Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Click Fraud Tab $800 Million - Pay Per Click Achilles Heel

Almost 15 percent of all ad clicks are fraudulent, according to a new survey from market research firm Outsell.com

The company surveyed 407 online advertisers and estimated that advertisers lost $800 last year due to bogus clicks, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Advertisers are becoming more aware of the problem as 75 percent believe that they overpaid for clicks, and 37 percent said they have or would reduce their ad spending because of click fraud.

The SEM industry is screaming for trustworthy audit tools and companies to keep better track of their spending. Since Google, Yahoo, et al won't show and tell (hiding behind the competitive advantage veil), it will take independent companies to vet server logs and find out who's scamming who.

The class-action lawsuit doesn't seem to be enough of a stick to force change with the search engines, so it may take one of the secondary search engines moving to CPA to force more click fraud openness.

Posted By Jason Dowdell at 06:35 PM
Permanent Link: Click Fraud Tab $800 Million - Pay Per Click Achilles Heel | Comments (0)

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