Are you sick and tired of accidentally clicking on ads when you're using your smartphone? Google hears you and has made moves to reduce this. Recent studies estimate that almost 50% of clicks on smartphones and tablets are accidental. Not only is this is irritating for users it’s also costly for advertisers as accidental clicks can lead to inflated click through rates and increased costs.

Improving click quality

In order to improve click quality Google has recently implemented three new updates:

  1. Blocking clicks that happen close to the image edge. On mobile image ads the border area is especially prone to accidental clicks and so as a consequence Google has refined the click-zone. Users must now click on a central part of the image in order to navigate to the advertiser’s website or app
  2. Blocking clicks on the app icon. Another common cause of an accidental click is when users try to click on the ad close button. To avoid this, users will no longer be able to click through the app icon due to its proximity to the close button. Instead, they must click on the call to action button to visit an app store page
  3. Adding a clickability delay. Sometimes ads appear when we least expect them and those of us with trigger happy fingers are prone to inadvertently clicking on an ad when expecting to see a different page. Now, ads will only become clickable after they've been on screen for a short period of time. This will give users time to actually examine the content of an ad and stop them accidentally clicking
Improving user experience

These changes should lead to a better experience for both users and advertisers. Click quality is really important for advertisers and the updates will help reduce costs as well as improve conversion rates. So far, Google has reported a average uplift of 15% in conversion rate since the changes were put in place.The updates will also improve user experience by keeping them on their desired website, rather than unintentionally taking them to other pages. So with these changes, everyone’s a winner!