Internet Marketing Blog

Bad behavior sometimes gets caught, and sometimes it sends messages, mixed ones. SEOmoz recently wrote about a court case in which NetQuote successfully sued MostChoice for submitting false insurance quote requests. Their behavior was so blatant (hiring someone to submit requests for 20-25 hours each week) that the jury doubled the punitive damages requested by […]

The bloggers at Inside AdWords recently posted significant information about their invalid click detection efforts. Among the most important points is that the number of “impact” clicks is less than 10% of the total number of clicks, and that this number has remained somewhat constant over time. They also state that fewer than less than […]

Search Engine Watch recently evaluated a report from Outsell Inc. claiming that as much as 14.6 percent of all PPC clicks were click fraud and that this cost advertisers $800 million last year. Danny Sullivan obtained a copy of the report and takes it apart in significantly more detail, finding that these numbers are highly […]

ClickTracks has an interesting article that talks about the Google AdWords settlement and whether or not to participate. The short answer is that it’s not worth your time. They do a quick “back of the envelope” calculation to demonstrate how for all of the hassle you might have to go to receive advertising credits, you […]

The Marketing Experiments Blog recently posted the results of a click fraud study. The study itself is interesting but somewhat inconclusive due to its short duration and limited scope. However, they make some excellent suggestions for preventing or at least reducing click fraud, some of which include: Watch for significant variations in ad campaign performance. […]

High Click-Through-Rate (CTR) is a good indication that people find your ad compelling. AdWords even rewards higher CTR by letting you bid less for the same position than someone who has a less effective ad. So the name of the game is maximizing CTR, right? These are real statistics for a 24-day period of a […]

Google has provided an excellent summary of click fraud and how they combat it in their Inside AdWords blog. This is highly recommended reading for anyone concerned with click fraud. As noted previously, I’m skeptical of the value of detecting and fighting click fraud unless you’re a big spender or have very strong evidence of […]

Speaking of click fraud, Google has announced a settlement proposal in a case brought by a company, Lane’s Gifts, an advertiser using Google’s AdWords service. As of this writing, the settlement has yet to be approved by the judge in the case. The settlement includes several important provisions: Google previously would only consider click fraud […]

A recent article at eMarketer discusses advertisers’ fears of click fraud. They cite a SEMPO survey indicating that click fraud has tripled to 16%. (Presumably this is the number of clicks thought to be fraudulent; the article isn’t clear.) Other studies indicate that almost half of all companies and agencies have experienced click fraud, and […]

Click fraud occurs when someone clicks on your PPC ads in order to incur charges with no intent of doing business with you. Occasional clicks of this sort incur little additional cost and are very hard to differentiate from legitimate users. The real problems occur when systematic attempts are made to deplete your advertising budget […]