks like. In Polygraph’s case, it looks as follows:

    https://polygraph.net?utm_source=google-ads&utm_term=&utm_campaign=summer-sale

    Since this is just testing the UTM parameters and isn’t the result of an actual click on an ad, the utm_term parameter is blank. When the campaign goes live the correct keyword will be automatically added to the utm_term parameter. For example, if the user did a Google search for “click fraud” and clicked on one of Polygraph’s ads, the URL would be as follows:

    https://polygraph.net?utm_source=google-ads&utm_term=click%20fraud&utm_campaign=summer-sale
  5. Click Save.

If you want to add UTMs on an account level, so new campaigns will automatically use your UTMs, follow the steps below:

  1. From within your Google Ads account, click All campaigns from the top left side of the page.
  2. Click on Account settings and expand the Tracking section.
  3. In the Final URL suffix section, add the following:

    utm_source=google-ads&utm_term={keyword}&utm_campaign=summer-sale

    You can replace summer-sale with whatever campaign name makes sense to you.
  4. Click Test to see what the URL looks like. Remember, the utm_term parameter will only be filled when the campaign goes live.
  5. Click Save.

That's all you need to do for Google Ads.

If you're using Microsoft Ads, adding UTMs to your ads is even easier. From within your Microsoft Ads account, simply go to Tools, Preferences and set Auto-tagging to "on".

To ensure Microsoft Ads sends the bots' search terms instead of the ad keywords, add utm_term={QueryString} to your landing page's destination URL within your Microsoft Ads account. Having the search terms makes it easier to block bots, as you can add their search terms as negative keywords, which means the bots can't see or click on your ads.

Polygraph now has everything it needs to analyse your ad clicks for fraud. You can see every fake click in the Polygraph Dashboard.

Conclusion

Setting up Polygraph is easy, and only takes a few minutes. Simply add the Polygraph tracking code to the <HEAD> section of your landing page, and ensure your ads are using UTMs.

If you need help, please don't hesitate to contact us.