It’s important to protect your brand online. The dangers of identity theft and copyright infringement can eat into your revenue.
If you don’t deal with them the right way, they could also lead to a loss of customers. It’s not easy to recover from the reputational damage caused by lack of brand protection.
Many Shopify entrepreneurs are in the dark about the importance of such protection. This lack of protection leaves them vulnerable to online fraudsters.
Here we’ll talk about why Shopify entrepreneurs need to focus on brand protection for their good.
It Protects Against Ad Fraud
Companies spend billions of dollars every year on digital advertising campaigns. These campaigns target users based on demographics and preferences.
It takes time and effort to get this ad targeting right. So, any mishaps here can cost companies plenty of resources.
The main mishap occurring with digital ad campaigns is ad fraud. Ad fraud takes place when parties online deprive advertising networks of financial benefits.
Ad fraud is not uncommon for brands selling their products on Shopify. These brands often find fake social media pages promoting their products. The same goes for display ads.
This promotional content is so good that most customers can’t tell they’re fake. Sometimes, customers influenced by these ads buy products from scam sites.
Fraudsters can also convert views to clicks using fake user profiles. This method can give you a false CTR (Click through rate). A false CTR could lead to unreasonable expectations for your conversion rate.
Using fake profiles to boost CTR is why ad fraud is synonymous with simulated traffic. It’s very difficult to weed out these fraudsters without brand protection measures.
These measures include using a viable residential proxy to aid ad verification. Using these proxies can help you enhance ad performance and detect ad fraud.
Proxies can also help you verify the ad placement on landing pages. So, they help you protect your brand image alongside verifying ads.
It Prevents Traffic Diversion
Another way fraudsters affect your sales is by diverting traffic away from your site. They use an effective tactic to prevent customers from visiting your landing pages.
This tactic involves using your Shopify brand name as a keyword on search engines. They use your name as a ranked keyword to bring up the wrong search results.
These results have nothing to do with your brand or products. Often, fraudsters misspell your brand name on purpose.
The spelling mistake wouldn’t be obvious enough to throw the search engine results off. So, results would show up for sites that aren’t yours and redirect your traffic to them.
A busy customer looking to buy your product on Shopify may not notice the difference. Or, if you have a complex brand name, they might not know your real brand name.
In that case, they wouldn’t identify the spelling error and suspect anything is amiss. An unsuspecting customer might visit the fraudulent site. They may also place an order for goods that don’t exist.
Creating brand guidelines is an effective way to prevent traffic diversion. You would need to specify a uniform communication style under these guidelines.
As a big brand on a large platform like Shopify, you likely use several ad platforms. These platforms include social media channels and other sites.
Using a uniform communication style across channels can develop a unique brand voice. Customers would then identify your brand through this communication style.
They’d be less likely to fall for fraudulent search results if they’re familiar with your brand voice. Besides, it’s never a bad idea to follow consistency in your promotional tactics.
It Stops Cybersquatting
Cybersquatting is a serious threat to brands and the traffic they pull in. This method is simple and very common for brands on Shopify and other major platforms.
A cybersquatter buys a domain name that customers assume is yours. For instance, say you bought a .com or .uk domain name.
A fraudster may buy a .io or .ae domain name to throw off customers. Customers would visit these sites believing them to be yours.
But, since a cybersquatter bought it before you, it belongs to them. It could sometimes be a genuine mistake on the buyer’s part.
They may indeed have the same brand name as yours in another region. In that case, it’s unfair to call them cybersquatters.
Whether they’re fraudulent or not, domain names that should belong to you pose problems.
- One, they could divert traffic from customers wishing to buy your products.
- Two, they could damage your reputation if these sites sell substandard products.
- Three, they could steal information from your customers wanting to buy from your site.
Whatever the case is, you should prevent cybersquatting as soon as you decide on a brand name. Buy all domain names of the regions you’ll be operating in.
Doing so will prevent fraudsters from buying the domain before you. It’s not uncommon for fraudsters to buy domains for popular brands and demand money for them.
In some cases, fraudsters make social media accounts using your Shopify brand name. These accounts run fraudulent ads and sometimes gather more followers than your account.
Customers influenced by these pages may visit fraudulent sites. Or worse, believe lies about your brand.
You should verify your social media accounts and handles to prevent this. This method is one of the best ways to protect your brand.
It Safeguards Customers
A large number of customers fall prey to data theft every year. Trusting the wrong brands is among the main reasons for this.
Customers also face dangers when they buy from trusted brands. How? When brands don’t protect themselves from cyber attacks, it makes customers vulnerable too.
A worst-case scenario could include fraudsters stealing private financial information from customers.
Customers trusting beloved brands lose money to online fraudsters because of such theft. The lack of brand protection measures can make you an easy picking for fraudsters.
These fraudsters access your customers’ information without their permission. They could then sell customer data on the dark web.
Few things are scarier for a customer than losing grip on their private data in this way. Customers stand to lose much more than money when their private information leaks.
They stand to lose their reputation too. It’s up to you to protect your customers from facing such dire situations.
Invest in good brand protection software to prevent cyber attacks. Several reputed companies offer such software for Shopify brands.
Data theft isn’t the only thing threatening online shoppers, though. There are brands selling counterfeit products on Shopify and other platforms.
These counterfeit brands might use your brand name and logo to sell their products. Customers loyal to your brand might buy these products thinking they’re yours.
But, chances are, these products are of sub-standard quality. Fraudsters likely use low-grade materials and processes to manufacture these products.
Customers using these products get exposed to dangers they may not suspect.
Some of these products lead to lethal consequences if customers aren’t aware of the risk they’re facing. Examples of such products include electronic devices that heat and explode.
Installing brand protection so customers can identify your fake counterparts keeps them safe.
It Maintains Your Reputation
Building a good reputation for your Shopify brand is no mean feat. It can take years to establish a reputation.
But, it takes only minutes to tear it down. Trust in brands around the world falls every year for various reasons.
The rise of counterfeit brands and products is among these reasons. So, it’s not hard to see why customers hesitate before buying from online brands.
Buying from these brands often costs a great deal of money. Customers buying from luxury brands suffer the most when these brands are fake.
Brands selling genuine products suffer too, though. These brands on platforms like Shopify enjoy a good reputation.
They also enjoy consumer trust, which they won over years of business. If customers buy from sake brands sharing your name, it could affect your reputation.
Customers buying from your fake counterparts will find it difficult to trust you. They believe that if they lost money once, they can lose it again.
This lack of trust from consumers will affect your brand reputation. These days consumers post reviews online about their product experiences.
These reviews outline whether the consumers found their buys satisfactory. They also talk about whether a brand is trustworthy.
Reviewers confusing your brand with counterfeit ones may review these fake products online. Anyone reading these reviews might assume the products belong to your brand.
These assumptions could cause significant damage to your reputation. Customers might hesitate to buy from your brand if they believe these assumptions.
Large online platforms have measures in place to weed out counterfeit brands. But, these measures are often not enough.
Protecting your brand from online threats like counterfeits is a more effective solution.
It Prevents Revenue Loss
Executing a brand protection strategy can be pretty expensive. You might have to invest considerable sums in security software.
Investing large sums is justifiable if you’re reaping the rewards of your investment. But how do you know your investment is working?
It’s simple, you look at your revenue before and after buying brand protection. If your revenue increases, it means you’re receiving a good return on your investment.
The same goes for when your revenue doesn’t change much over the years. The problem arises when you notice a decrease in revenue.
A decrease in revenue could show several problems in your business operations. An increase in competition and low product quality are among these problems.
It’s also possible your revenue is decreasing because of ineffective brand protection.
You could still be losing sales to counterfeit brands if you don’t design the right safety measures.
Ads for fake products on social media and other platforms attract unsuspecting customers.
If customers trust these ads, it could divert your sales to fraudsters. This loss of sales will lead to a corresponding loss in revenue.
Brand protection measures can prevent this and give you returns on your investment. These measures are pretty important for new brands on Shopify.
New brands invest considerable amounts when commencing their operations. They need to take the right security measures to ensure they break even.
After they break even, they need to think about long-term financial success. Increased customer satisfaction will help you maximize your sales on online platforms.
You can promote this satisfaction by fighting against counterfeit brands. Understand how these fake brands operate before you take them down.
Consulting brand protection agencies can help you with the same.
It Saves Resources
Prevention is better than cure when you’re dealing with online fraudsters. It’s better to have safeguards in place than to repair the damage caused by a lack of brand protection.
Brands these days spend over 10% of their yearly IT budget on online security measures. It’s easy to calculate how much it’ll cost your brand to protect itself from cyber attacks.
It’s even possible to calculate how much traffic and sales you lose to online fraudsters. It isn’t possible to calculate how much reputational damage you’ll suffer here.
Companies often attempt damage control measures after they face cyberattacks. These measures include new promotional campaigns.
They also include hiring cybersecurity agencies to recover loss data and other resources. These measures are often costly and produce disappointing results.
They cost companies money, time, manpower, and other resources. New brands on Shopify can use these resources to further their operations.
Instead, they find themselves spending these resources on recovering from cyberattacks. This diversion of resources can cost you in the long run if it’s recurring.
It makes more sense to use viable security measures from the get-go.
Conclusion
It’s easy to push aside brand protection as a Shopify entrepreneur. After all, you’ll have your sales and promotional campaign to focus your efforts on.
Remember, Shopify is a competitive platform. Premium brands now use this platform to reach customers online.
Protecting your brand won’t help you with maximizing revenue alone. It’ll also help you maintain your brand image.
It can take a fraudster minutes to destroy your reputation if you don’t protect it. You can protect your brand from such fraudsters with ad verification.
Verifying your social media accounts and buying all relevant domains can help too. Implementing such measures won’t take up too much time and money.
Using your resources for brand protection would pay for itself in the long run even if it did, though.
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