Hi all. I started using the PPC advertising services of a small company related to my niche. Before I made a deposit for advertising I asked a few questions and did a little bit of research about the quality control measures they were using. As near as I could tell they weren't using any, with the possible exception of only charging 1 click per IP address, but I decided to give it a try anyway. I decided not to use any performance monitoring software initially. I figured I might start using some if things started looking off. Well, one day into my campaign things started really looking off. First of all, I wasn't seeing near the conversions that I was with google adwords for the same product. The PPC company provided me with stats that showed click counts for keywords and their publishers. I started comparing their stats with my analytic stats and found that in almost all cases, I was being charged for more clicks than were showing up in analytics. Overall, I was being charged for about 10% more clicks than I was seeing in analytics. I also found that about 10% of my clicks came from IP addresses in other countries, who could not possibly become customers, as the product I was advertising can only be bought by US citizens. I took a look at some of the publisher sites and found that a number of the publishers were putting their ads in the places of menus at their sites, and in some cases (not all) there wasn't even a mention of the fact that these were sponsored links/ads. The PPC company was choosing not to include the "sponsored links" text in these cases. I also found a case where a publisher had written, "Support Our Site", and placed an image of a pointer over a hyperlink above the text ads, encouraging site visitors to click the sponsored links below. I brought all of these things to the attention of the PPC company, and was pretty well ignored. I had my campaign paused because I was losing serious money. It's been a little while now, but I want to say that I saw a return of about $50 on $240 of advertising. I'm advertising an affiliate product that I know converts well. It's advertised quite profitably with google adwords, at almost three times the amount per click as I was paying with this company. I've advertised the product on my website for over 2 years and have always done well with it. So anyway, my questions are, would any of the things I mentioned make what I described click fraud? And if so, how would I go about reporting this? Thanks!
If you are talking about those sites that pay people 1 cent per click to view an ad for so many seconds those kinds of places have a very poor conversion rate for the advertiser. Generally most of the traffic you would be purchasing really don't care what you have to offer. They just want to earn there big 1 cent. As soon as they visit long enough they are off to the next. I couldn't tell you what you can do. I just know some of these folks really don't care, as long as they make a few. There are some that are more reputable than others. I have no idea what you can do about it, or report it too. Some of those places also have bots or fake clicks that appear to be visiting your promotion, but they are really shaving. I avoid most of these types of advertising.
No, this isn't one of those sites. This one charges about 20 cents per click. You choose phrases to have displayed, and they're displayed at the sites of all the publishers. I also display this company's ads on a few of my sites, so I'm a publisher for them as well. They've always been good to me as far as being one of their publishers goes... they pay on time, at least. I doubt that many of their advertisers are using tracking to determine how effective their advertising is. I've dealt with a few of their advertisers directly regarding advertising on my sites (banner advertising), and that's the feeling I got. So, there's a decent chance that I'm the only one who's even looked at my advertising metrics and would even know what to look for, for that matter. The programmer for this company is fairly incompetent, IMO. The owner is good for running... not what I'd call a "scam", but let me say taking advantage of a situation that's benefitting him, like this one. I have a pretty strong feeling that most of the advertisers are getting ripped off. I'm not sure what I should do, or could do in this case. So any advice would be appreciated it.
Hello, if you are really interested in the quality of your traffic, you should use a click raud system that analyzes the traffic. We tested Tsuiseki that is available at http://www.tsuiseki.com. That system identifies click fraud and we could improve our traffic quality by blocking the identified partners in the specific networks. Maybe it's a help? Have a nice day
There is a lot of click fraud out there. I've heard a lot of people say if they dislike a company, there will click on their PPC ads over and over to waste their money. Not good.
Hello Gboethin, I am sorry to hear about your experience. Testing offers on a new network can often become a frustrating experience if the provider is not willing to do what is in the best interest of (you) the customer. It is a good thing that you are educated to the use of analytics and have implemented them. As far as the ad not performing to the standards set on Google, well, it is possible that it could happen. It is possible that your ad/niche simply may not perform well on their network. If you have optimized your ads, tested, and still have not received the results you are looking for then it may be time to consider running a different offer. It is also possible to experience a discrepancy in click numbers when initially testing a new network. I would recommend contacting your provider and discussing what criteria they use to count a "click" and compare it to the criteria used by your analytics. There are factors, like time on site, the 2 click model, or java based analytics software which do not count clicks from java disabled machines, which can throw off your totals. You mention that you are receiving clicks from countries that cannot purchase your product. Does your campaign have geo-targeting enabled? Regardless, this provider should be able to assist you by blocking traffic sources that have performed poorly for you historically. If they cannot do this for you, proceed with caution. Best of luck Sincerely, 7searchGuys