Archive for August, 2007

Getting a Click Fraud Refund from Your PPC Provider

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

In this post I discuss the mechanics of obtaining a refund from the three main search engines Google, Yahoo and Microsoft if you suspect you are the subject of invalid clicks.

The first stage of your click fraud reparation process is to gather the appropriate evidence of a click fraud attack. The more detail you have, the more likely that your supplier will give a refund.

I have developed an MS word template for evidence gathering, please leave a comment on this post and I will e-mail a copy.

The information required is:

  • A brief description of why you think you have been the subject of click fraud
  • Date and time of attack
  • IP addresses of problem hosts
  • Campaign details
  • How much refund you think you are entitled to

Once the evidence has been gathered it needs to be submitted the the search engine

Google

The Big G has a special on-line form to complete to request an investigation.

They request much of the information already mentioned above, but without the value of the suspected fraud. I would advise completing my form and sending this to the Google operative who contacts you during the subsequent inquiry.

Yahoo

The second placed search engine has a special name for a click fraud investigation and that is a “Click Investigation”. To obtain start an investigation, go to your search marketing account and click on customer support link at the top of the page.

Set the type of inquiry as click protection and the subject line to “click investigation request” supply the following information

  • The date(s) of the click activity within the last 60 days you would like investigated
  • The specific keyword(s) associated with the clicks.
  • Use the “Attachment” tab if you want to upload a screenshot or additional information, including your weblogs.

The new traffic quality centre has a very concise section on applying for click fraud reparation including an SLA for response times to your request.

Microsoft

The Microsoft Adcenter does not have a dedicated method for initiating a click fraud investigation, rather you are directed to the central customer support function.

If you need personal assistance and can’t find your answer in Help, we invite you to phone (800) 518-5689 or submit an e-mail request at the Customer Support e-mail website.

Microsoft AdCenter Customer Support is available 7 days a week from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. Pacific Time in the United States.

They do not state what information is required so It is advisable to collect the data mentioned above

I hope that helps in the first stage of initiating an investigation. The next post in this series will discuss what to do if your provider says no to your reparation request.

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Time Zone Targeting to Exclude the Click Fraudster

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

In a previous post I discussed Geo-Targeting to exclude potential click fraud, in this post I expand upon that to add time zone targeting to exclude potential low quality clicks.

If the majority of your potential customers live and work in particular time zone, target your ads to only be shown during key times in that zone.

An example of this would be a UK company selling a B2B service. The best time to target potential customers who will give real value to your campaign is during office hours, Monday to Friday. So in this example, it would be prudent to only run the ads GMT 09:00 - 17:00.

This combats click fraud by presenting as small a time frame as possible to the click farms and click bots. This does not of course exclude manual clicks from competitors in the same time zone.

Over and above click fraud, this method of time targeting also helps to improve the click quality and hopefully your conversion rate.

This method is not a cure for click fraud, but it should (to expand the metaphor) be one of the drugs in your medicine cabinet.

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Click Fraud 101

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

Here are a list of my posts designed to be the beginners guide to click fraud.

  • Click Fraud - Definition
  • Click Fraud - Detection
  • Click Fraud - Reparation
  • The Click fraud to do list

As I add posts, so this list will be updated, please syndicate this site for future updates.

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Yahoo Create Traffic Quality Centre

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

In a similar move to Google, Yahoo has create a click fraud resource which they call the Traffic Quality Center

My first impression is that this is a comprehensive tools for Yahoo advertisers.

More soon …

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Trust Me I’m A Search Engine

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

As I have mentioned in the click fraud paradox, search engines do not inform advertisers which clicks are invalid in case their detection methods are hacked. All automatic click fraud reparation is done on a trust basis. They do not charge x% because they have detected these clicks to be invalid, and we have to trust their detection methods and that the other percentage is truly billable.

Let me don my cynical hat for the moment and say “No I don’t trust you. Your money is made through clicks on adverts, you bottom line relies on the largest number of clicks possible. You want to cover up the invalid clicks problem.”

Flip back to my optimistic fedora and cock it at a jaunty angle I reply “It is not in the interest of the search engines to hide the invalid click issue. Our advertising spend is based upon trust and once that trust is lost, our money will be taken elsewhere.”

Cynical hat (it’s an authoritarian black leather number by the way) “They know we will go elsewhere, that’s why they cover their tracks”

Optimistic (green with a black silk band) “We need to trust them.”

Trust is the central tenant of our relationship with the search engines, and their lack of transparency on which click is invalid causes a problem. We need a mechanism with which to gain trust.

I find myself repeatedly saying we need independent verification. In the same way that auditors check computer system controls for stock holders of public companies, I would like to see auditors check the controls of search engine invalid click processes.

I do not expect them to publish how it is done, only that it works well. This should be an on-going process.

So this is a call to the search engines, engage the services of the big four accountancy firms and have them audit the processes on the advertisers behalf.

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The Click Fraud Paradox

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

“I cannot tell you which click is an invalid click because you can work out how to create invalid clicks.” Said the search engine.

“So how do I know you are detecting all the clicks?” replied the advertiser.

“Trust me I’m a search engine.”


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Click Fraud A-Listers

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

In this post, I take a leaf from Hollywood’s book and name the people whom I think are A-Listers in the world of click fraud.

The Hollywood A list if the roster of the most bankable film stars, a 100 point check list was developed by journalist James Ulmer,

I am opening this post up to comments to expand this list and create a who’ s who in click fraud so please let me know who should be added.

In at number one

Shuman Ghosemajumder

The Googleite and member of the Click Quality Team. Whenever Google want to talk with authority about click fraud (I know I keep calling it CF when they call it invalid clicks )they seem to roll out Shuman.

And at number two only because it is the second place search engine

Reggie Davis

Reggie is Yahoo’s click fraud Czar, not as vocal in the blogsphere as Shuman, but Reggie has been tasked at an executive level to combat click fraud.

Please leave your comments so we can make up a top ten.

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Operation Bot Roast

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

No this is not the latest title of a XXX rated DVD, this is an official FBI operation to crack down on ‘bot related cyber crime.

Robot or bot nets are collections of hundreds or even tens of thousands of computers infected with a virus which allows the “bot herder” or perpetrator of the attack to run programs which attack other machines on the Internet. These programs typically attempt to do the following:

    • Steal the computer owner’s identity;
    • Launch massive spam campaigns;
    • Engage in click-fraud—schemes which artificially inflate the number of visitors to a website; and
    • Launch denial of service attacks that can cripple web servers and crash sites.

The owner of the infected machine is typically unaware that their machine is under the control of the “bot herder”. It is therefore critical that end users take PC security very seriously. Anti virus software should be updated and OS patches such as those automatically sent out by Microsoft should be applied.

In the wider world of click fraud, bot net attacks can be very difficult to counter against. How does a system identify a single bot net click, which then stays on a page as if reading details against a real person clicking through and reading the contents of an e-commerce site? Expand this to tens of thousands of IP addresses and we get the very real threat of click fraud.

Details of the operation are available on the official FBI website.

“Hey Scully want to check out my bot?”

“Put that away Mulder!”

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Click Quality Council

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

And lo the white council did meet and Elrond ordered that before them they be presented the ring of the enemy..

No, not that kind of council, but a click quality council has been formed of eminent members of the click fraud community and it has agreed upon an eight point action plan:

Advertisers should never pay for double clicks or repeat clicks from the same session.

Advertisers should never pay for traffic from bots.

Advertisers should have control over where, when and to whom ads are distributed.

Domain and IP exclusion lists from search providers should be easy to use and maintain.

Search providers should provide advertisers detailed referrer information on all traffic that is billed.

Advertisers should never pay for traffic originating outside the specified geo-targeted settings.

Search engines should adopt third-party validation for click quality as other media companies have done for their audience validation.

Search providers should provide an easy mechanism to reconcile paid clicks on a monthly basis.

Further details of their work including an interesting videocast can be seen at click quality council

This commentator cannot agree more with the seventh point, the sooner third part auditing of invalid clicks is introduced the better. Search engines are refusing to be transparent to their customers, so companies such as the big four accountancy firms should be sent in to test, but not diverge the methods of invalid click detection and reparation.

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Geotargeting to Beat the Click Fraudster

Monday, August 20th, 2007

A simple yet effective way to cut down on click fraud is to restrict access to your on-line ads to the countries which commit the most click fraud.

At first this may sound like a poor idea, restricting your potential advertising audience, but as most of the people recruited to pay to click schemes are in low income areas in the developing world, it is unlikely that these countries will supply a large number of your potential customers.

So a quick how to:

Review the analytics of your site, to see where your clicks are coming from.

Review where the majority of your business comes from.

Hey presto match the two together and exclude the countries which are not generating business and are the potential source of click fraud

The Click Fraud Network produce an excellent heat map to graphically shown the largest sources of click fraud originate. This resource can be used as a tool in your geo-targeting.

(heatmap courtesy click fraud network)

Even if you are not a subject of click fraud, reducing access to your ads to countries which are not producing quality click through is a best practice in optimising your campaigns.

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