Welcome to Inside AdSecure, our ongoing series that dives into different aspects of the platform, to ensure our partners always get the most out of our solution. 

In this installment we’re looking at an easily enabled function that allows for a deeper level of analysis of the user experience when they opt to engage fully with banner and native ads: the click-on button. 

The Fundamentals: What happens to the user post-click?

While many attacks injected within a banner creative can trigger without proactive engagement from users visiting the website where the bad ad is displayed, some attacks are more deceptive, hiding their attacks on the other side of the ad after the user has engaged and clicked on the banner. Once an infected ad has been clicked, attacks can happen at multiple points within the complete redirection path, leaving the user hit with a nasty malware to deal with, or a phishing URL extracting their personal and financial details. 

However it’s not just banners that can have this sort of fraud hiding on the post-click side of the ad. This is exactly the same technique that is used when fraudsters launch malicious threats within Native ads, and it is highly effective. Native ads have become very popular as a format because they are less intrusive than other banners and pops, and flow with the other content on the site. This leads to a higher click rates from users, and it’s when they engage by clicking on the native ad where they can fall victim to a redirection hijack that sends them to a malicious page, a ransomware attack, or any other number of digital threats. 

The Pro-tip: Enable the click-on feature for complete insights into the user journey

AdSecure’s click-on button couldn’t be easier to enable for any projects that are monitoring native ad campaigns, where it is crucial to explore what happens post-click continuously, or for projects analysing your banner ad campaigns where you want to know if there is something dangerous waiting for the user on the other side. 

To enable the click on projects created manually within the AdSecure user interface, you can do this easily during the initial project set up by enabling the click-on button located just above the proxy location options in the set-up window, as seen below. 

Should you decide that you want to add the click to an already existing project, you can always open the project and enable the click function at any time while the project is running. 

Once the project has been submitted and the analysis complete, the report AdSecure generates detailing the analysis will include a page that details the results both for the initial scan of the ad and the results for the post-click content here. You can easily toggle through each report to get insights on every step in the redirection path by clicking on each option.

Clicking on native ads is THE best way to ensure the end users engaging with these ads remain safe while doing so, and it provides an extra layer of security for your banner ad campaigns by uncovering what could be waiting on the other side of the interaction. 

If you would like additional support with how best to utilise our click-on feature within your projects, please contact us at support@adsecure.com