Hey guys, I'm just wondering what software you guys use to check for ppc fraud for your ppc campaigns, I know Shoe talks about it alot and that everyone should be recording them and sending in a report to google, yahoo and msn each month to get credits for invalid clicks. But to be honest, I have no idea what type of software or how to check for this. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Come one guys...You can't tell me none of you track for fraud clicks... Shoe come answer my question or if people are afraid to post it freely or something, PM me then.
Haha, nope not at all, I'm sure Google, Yahoo, and MSN just love to give me back my money that was involved in fraud...haha. I know shoe has talked several times about how he sends reports to them every month, but I'm just wondering what he uses to do that, I'm sure his is all custom, but I figure there has to be a program out there that will do it, whether its paid or free.
I have used http://www.clicktracks.com/ and http://www.adwatcher.com/ in the past. Now I am running a more custom solution, basically just taking a hash of the IP and refferer info, and time of click and other general stuff and dumping into a Mysql db. Then I can compare that data looking for dupes within a certain timeframe.
easiest means is to pay for program but as SR does i have custom setup to track IP and time frame but also compare the IP to foriegn IP database in cases when i am running US only campaigns.
ive been on vacation for a week =P I have a in house system we use. I am going to offer a free solution to people under the domain i just aquired called clickshield.com where we will do free reports of "invalid clicks"
Just today I was having a look at adwatcher.com SR and xBoxUndone what do you find are the main advantages of a custom solution and how would I go about getting one? Do I need to pay a programmer ... I wouldn't have a clue where to start with a custom solution... Shoemoney... that sounds cool... when do you think you'll be going live??
shoemoney, that would be great...thanks for all your help (i'm an avid reader of your blog and through that found this forum). to others, if i monitor my referrals and see the exact same ad (same location with the loooong adwords url code) listed as a referral 7 times for the exact same IP, and that IP only hit my frontpage, and did so about every 1-2 minutes for about 15 minutes, would you consider that suspicious activity? i'm a newb, obviously
That sounds great Jeremy although I have a question: Will you be using any of the information we supply for your own purposes - campaign specific information? If not I believe this should be mentioned in a contract when we sign up. If you are I would totally pay for a service that's locked-down and that no-one except me can access the information in about my own campaigns.. under law. This isn't a shot at you, but you know how it is in business. We must protect our most valuable assets! Pete
I understand... We were just going to offer the service free but the stats would be used to display data like most fraud country/state/keyword ect... nothing identifying. Realistically im so busy right now there is no way I will even get this thing going until atleast 2008
thats great that he will be offering it as a free service. Mainly the information you need is the refer information with flags setup... meaning for IP comparison for countries not used for your campaign and repeated clicks from the same IP over a given Time.