Let’s sort out best practices for Google Ads Cloaking in 2022.
You might not want to consider Cloaking in Google a panacea, but it might help you pass moderation and prolong your accounts. All cloaking tools operate by the same principle: they determine the attributes of each click, check the database and designate it either as a whitepage, or a blackpage. Therefore, you can successfully cloak Google Ads either with expensive private services or with the affordable Keitaro Tracker (get 20% off with the CPARIP promo code).
Google Ads Cloaking with Keitaro Tracker
One can call it shareware since a monthly license is only $25 (it’s even cheaper with the CPARIP promo code! 😀). The majority of publishers already obtained a pre-paid and customized tracker.
Filters
The first thing to do in Keitaro is to update all databases (GEO, bots, etc.) to active versions and enable all bots’ determination points in settings:
To discard bots and moderators, it is important to adjust filters properly. Check the parameters used to distinguish real users from bots and all:
- Matching country
- Matching language
- NOT a blank referrer
- NO proxy or VPN is enabled
- NO IPv6
- NOT a bot
You can still bother with UTM tags filtering, but these parameters are enough to filter Google bots. The rest are designated as a whitepage. Flow implementation scheme may vary: it may or may not include intercepting flow, etc. The key is to distribute them considering parameters that have been discussed earlier. There’s a screenshot from the Keitaro to illustrate it:
Turn off the Blackpage flow during the moderation and tests:
We strongly recommend that you adhere to the “no redirections” rule! Both the user and bots must land on the same page and domain as indicated in the AC. Further clicks must occur within the same domain.
Local Landing Page
To comply with the “no redirections” rule, you can opt for local landing pages.
Find more information on local landing pages here: https://cpa.rip/stati/keitaro-bez-redirektov/ and here: https://cpa.rip/stati/preland-v-keitaro/
Integration
You can also opt for Keitaro Integration. With this method, all traffic is redirected to the white page where the tracker script is triggered. It decides who stays on a white page, and who should be redirected to the black page. This is particularly true when placing pre-landing pages on website builder domains. In this case, opt for JS integration (here’re configuration options for JS integration).
If the website is hosted on your hosting, you might want to select the “KClient PHP” (with the Keitaro PRO version) or the “Forced PHP redirection” integration method.
When using integration in the Whitepage flow, select “Do Nothing” instead of a redirection.
Pre-Landing Button
Let’s consider an option when all Google Ads traffic is driven to the pre-landing page with one button, which includes a link that redirects a user via Keitaro. Once clicked it distributes traffic to a whitepage (Whitepage generator for Google) and a blackpage hosted on the same domain. It has the same filters. Google does not hold empty pre-landing pages in high regard which affects the quality of keys, but it works still.
Opt for this method in case adding the domain to the tracker to work with the local landing page is impossible, for example, when you run ads on “trusted domains” or builder domains (or to save time).
If you search well in the SERP, you can find different variations designed for different topics. Our universal pre-landing page with captcha is a fine example. Recaptcha imitation results in a large percentage of clicks and thus a reduced traffic loss.
Download one-button pre-landing page here: one-button.zip
But you might want to make a similar one-button pre-landing page with a real ReCaptcha. Google won’t question such a pre-landing page and it will help you get rid of the bots since they can’t complete the captcha 😄.
Whitened-Out Landing Page
You have to understand that Google includes 90% of bots that can be tricked. But if your AC has attracted attention and is being checked by an actual moderator, then by reading your texts he/she will understand that there is more here and no cloak will save the situation. The best option is to use a whitened-out pre-landing page adjusted to Google policies. If you read Google Ads policies carefully, you’ll discover that most of the offers may run without a cloak. For instance, there are SP/BS offers, which do great in the google ads SERP.
Cloaking Services
In Keitaro, you have to customize everything manually, but special cloaking tools make it all easier.
CLOAK IT
It’s another out-of-the-box solution that we haven’t tested yet.
It operates on the same principle (setup guide) but it costs less.
CLOAK IT (get 40% off with CPARIP promo code)
Monthly Subscription Plans:
Adspect
It’s a proven cloaking service that does a great job with Google Ads.
Adspect is an easy-to-use and very powerful and customizable cloud service designed to protect online advertising campaigns (CPA offers and landing pages) from unwanted traffic. Or from Google Ads moderators in our case.
Traffic management in Adspect is organized as traffic flows: these are channels of traffic that can be seamlessly managed, as a campaign in an ad network or a scheme in TDS.
- Create a flow in “Moderation” mode
- Specify redirection details for the target user and everyone else
The following redirection options are available:
There are many more other filter settings, but it’s enough to leave them by default.
- Wait for the AC in Google Ads to enable and switch the flow to “Filter” mode
- While you’re driving traffic, you can observe details on each click in the statistics
There is also a white page generator available via subscription: it simplifies and speeds up work considerably with the necessary cloak scripts already coded in white pages you get.
Monthly Subscription Plans:
Standard – $300
- 20 flows limit. Unlimited redirections. Statistics are stored for three months.
- Suitable for ad network fraud filtering and simple cloaking.
- Includes JS fingerprinting, PHP/JS integration, CPA tracker, and A/B testing.
Pro – $500
- Advanced cloaking. Supports Facebook, Google, TikTok, Bing, and Yandex.
- Unlimited flows. Unlimited redirections. Statistics are stored for six months.
- Includes VLA™ machine learning, HyperLogLog filter, and IP projection.