I'm glad you get something out of it. It might be dependant on what you're actually advertising but my stats speak for themselves. CTR's a fraction of those on Search. Conversion virtually non-existant. And I'm talking about big campaigns for extended period of time. BTW It's not just fraud that causes me to pull out. It's ROI = nihil.
Maybe you're going about it the wrong way? Here's a hint: Your ad (and it's landing page) should have a totally different process of selling your product as compared to advertising in search. The landing page should be different. The ad copy should definitely be different. These are two different mediums. Just like radio ads are different from TV ads. They both work, but you don't run the same ad in both mediums just because the ad was successful in one of the mediums. That's the mistake most successful Adwords advertisers make when they just "turn on" the content ads.
I also didn't withdraw directly because of the fraud but instead because of the fact they skewed my stats so much AND never provided a conversion compared to my search ads which convert at a very high rate. Your analogy is flawed. Imagine that it isn't just a store in California thats robbed but instead an epidemic. An epidemic so widespread that shoppers are afraid to go to stores like yours and you sell so little you are FORCED to close. If you are getting an acceptable rate then you should definately continue. Those industries that can support the fraud however are few and far between.
I do agree that you can improve click through rates this way just like writing ads for every specific keyword but I still found it wasn't enough. Instead I can dump the money used for content into search and make that money without writing all new ads AND the only fraud I have to worry about is competitors which is much easier. I take from your name that you specialize in optimising ads for content or am I misreading it?
yfs1, if you are still advertising in search and not in content because of fraud, then my analogy is correct. Did you think there wasn't any fraud in search? In fact, it is MORE of a problem than on the content side. Now if your reason was because of ROI, then there is a different analogy for you. I would advise you to reconsider how you are approaching the content network. I would bet you have competitors that are doing well with it. Do you see any in your field showing up in Adsense ads week after week and month after month? Guess what, they're likely turning a profit. So can you. See my previous post.
Good guess. I actually I work on both sides of the pond. I take advertiser's sites and ads and optimize them for content advertising and I take content publishers sites and optimize them (CTR, EPC, and conversions for advertisers) for content networks like Adsense.
I'm in favour of blaming stuff on yourself as oppose to blaming it 'on the system'. So that post is very interesting indeed. I have wondered about that before but have to admit that I haven't gone into it as deep as perhaps necessary. The AdWords resources I have studied never mentioned adopting a different approach for content but I have to admit that you might well be right here. But I don't believe for a second that search ad click fraud is heppening to the same extent as content fraud. It's all about motives. A publisher gains directly, and potentially BIGtime from click fraud via AdSense. In search it only happens when a competitor decides to be an ass. There is no one who directly benefits from it so the scale it happens on is a lot smaller.
There is a different motive in search fraud then in content fraud and even IF it was more widespread it is much easier to spot patterns. None of my competition uses content ads either so I am not losing anything. I had specially written content ads with optimized landing pages and still nothing. Everything is about conversions so just like content may be what works for you, Search is what works for me. I believe it to be mostly because of fraud but thats up for debate. Either way my numbers tell my story which may not be the same for everyone. Do you have a company/site that specializes in writing or managing content ads? <<added>> - T0PS made some of my points while I was typing<<added>>
And in your experience are you able to get acceptable clicks and conversions no matter what industry?
yfs1 I am not against you and TOPS, I just started a thread on Click Fraud with some great articles that you and TOPS never really addressed. I also asked in my opening post to stick to the subject matter and address as a side question if we should be the Google Police enforcing TOS for them, I also asked everyone not to post links in this thread so we could stick to discussing the above. You guys were the one's who took offense for some reason thinking that this was pointed all at you two which is wrong, it never was pointed at you two personally but you took it personally and yes, I took some rep hits and others did because of not being in agreement with you on this issue. OK, so we were all involved in TOS violation threads, so what. Does that mean that we are going to continue this trend on the forum and have members post these threads everyday as we had three of them posted in one day two days ago?
Anthony I understand what you are saying and I am more than happy to stick to topic. In fact I wish "ContentSite" stuck around as it was just getting interesting. My beef was merely in the mandate about what we can or can't do. This is probably the least moderated forum around and thats why its so popular. I just ignore the threads started merely to out AdSense cheaters and I would suggest others that don't agree do the same. As you have reminded me many times before, Let Shawn handle it. But you can't have a conversation about Fraud without at least pointing out the way it is done. In this particular case it was a site that actually had accounts where you rotated clicks etc. This is more than Google just disabling their AdSense as there is no AdSense to disable. Its worth noting how the system can be manipulated when deciding whether to participate or not. ContentSite - I am torn with your situation and can believe it could be two different ways 1.) You sell a service of writing ads so it would be to your benefit to just defend clickthrough rates and say its because we don't use a service like yours. - Thats the cynic in me 2.) And I hope its this one - You have been able to overcome the click fraud to get a high percentage of conversions for your customers. If this is the case I hope you stick around to give us "the other side" If its #2, can you post up a few screen shots showing the conversion rates you are getting (I trust you use that function in Adwords). You can blank out any customer or keyword references. I would just like to see some percentages and for me that would lend a LOT of credibility to your argument. I have my fingers crossed. Cheers
Its a shame content has not returned so I will pose this general question for anyone to answer. Has anyone had a great success (equal to or greater than their search) with crunning content ads? I'm sure there are some out there but lately everyone seems to be disabling theirs. Screenshots (with keywords, etc blanked out) of what can be attained would be helpful too although not required.
There's a guy on sitepoint names coolblue23 (or something very similar) who sells creditcard affiliate websites. He keeps a few of his own and earns 3,xxx plus per month running adwords on select credit card keywords. It works, just depends on your niche, choosing the right keywords, the payout by the affiliate, and your determination to keep at it.
I did not give anyone bad rep. I just stated my point of view on the subject, I don't know why you think I gave you bad rep.