In this article, we’re going to analyze how CTR Manipulation works for each campaign type.
So what happens in the background, then?
Google Search
1. We open Google.com in incognito mode, in an actual browser.
2. We use an ad blocker so we never load or click on ads.
3. We search for one of the keywords that you defined in the campaign.
4. We accept cookies if asked.
5. We scroll randomly on the page. Or we scroll the infinite scroll until it stops loading.
6. We look for the exact URL that you provided anywhere on the search results page. If this is not found, we are going to extract the (sub)domain from the URL and look for that one.
7. We click on it if found.
8. If not found, we move to the next page and repeat steps #5-7 until found or until we reach the 4th page of the results.
9. The moment the link is found, the system clicks on it. This is the entry page. On this entry page, we will identify several links randomly that we’ll browse next.
Google My Business
1. We open Google.com/maps in incognito mode, in an actual browser.
2. If you’ve enabled GeoLocation, we’re opening the maps at the specific geographic radius that you provided, we click on the location icon at the bottom right of the screen and click on “search this area”. This way, we only see relevant results strictly from the radius that you configure. The lower the radius, the higher the zoom-in on the map and hence, fewer results.
3. We use an ad blocker so we never load or click on ads.
4. We search for one of the keywords you defined in the campaign.
5. We accept cookies if asked.
6. We scroll randomly on the page.
7. We look for the partial listing title that you provided in the business listing result pages.
8. We click on it if found.
9. Otherwise, we load all the results through the infinite scroll until Google says “No more results”.
10. We click on your business listing when found. We then click on the “directions” link, we wait for the map to load and then go back. We now click on the website under your listing.
11. This is the entry page. On this entry page, we will identify several links randomly that we’ll browse next.
YouTube
1. We open YouTube.com in incognito mode, in an actual browser.
2. We use an ad blocker so we never load or click on ads/videoads.
3. We search for one of the keywords you defined in the campaign.
4. We accept cookies if asked.
5. We scroll the infinite scroll until there are about 50-80 results.
6. We look for the video ID anywhere on the search results page. We only compare lowercase video IDs. And we only look for the video ID, not for the entire URL that you provided.
7. We click on it if found.
8. If not found, we stop the search as we only look at the first 50-80 results.
9. The moment the video is found, the system clicks on it. We wait here for at least 5 minutes.
Etsy
1. We open Etsy.com in incognito mode, in an actual browser.
2. We accept cookies if asked.
3. Under no circumstance do not run any Etsy ads while using our tool. If you pay for an ad, Etsy will no longer display your listing organically at all. And on top of that, we noticed that the ad blockers are unreliable with Etsy so it might happen that we click on your ad instead of the organic listing.
4. We search for one of the keywords you defined in the campaign.
5. We scroll randomly on the page. And we allocate a random amount of time on this page.
6. We look for the listing ID from the URL that you provided. Or we look for products that belong in your shop. If you configured the campaign to look for “https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/123456789/something”, we’re going to look for “listing/123456789”. If you configured to look for “https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/AShopName”, we’re going to look for products that belong to “AShopName”.
7. We always click on the first result that we find.
8. If not found, we move to the next page and repeat steps #5-7 until found or until we reach the 4th page of the results.
9. The moment the listing is found, the system clicks on it.
10. Once we land on the listing page, we scroll randomly, look at 4 pictures and then we click the Add to Cart button.
Bing Search
1. We open Bing.com in incognito mode, in an actual browser.
2. We use an ad blocker so we never load or click on ads.
3. We search for one of the keywords you defined in the campaign.
4. We accept cookies if asked.
5. We scroll randomly on the page.
6. We look for the exact URL that you provided anywhere on the search results page. If this is not found, we are going to extract the (sub)domain from the URL and look for that one.
7. We click on it if found.
8. If not found, we move to the next page and repeat steps #6-7 until found or until we reach the 4th page of the results.
9. The moment the link is found, the system clicks on it. This is the entry page. On this entry page, we will identify several links randomly that we’ll browse next.
Bing Places For Business
1. We open www.bing.com/maps in incognito mode, in an actual browser.
2. We use an ad blocker so we never load or click on ads.
3. We accept cookies if asked.
4. We search for one of the keywords you defined in the campaign.
5. We scroll randomly on the page.
6. We look for the domain name that you configured in the business listing result pages.
7. We click on the listing if found. And then we click on the “website” domain for that listing.
8. If not found, we move to the next page and repeat steps #6-7 until found or until we reach the 4th page of the results.
9. Your website opens. This is the entry page. On this entry page, we will identify several links randomly that we’ll browse next.
On all the pages that we browse, we scroll randomly and spend a random amount of time. We also browse a random amount of pages +/-1 on the amount you’ve set, so it’s never the same value.
The amount of time that we spend is also random and is always greater than what you configured.