Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Click Fraud Getting Worse
BusinessWeek has a nice
investigative piece about the thriving market for click fraud. The article cites cases of continuing rampant fraud, and
says that the FBI and a Senate Judiciary Committee staffer are getting interested in looking at potential federal violations.
So is Google's geotargeting not working, or are advertisers not properly configuring their accounts to only send to the U.S.? Geotargeting if implemented correctly should reduce the amount of click fraud substantially. There have been questions about limitations to Google's geotargeting capability, so if there are holes, they need to be fixed pronto.
Currently it is too easy for anyone to set up bogus websites where they can start earning commissions and ripping off advertisers. More work needs to be done on vetting publishers so that the pages they create can be tracked. Search engines should be able to limit the IP addresses of their publishers to make sure they aren't posting dozens of sites outside of the U.S.
By John Gartner at 05:40 PM
|
(3) Thoughts on Click Fraud Getting Worse
I think the article didn't address click fraud in a very comprehensive manner. Seemed more sensational than rational. For instance, on Google, advertisers can opt out of both the content network and the search network, if they so desire. Was the click fraud mentioned in the article perpetrated from search ads or content ads? Were more of the problems with Yahoo or Google? Were the advertisers managing their accounts effectively or were they simply bidding to the moon and exposing themselves to all search and content partners? I think the article created more questions than answers.
I do think the search engines need to be more proactive in dealing with click fraud. For instance, I don't think advertisers should be automatically opted into running ads on content sites when they open an advertising account. This is a bit misleading with both the Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing platforms.
Comments by Richard Ball : Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at 11:59 PM
From what I have seen in the market Click Fraud is a very big concern for Pay-Per-Click advertisers that are spending millions and billions on online advertising campaigns. What is really scary is the lack of action being taken by large search providers like Google and Yahoo. They are very relaxed about the growing concern of Click Fraud stating they are able to keep it at a low acceptable percentage. If I were an advertiser I would not take those search providers at their words, especially if they are the ones billing me. There must be a third party involved to generate reports that can be married with the search providers data to give a clearer picture of the click fraud.
Comments by Alex : Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 09:49 AM
Internet advertisers are very aware of click fraud. Sure they are concerned about this but the second that they stop realizing an acceptable ROI from this type of spending they have two choices. They can reduce their bid or find an alternative form of advertising like TV, Newspaper, Magazine or Billboards. If they want to stay online they can go for CPM based banners or other CPM based placements and opportunities. Lets be real here, for some advertisers, click fraud could go to 50% and sponsored search would still yield the highest measurable ROI!
Comments by Rafael Cosentino : Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 02:27 PM
Post a Comment
Subscribe to The MarketingShift Feed