Why Click Fraud Won't Effect Adsense Over The Long Term

Even if Google can't contain click fraud within acceptable limits it will still continue to grow its pay per click revenues and here's why...

Businesses have been spending billions and trillions of dollars on shitty advertising that doesn't work for over 100 years.

Just ask any Ad Exec from Madison Avenue.

Personally I couldn't care less if 50% of my adword campaigns were click fraud as long as they were making a 10% net profit ROI per month for what ever I was selling or promoting by way of affiliate programs. (Try getting a 10% per month cashflow return on the stockmarket.)

 

Yep, just read about Six Flags.. they spent 75 million dollars on a massive advertising campaign -- no increase in sales or attendance.

I think Google has a good handle on things with smart pricing. Fraud will always exist just as employee theft exists in any other brick and morter business. That doesn't mean throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

Yeah definitely they will make click fraud harder. But when you've got zombie networks of thousands of computers sending out random clicks from random computers at random times its pretty hard to foil even if you're google.

Even with Click Fraud factored into the equation PPC can still be a far more profitable way of spending your advertising dollar than other places.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/fraud.html

 

Well the difference with big campaigns on television etc. is that they are for brand building too. Most advertisers on Adwords want measurable short term results.

 

Google is doing more than we know to control click fraud and will also do more and more to tie clicks to conversion. I am comfortable both as an Adsense publisher and an Adwords advertiser.

There has been billions spent every year spent on TV and other media with little measurable return. There is return but not directly measurable. Advertising dollars will shift to the net over time as it matures. One thing to consider is that when any boom (railroads, televsions, electricity, internet, internet advertising, etc) is over, only 10% of the eventual build out is done.

I think we are still in the CPC boom so the money will get tougher over time but there will be much more over time.

 

I agree 100%. At my old company, I handled the pitifully small search engine marketing budget. With only $500 over a 6 month period on adsense, I generated over 270 qualified leads. They spent literally over $100,000 on magazine advertising that produced 220 qualified leads.

Yet, I couldn't convince my bosses to give me any more of a budget. That's why I don't ever plan on working for anyone else. It's too inefficent, and most companies I've worked for are chock full of idiots.

Edit - I have do disagree with this statement, however:

I think they would BS you, and tell you that THEIR marketing campaign will produce a great ROI

 

Isn't MOST click fraud fairly fruitless for the person committing the fraud? Is it possible to earn more than even minimum wage from click fraud, requiring a LOT more work to accomplish?

It seems like a waste to me -- in the time one spends finding ways to get away with click fraud, they could be writing good content and getting way more income.

 

Clickfraud isn't just Adsense publishers. A much larger problem is competitors trying to inflate the advertiser's costs.

 

I think the biggest way to profit from click fraud is sabatoge rather than Adsense. There was that one company that got sued over $50,000. That might of money might make sense if your in India, but in the US thats pathetic.

 

I had just finished reading this thread when my wife got a call on our unlisted number from the Nielson people. They wanted her to start keeping a diary of her TV watching habits When she said there was no time, the caller suggested assigning the job to one of the kids.

Even with click fraud issues, Google and other online advertisers MUST be able to give their customers better information than that.

 

Absolutely. Why else would they make so much money? I see businesses owners being suckered by brand advertisement execs all the time.

Thats my whole point. People have been wasting billion's and trillion's on advertising over the last 100 years (well brand advertisment started getting more popular in the 50's.)

Brand Advertisement is one of the biggest ongoing con's around.

It only continues to work because slick madison ad exec shysters get fresh new MBA marketing grads to sell their snake oil to every year.

 

If you're using humans for the clicking, you recruit the workers in countries where the minimum wage is so low that it's worth their while to do it. If you're smart, you use automated methods to perform the click fraud.

I don't think click fraud will ever go away, all we can do is work to control it and keep it within acceptable levels. As others have stated, many advertising campaigns waste money one way or another. (When you're being specifically targeted by click fraud, however, it's very annoying.)

 

Automated method? what is it ?

 

Read the wired article I posted above kikigg.

 

Google is not giving a penny for his own pocket so their is nothing to lose for him in case of frauds.

 

i bet google pay kids $500 a month just to click ads

 

I think you make a valid point, but it might scare people entering the google text advertising market. If businesses perceive that there is huge fraud, they never will try the advertising in the first place.