Just wanted to know how others protect themselves from fraudelent clicks (when competitors click on your ads to make you lose money intentionally). Does Google now have or is planning any security measures against this?
Google does enough to prevent this sort of thing. They have lots of documentation. I would just concentrate my time on obtaining maximum ROI than setting up CF monitoring software.
Well, I suspect that for some it may be a real problem. One easy thing you can do is to reduce or watch your content network ads. I think one runs a bigger risk there than with Google / search network ads.
I agree with ThomasSchulz. Minimize your exposure to the content network and your chances of fradulent clicks go down. Depending on the industry and the cost per click, in many/ most areas it is not economical for your competitors to "punish" you by clicking your ads. In general it is better to focus on your own good ads, conversion rate, etc rather than worring about competitors.
Speaking of ROI, is there anyone here knows an affordable good conversion tracking software? I've seen some upon searching, but the cost is too high.
I believe google has some you can you.... I'm not sure exactly where to find it... I saw a link to it last I checked in my adwords account.
I knew about that but i don't want to use google to track my ROI. i'm sure there could be some conversion tracking softwares out there.
I second the recommendations to keep your PPC ads off of the content network. In addition, I know clients who have reduced bad clicks by limiting the time of day their ads run. They saw clicks that never converted between 12 am and 4 am so they did not show their ads during those times.
I would just watch where some of my clicks were coming from and if too many come from the same place I would say something.
yes definitely take out the content. (although some times it can work great!) I think nowdays the networks work harder to avoid any fraud click issues. ie. now you can run a report for fraud clicks on adwords. regarding the ROI tracking, there are a lot of good analytics systems out there, but expensive!
Use google conversion analytics tools. you had better inform google if you find a big gap between the clciks and conversion. And also make sure you ahve set your landing page more conversion freindly....
Ther is no doubt in my mind that this is a mater of very real concern and the so called protection offered by Google is simply not good enough. If the click fraud rate is 35% it will raise your price per click to + 35% too and that may be too much. Ask Google,well maybe I have been burned badly by this program and Adsense and Google's only response is "e don't recognise these IPs. All machine generated out of Eastern Europe! So why does that not surprise me? Charisma515