Hi all I'd really appreciate your opinions on this. I've been running a number of recruitment websites for around 10 years. During this time I've had a relationship with Google AdSense and everything has been fine. Around 9 months ago I switched one of my websites to a large competitor of Google AdSense. A few months later I created another website which I also partnered with this competitor. This competitor, let's call them Z. Z use third party companies to manage a lot of their online advertising business, so my relationship is with their partner, let's call them B. B currently owe me around 150k. The problem: Roughly one week ago I decided to stop displaying B's adverts on my websites. There are a number of reasons for this, mostly financial reasons, which I explained in an e-mail to them. They replied two times: 1) the first message asked me not to pause traffic, as Z may penalize my account for this. 2) a few hours later they sent another message saying they are cancelling my account due to robotic clicks on their ads. They have since told me more than 90% of the clicks on their ads occurred less than 1 second after the corresponding search. This is completely false. The traffic to my sites is (mostly) from tier 1 networks and the clicks are real. (As stated, I've been using AdSense for 10 years and no problems.) I can even prove, using logs, that what they say is impossible as their adverts take so long to display on my websites that it is literally impossible to click on the ads any quicker than 3 or 4 seconds after my websites have loaded. I've since researched B and it seems they have a shady reputation. Current situation: I don't know if they're trying to scam me or if they've just made a mistake. It may be a mistake as I've previously had some technical issues with this company (they issued incorrect ads for a number of months) and their operations team made some obvious errors. They've told me they've frozen payments to me. This is an issue as the amount I spent on traffic exceeds 150k so I need this money. I'm in Ireland, but my investor is wealthy so legal action is possible. I would rather not go down this route though. I'm not sure what's the best way to proceed. Any advice? Thanks
Why did you let it accumulate to $150k? Did you actually buy traffic, or did you pay for advertising, if so where did you advertise? Can I ask, is your company located in the same country as "B" is? Or does "B" have offices in the same country as you and your company are located? If you guys are based in different countries, I have no idea how you could possibly resolve this at all. I will be honest with you, so many people have been in a similar situation, where they are owed money by advertisers and their accounts get closed for various reasons. I have never heard of anyone being compensated at all. Essentially, publishers are at the mercy of the advertisers. Try whatever you can to resolve it with "B" privately, such as, have you sent them screenshots of your google analytics? Send them a screenshot of your "bounce rate", ask if you can speak with the manager, and then ask him to speak to his manager. For legal advice (especially as this is your investors money), you can seek out a local lawyer. Perhaps a nicely well written letter from a laywer sent to "B" might make them wake up. It might be good advice to print out as many server logs (or other proofs) as you can, and keep a copy on a CD as a way of making sure you have the records on hand long term.
Thank you for your reply. The reason for the 150k is I am a big account. My websites make 500k+ per month in total. I "buy traffic". But perhaps this is a language issue. I use AdSense and Bing Ads for most of my traffic, and then AppNexus and others as backup traffic. My company is in Ireland; B is in the US. Z is a massive company. Everyone who uses the Internet knows of this company. B used to be very famous (if you're an old school Internet user like me) but aren't so well known now. I've sent them a screenshot of my Google AdWords spend (roughly 300k per month) and some proof that it is impossible that people/bots are clicking on the ads within 1 second. I spoke with an associate of my investor tonight and legal action is an option, but actually I hope to resolve this peacefully so I can resume ads in the future. I guess I need to just wait and see what happens next. Cheers.
@matt_62 has some sound advice. If things do not progress well with B, you may also want to try to contact Z about the problem. Nothing to lose at that point.
All you can do is send them the "evidence" and read the contract you have with them to see if you actually have any legal recourse. (if they modeled their "contract" on the Adsense one, then you have no recourse)
Z sounds like AOL. If you truly did not do this and really have that much money, then you should be talking to a lawyer. First thing I would do, is print out the server logs from the time period in question, and all traffic you paid for. Then ship these many reams to the hotel you will be staying at closest to their office. Go to their office with a USB copy of the data and ask to speak to someone or better, make an appointment before you go. If you get kicked out or they don't speak to you, wheel the reams of paper into their building out of the truck you previously rented. Tell them, they are getting a head start in the discovery process of the lawsuit you will be filing. If that doesn't work, you really should take them to court and get a settlement.