Margie Barkley: How to stop fake Instagram accounts from affecting your Ads

Instagram has undoubtedly changed the way we interact with each other and the brands we love. Instagram has changed the way people interact with one another and brands they love. It’s also changed the way people find information.

Instagram still has a huge following, even though rivals like TikTok are growing. This reach is also what makes it so popular among marketers.

As is the case with most platforms, success comes with many challenges. Instagram has been a popular platform for some time, and people with malicious intentions have taken advantage. They’ve created fake accounts.

Fake Instagram accounts can be annoying to users. As a marketer for a company, fake Instagram accounts can be detrimental and cause you to lose money or customers.

What types of fake Instagram accounts are there?

Fake followers account

You can spot these fake accounts in just 10 seconds. Fake followers are created to increase engagement, such as comments, likes or followers. These fake accounts can be hired online to boost the appearance of your popularity.

These fake accounts are removed from Instagram after a few weeks or days.

In the course of my investigation into click farms, i spoke with and interviewed a few small Instagram bot farmers, one of whom was based in Kenya. He demonstrated how easy it was to set up a follow-forfollow order, and generate spam comments using specific hashtags.

One of these click farms also used his follower software to run on an account I had not used. His service offered several levels of fake Instagram profiles, from the basic follow-forfollow and spam comments to more premium fake Instagram accounts that behaved and looked more like real profiles.

Spam account for ‘adult Services’

Adult services can range from pornography and prostitution to low-quality Instagram accounts. These accounts often generate a large number of spam comments that say the same thing over and over again. Most likely something along the lines “I’m hot!” You can also say “Check out my photos” or “I am horny. Who wants to chat?”

These are usually bot accounts that comment on certain accounts or react to hashtags. The goal of these bot accounts is to drive traffic to adult websites.

The impersonator

It’s easy to think that copycat accounts will only affect high-profile accounts. In reality, fraudsters are increasingly creating fake Instagram accounts by using real images and posts. Why?

A fraudster could gain trust by copying an authentic Instagram account or by stealing some of the images and profile pictures. This would allow them to commit all kinds of scams. It could be that they ask their friends and family for money. It could be a series of elaborate tricks to gain confidence.

They are likely to be operated also by fraudsters with experience. They can then quickly gain a large following, and use the trust they have gained by using a real face to defraud other people.

The troll account

In 2023, fake news and disinformation will be old news. The use of trolling and spreading disinformation is still a big business. Instagram and other major platforms have said that they have taken measures to prevent disinformation from spreading in the wake of the Russian invasion into Ukraine.

Reports suggest that Russian trolls have stopped using bots because they are too easy to ban. They’re concentrating on real people instead of bots to spread misinformation on Instagram.

Data scraping bots

Instagram is not an exception. Data scraping bots are available for almost every platform. These bots can interact with your timeline and profile, even though they don’t pretend to be you. This can also include ads that are paid.

What is the purpose of these Instagram data scraping robots? You can use them to collect data on likes, hashtags, images, contact information, and more.

Fake Instagram accounts can have a negative impact on business.

One in ten Instagram accounts are fake, putting that figure between 95 and 150 millions.

These fake accounts continue to appear despite the fact that they are regularly cleared out.

We all know that fake Instagram profiles are annoying and spammy. What’s the worst they can do to your business if you let them?

Fake influencers/fake Engagement

Influencers who inflate their following is a major source of discontent for Instagram marketers. Around half of Instagram influencers are believed to use fake accounts in order to give the impression of a larger following.

This leads to higher prices and less targeted targeting. It’s not only the smaller influencers. Instagram accounts of some of the world’s biggest celebrities and influencers have fake accounts that make up between 30-40%.

Many of these Instagrammers, even though they may not buy followers actively, do.

Retargeting fake audiences

Instagram profiles run by bots are often operated from click farms and bot farms. If you’ve had some engagement with your ad, it is not worth retargeting them on another platform. Particularly if you are paying for impressions and CPM.

The same is true for all other types of fake account. Profiles used to spread disinformation, spam or fraud will usually be run by the same device.

Clicks wasted on ads

You’ll pay for engagement on your ads. Depending on your payment model, this could be in the form of impressions or clicks through to your website.

Can bots and fake profiles click on them? They can.

Does this cost you money? Absolutely.

You’re likely to see fake engagements account for 4 to 5% on average of the clicks you receive from your ads.

Target engagement not met

Most likely, the average fake Instagram account is hiding behind a VPN (virtual private network). This is because it allows automated accounts or bots to continue their activities without being flagged or banned. Instagram’s algorithms are less likely to notice accounts that constantly change their IP addresses.

This is bad news for advertisers because they will target the fake account, even if this account is outside of their geo-targeting zone. More wasted engagement and clicks.

How to identify fake Instagram accounts

You can identify fake Instagram accounts by their common signs. They may be used to commit fraud or send spam. As I mentioned in the article, I have first-hand experience dealing with people who offer fake followers and fake engagement.

These are the common characteristics of fake Instagram accounts, even though Instagram has cracked down on some of these practices.

Mikey067765 or Lovetravel667799 are examples of a generic user name. Mikey067765, Lovetravel667799, etc. A profile picture with low resolution that has been taken from another account. Or, a profile with a very good looking man or woman in sexually suggestive poses, with a link or shortened URL. Accounts with little activity, but many followers.

The truth is, even though these are some of the most common signs that an Instagram account is fake, they are constantly changing and evolving. Instagram scammers will try to fool people by using all kinds of tricks.

To avoid detection, accounts that are designed to inflate the engagement must constantly change their behavior.

How to protect Instagram ads

Businesses running Instagram ads should be careful to protect their campaigns. This means that you should prevent fake profiles from seeing your ads in the first instance.

You can protect your Instagram ads by running Facebook Ads or Meta for Business. ClickCease allows you to automatically monitor and detect fake accounts across multiple Meta campaigns.

These accounts will not see your ads and they won’t waste your budget by being retargeted on multiple platforms.

Learn more about Facebook Ads fraud

The post How To Prevent Fake Instagram Accounts From Affecting Ads first appeared on ClickCease Blog.