Pay-Per click fraud dates back even from the time when Overture was still Goto.com. Only, it wasnt as serious as it is lately since the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is becoming very popular for getting highly targeted traffic as well as making an affiliate-based commission.
So, whats pay-per click fraud
In an ideal world, you and I will pay a fee to a site that offers PPC program and hosts our ads whenever those ads are being clicked by a visitor. The visitor then examines our site and eventually makes a purchase. We make money.
In click-fraud-world as it is nowadays, those clicks that you and I pay for are not coming from potential customers. But from scam artists, automated scripts known as hitbots, underhanded competitors, and even affiliates that just click on our ads in order to earn commission offered by the PPC providers. We lose money.
Fraudulent clicks or click spam can be defined as any kind of click that occurs with zero possibility for a conversion to occur, or a website visit not being originated by a legitimate user. Fraudulent clicks happen on a regular basis - even more than what we could possibly imagine.
Indiatimes published a shocking article about a mother who gets down to work every evening while holding a baby in her lap. She is clicking on PPC advertisements. She doesnt care about the ads, but diligently keeps count its $0.18 to $0.25 per click.
The trend is catching up in India, - says Goutam Rakshit, chairman, Advertising Council of India - Its a numbers game as far as media buying is concerned. And anybody who can manipulate numbers gets the edge. This is unethical, and needs to be curbed.
John Squire, the vice president for product marketing for Coremetrics, estimated that his companys clients are spending approximately $10 million a year on fraudulent clicks. They are spending about $10 million on consumers that dont exist.
How much are you paying for customers that dont exist
If you think your PPC campaign funds are depleting due to a fraudulent click activity, affiliate-generated fraudulent activity, or if you are simply suspicious of the traffic that occurs without any increase in sales - then perhaps you need to start getting tougher with your PPC analysis.
You can always ask for refund from the PPC provider running your campaign if you have suspected a fraudulent click activity. But, you wont get the refund unless you have hard core facts to prove it.
And now, lets get down to the facts.
1a. On a less technical note, define a unique URL for the sales page that will go through the PPC program. Clone your sales page and save it under a different URL.
If your page is selling vitamins for an example, and lets say your URL is www.hotvitamins.com, save it as www.hotvitamins.com/power. Or, create a sub-domain, such as http://power.hotvitamins.com.
Then, use this cloned sales page for your PPC campaign. That way, the only traffic coming to that page is from the PPC website. Only, do not link this new URL to any other website. You want to have 100% pure PPC traffic so you can keep an eye on it.
1b. For more technical people, you can assign unique session id to each of your URLs within your PPC campaigns. Im seeing both techniques being used.
2. Use a basic log analyzer program to begin to investigate the data on the received clicks, including date, time, referrer, page views, URL, IP, etc. Your webhost should already provide you with a log analyzer program or a Site Statistics Tool.
If not, maybe its time for you to change your webhost, or you have to install log analyzer software yourself.
What you want to do at this stage is look for anything suspicious. Based on how comprehensive your Site Statistics Tool is, at the end of the day you want to be able to capture the IP address from each click.
Then, look at the quantity of the clicks from each IP address, click behavior and click timing. Run a reverse IP address lookup to see who is making those clicks.
Basically, you want to be able to gather as many details as possible for each and every click. Whether you will depend on the tool your webhost is providing you, or you will install a software yourself, or you will contract it out, make sure you have the capability of capturing the IP address.
If the IP address was not captured, or cookies were not generated, thats an indication of clicks being generated by automated scripts known as hitbots.
3. Start tracking the conversion ratio. You can choose to track conversions either by using your own conversion tracking system, or by using a third-party conversion tracking tool. There are plenty of low-cost conversion tracking solutions.
In some cases, the services offering to track your clicks will have a sales conversion option available for you. Thats a service you definitely want to get if you dont want to deal with it yourself.
But, if your sales ratio is very low or even zero, your chances are very high that youre being bullied by someone. It could as well be the low demand of your product or a high competition, but if youre getting high amount of traffic from your PPC campaign and low to zero sales, the chances are very high that you could be a victim of click-fraud.
So, what do you do if you suspect that youre receiving fraudulent clicks on your PPC campaign
4. Be meticulous - very thorough. Make sure you have data that points to questionable traffic. You have to have evidence of the suspicious clicks. Ensure that you have a legitimate case even if you have to double check your records. The PPC provider will ask you for facts and not an opinion.
5. Carefully document your traffic analysis during your PPC campaign. Document anything related to the campaign - handwritten notes, email exchanges, scribbles, reports, screen shots, etc.
6. Be sure to record every one of the clicks, whether theyre from your server logs or from a third party processor that you might be contracting for this purpose.
7. Document all relevant competitor positioning. Ever since Google changed its policy on PPC ads, there have been various reports on competitors of a same product manipulating Googles new system.
Its the people with more technical knowledge manipulating the system for their own good while killing the campaigns of the people with no technical knowledge. Theyre not breaking Googles rules, but they know when to pause their campaign (knowingly) and when to reactivate it again.
8. On the other note, you might want to contact your competitors to see if theyre experiencing click fraud. Your PPC campaign might not be the only one experiencing these fake clicks. Two victims cases presented to the PPC provider will make a stronger case.
9. When feeling highly confident that you have a strong case and clear facts that youve been a victim of click fraud, contact your PPC account representative and submit your data with a request for refund. Their investigations can, and do take time.
10. Meantime, continue to monitor your click activity and record any additional data.
Its unfortunate that we have to be so much involved to protect ourselves. We pay for advertising so we can free up our time and let someone else do it. But with the seriousness of PPC click spam nowadays ........ you snooze - you lose.
If the PPC providers dont solve this problem, perhaps there are other ways of bringing highly targeted traffic with less stress.
Steve Dimeck. Author and Publisher. To receive more quality articles such as the one you just read, sign up for Steves [TSM] Bulletin at: Your next issue of the [TSM] Bulletin is just one click away.
Never mind the irritating, but effective, pop-up window. There is another type of interruption advertising that is much more subtle, much less annoying, and just as effective.
It is the negative interruption.
A negative interruption is when an expected pattern is removed or restrained from an expectation causing a noticeable non conformity.
Ill give an example, and then Ill show you. (And Ill bet you a buck youll want to use it for yourself.) Here goes:
Youre viewing a web page and you scroll down a bit to see more. But a small image off to the side, instead of moving with the page, stays in the same relative position.
It doesnt move, while everything else moves. It doesnt conform, thereby causing a persistent interruption, forcing you to notice its quaint existence until you act on it. Its like a child that just stands there and stares at you until you respond.
I am in the act of witnessing a marvelous phenomenon, as people not only just have to have one but Im watching the results grow daily. Let me give you two examples, so you wont think Im pulling your coat tails.
By the way, neither of these is mine. Im just a monkey in the middle watching this unfold like the crazy magic I told you so. In one of these youll be able to see with your own eyes how effective it is.
First is the Instant Buzz plug-in/ad-delivery system. Its free, and highly contagious. Youll likely get this from a small floating window that cant be ignored, though you can dismiss it with a click.
It works so well, that in the last two days Ive seen a mushroom of new subscribers to it. Its a truly beautiful and contagious and viral method of getting your ad to potentially thousands yourself. Take a look:
Now, what if you could use this very viral, persistent negative interruption method with YOUR OWN message, going to your own ad And what if you didnt have to share this technology with others And what if you didnt have to sign-on!
You can. And heres the second tool.
It is a persistent child with many faces and many locations, and you can edit with any message you want. And you can include with it any picture you want.
And you can include a hide me button, or you can make it appear only on the first page view, or every X duration of time, etc. And you can open it to a pop up or a new page, or in the same window, if you want to.
In short, you control every aspect about its presentation to your prospect AND you can make it viral because its code is in the HTML of the page. Or, you can refer the code like a site-wide CSS sheet that would be off-page, if you wanted to do that instead. Its versatility is phenomenal.
Heres a live example:
As you can see, the skys the limit with your imagination and creativity. But most importantly, you can have the power of the pop-up without the annoying side effects. Now, isnt that a gift worth respecting your customers with
About The Author
Dorian Greer is the publisher of Top Articles on Marketing. Discover the most up to date techniques on Internet marketing from over 340 sources twice-monthly.
Copyright 2004 Dorian Greer