Click fraud linked to other types for fraud.

Friday, June 5th, 2009

It should be no great surprise – but it is still amazing to hear about the types of associated fraud:

• Phishing Sites
• Sending Spam
• Pornography (of the most base kind)
• Trojans
• Bots (unsavoury kind)
• Malware
• Other Scams

Sometimes, these are carried out at the internet service provider (ISP) level. The authorities would love to catch some of these but it isn’t easy. Avoidance however is easy for a determined fraudster, using technical or geographical advantages.

Looking at scale, click fraud is worst for those paying high click value ads. In a way, having a large budget too, makes the attack worse. For example, lets us consider a 10% cost due to fraud. Assume then that in case 1, we have a daily budget of £30 per day and that means that the cost due to click fraud will be £3. In case 2, assuming a budget of £300 per day, the click fraud cost will be £30. You can see what the difference will be over time.

Alternatively, apply the small scale of £3 to 1000’s of per-per-click accounts – per day right? Yep, a small fortune.

It is not surprising then, to find out that with the large sums of numbers involved, that click fraud is linked to other types of fraud where it’s the scale that generates income.

Tags: Click Fraud, click fraud cost, daily budget, high click value, scale
Posted in Features | No Comments »

Clicking Content Ads in Exchange for A Quality Post

Friday, July 4th, 2008

Here is an ethical dilemma in the click fraud arena, please leave your point of view in the comment field below.

Joe Bloggs is a tech savvy individual who reads many online blogs.

Whilst searching for a technical answer, he is directed to a particular site via a search engine query and finds the exact solution he needs.

He notices that the site is running Adsense ads, and knowing that the website owner will be rewarded if he clicks on the ad, he selects a potentially useful ad from the list displayed.

He clicks on the ads displayed and visits the site, gives a quick review of the product and leaves without making a purchase.

Is this click fraud, or is the advertiser getting their desired action from the site, a click and the attention?

Over to you, let the debate begin. 

Posted in Features | 3 Comments »

5 Habits To Avoid Click Fraud

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

I would like to show you five good pay per click campaign habits you should adopt to avoid click fraud.

1. Keep an eye on the competition
Do you know who else is competing on your keywords? These are the potential sources of competitor click fraud. Monitor your top ten most expensive keywords and see who is also running ads againt them.

Consider looking up the domain IP range of these companies and adding them to your exclusion lists. If a competitor cannot see your ads, they cannot click on them. NB this only works if they click from their own domain.

2. Monitor the Quality of Content Network Clicks
A large amount of publisher click fraud is generated from the content networks, if you advertise on these networks, monitor the quality of your clicks very closely, choose your partner sites carefully and don’t just accept any site . If you are unhappy with a particular site, add it to your exclusion list.

3. Keep Exclusions Lists and Update them Frequently
Protect your ads by not displaying them to people you suspect may be committing click fraud. To do this create and keep up to date exclusion lists.

There are two types of exclusion lists:

a) Domain Exclusion Lists - These lists stop your ads being displayed on content network sites.

b) IP exclusion List - The list to stop activity from suspicious IP addresses for example if one IP is constantly clicking on your ads.

4. Baseline your campaigns
Do you know what your average click through rate and conversion rate is? If you base line these regularly and have this information to hand, it makes spotting trends caused by click fraud much easier.

5. Submit Refund requests at least once a month
Become a thorn in the side of your ad suppliers, do not accept that their filters are fool-proof. If you suspect click fraud, collect the evidence and submit it at regular intervals (I recommend once a month) and do not take their first stock reply as law. Ask to speak to the manager, present your evidence, get your refund.

Tags: Click Fraud, Competitor Click Fraud, publisher click fraud
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Activism and Click Fraud

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

A number of months ago I wrote a speculative article on how click fraud could be used as a tool of activists.

The article Low Quality Clicks as a Means of Passive Demonstration painted a fictional picture on how the bottom line of an organisation can be effected by attacks on it’s internet advertising spend.

Whilst monitoring articles posted on the net, I came across this piece called operation deplete on how a group are advocating (using negative language) the clicking of their adversaries adsense ads. It was only a matter of time before my predictions came true.

DISCLAIMER: I do not condone the methods used by this group and I support neither the activists or the target of their protest.

Tags: Click Fraud
Posted in Features, News | No Comments »

Case Study - Sometimes It Ain’t Click Fraud

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

I was recently working with a client based in the US who had seen a masive increase in click through and no corresponsing increase in conversion. He contacted me with a view to investigate possible click fraud.

As a starting point I obtained an invalid click fraud report (see below). From this we can see an incredibly suspicious increase in clicks and cost per click

I asked for a copy of their web server logs to run through my analysis tool to see what was causing this problem.

The company works in the US mortgage space, a notoriously competitive and expensive place to advertise. An arena ripe for competitor click fraud attacks.

The client’s technical team went off to retrieve the logs for the particular weekend when the problem occcured, only to come back and report that the logs were not available. They could not be retrieved from the backups, they had gone missing! The month before and after were available but nothing for the suspicious weekend.

Lightbulbs lit up in my mind, but I did not want to alarm my client without any foundation. I thought this was an inside job.

Sure enough my client came back to me, a disgruntled employee had increased the cost per click and expanded the campaign widely . They also deleted the web server log files for the period in an effort to cover their tracks. The nett result was a click bill for perfectly valid clicks to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Needless to say the employee was shown the door very quickly.

The moral of the story, it’s not always click fraud, and only very trusted employees should be give the keys to your pay per click budget. The damage to the bottom line can be huge if your Adwords admin goes rogue.

These clicks were perfectly valid, and internal grudges is not an acceptable reason for a refund from Google.

Tags: Case Studies
Posted in Case Studies, Features | 1 Comment »

Log Files vs Javascript Code

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

I have written in the past about the various mechanics of click fraud software on the market, but I thought I would extend on this and talk about the benefits of log file analysis versus javascript tag implementations.

If you have checked out my consultancy page, you will see I am a fan of log file analaysis, in this post I will say why I hold this position, and it is due to two incredibly important facts

You can Disable javascript on your browser

Users have the option to disable javascript on their browser. As JS is client side scripting language, if the browser is not prepared to run your script, there is no way to capture metrics on the visit. Any tech-savvie click fraudster will disable javascript as their first port of call. This then renders your click fraud tool useless.

Some bots can be in and out before a script is loaded.

Analysis of certain click bots has shown that they can hit your site, register a click with Google and drop off your site, before your javascript has had time to load up and capture the visit details. This visit will however be recorded in your web servers log files.

How to Test This

Don’t belive me, then here is a quick test in another area of log file vs javascript to prove the problems with scripted implementations.

1) Review your traffic data from a log file analysis package such as webalizer

2) Review your traffic data from a javascript service such as Google analytics.

I am prepared to bet that your visits will be higher on the log file to javascript package. This is due to a number of factors including the two outlined above.

As a parting word I would like to say that there are some instances where javascript tags are the only way to analyse your traffic, for example if your ISP does not give you access to your logs in a hosted environment. If that is the case, go with the scripts, the more evidence you have, the better your chance of a refund from the search engines.

Tags: click fraud software
Posted in Features, How To | 1 Comment »

Click Quality And Facebook Social Ads

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

I have been doing a lot of work with Facebook social ads recently, and thought it would be a good time to write about the click quality issues I see with their program.

Why Use Social Network Ads?

As the strangle hold on Internet traffic by Google increases and the Yahoo/Microsoft partnership rumbles on and on, there is very little leverage an advertiser can bring to bear on Google in an effort to improve their advertising deal. There is an emerging option in the Social networks, in particular the ones developing their own pay per click advertising rather than partnering with the big search engines (Bebo/Yahoo, MySpace/Google).

What Are Facebook Social Ads?

Facebook has created it’s own advertising scheme where CPC or CPM ads can be displayed on the bottom left hand side of a Facebook user’s profile and example is shown below. In this case the ad is for Hilton Hotels.

The system allows a small text only or image and text ad to be created. This can then be linked to a site external to Facebook or to a page create on the site to advertise goods or services.

Due to the nature of the site and the information you supply, there is a lot of demographic targeting available for advertisers. Your ad can be targeted to location, sex, keywords (pre-defined in Facebook), age and educational status.

Facebook actions Social Actions are the novel part of this service. You ad can be displayed next to the normal social actions of Facebooks users. For example my friend Joe Bloggs buys tickets for the band The Click Quality Consultants (they are an indie guitar band - very cool). If this band were running a Facebook ad with social actions enabled, the ad would be displayed next to my friends updates, possibly making me click on their ad to buy tickets too.

The system uses a costing model similar to Google. You set a max cost per click for your ad, then a bidding system kicks in and if your max CPC is higher than your rival, your ad is dispalyed.  You cost per click is also automatically reduced to 1 cent above your competitor in line with the Google model.

With an auidience of 70 million users growing by an estimated 250k per day, this is not a Google size or even Yahoo sized audience, but it has an engaged focused group of users which, when targeted correctly can provide decent returns for advertiers.

The Problems/Benefits As I see Them.

• My main concern is with the pricing of ads. In a Google or Yahoo campaign, I can see who I am competing with. With a Facebook ad, you must take it on on (forgive the pun) face value. Since there are no metrics to analyse, how do I know that Facebook is not artificially inflating the prices?
• All clicks have their referrer marked as Facebook, so it is difficult to find out which clicks are organic Facebook activity and which are paid for. This makes analysis of the traffic difficult.
• There is no way to create an exclusion list. If a Facebook users was maliciously clicking on your ads, you must manually contact the Ad support team for an investigation.
• Analysis of the conversion rate, depth, length and bounce rate of Facebook clicks found that this was comparable on the site I was working with to organic traffic, so I can conclude in this instance that the click quality from Facebook was as good as organic Google traffic.
• Text ads do not work on Facebook. As can been seen from the image above, a Facebook profile is very busy. A split test of text only versus image and text showed a 230%+ difference in click through. You need a compelling image ad for Facebook ad sucess.
• The system is not as mature as the search engines programs, this leads me to think that their click fraud filters will not be as advanced, therefore click fraud will slip through unnoticed.
• There is no content network of advertisers taking a cut for clicks, so publisher click fraud is not an issue.
• Excellent demographics.  If you have a product which matches the audience it is a brilliant way to advertise.

Further Information

I am talking about this subject in much greater details at this months Webinar from the Click Quality Coucil, check out their website for details on how to join this event.

Tags: social network click quality
Posted in Features | 7 Comments »

If Click Fraud is a Business Tax Then I Am Your Accountant.

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

There has been an article doing the rounds for some time on the internet which says that click fraud should be treated as a business tax.  The article entitled Click fraud is just another business tax by Info Security Magazine talks about click fraud from an information security perspective and comes up with the premise that click fraud should be treated as an overhead on your PPC campaigns. 

I would like to examine this idea and tell you why I think I am the accountant to get you a tax rebate.

One way people measure the return on investment for a pay per click campaign is to set a cost per acquisition level.  This is a monetary amount which determines how many clicks a company is prepared to pay for, in return for a sale.  An example would be a company selling an item for $49.  They set their cost per acquisition level at $2.50.  Daily budget, max cost per click and other PPC variables are then adjusted to match this desired indicator.  If click fraud is one of these variables, then so what ! It is accepted as long as the desired conversion levels at the set cost per acquisition are made.  This is the business tax levy.

In I step as your accountant.  It is estimate that the current click fraud tax rate is 16.6%, if I were able to get you a tax rebate and lower your cost per acquisition I am sure you would sit up and listen.  Here is an example of the tax cut in action:
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If 16% of your clicks are worthless click fraud which will never convert and your cost per click is 0.05 then you can reduce you cost per acquisition by 40 cents per sale.

$2.50 / $0.05 = 50 * 16% = 8 * $0.05 = $0.40

If you are selling 100,000 units a month at $49 that is a substantial saving of  $40,000 in your cost of acquisition bill.

How do I do this?  I take copies of you web server logs files run them through my detailed analysis procedure and find incidents of click fraud for refund.  I also find other low quality (but legitimate) click sources which can be excluded from you campaigns in the future to cut costs. Anyone interested in a review of their pay per click traffic for low quality clicks which increase the cost of client acquisition, please see my consultancy section.

I firmly belive in the tag line of this site, “only pay for quality clicks”.  Clicks that have some change of conversion.  I say don’t pay the tax, get in professional help to cut your tax liability.

I would like to end with an extract from the original article:

But right now, if you really can’t bear to pay a percentage to online scam artists, the best thing you can do is stay away from PPC advertising. Otherwise, think of it as a tax on your advertising budget. And like any tax, it’s best to get expert advice on how you minimize the bill.

Tags: Click Fraud
Posted in Features | No Comments »

Crusade Against Parked Domains

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

I am starting a click quality campaign, and I invite you the reader to join me in a foolhardy charge against the massed ranks of the search engines.

The cause I have taken up is the fact that certain parked domains are members of the Google Search Partner Program. This means that if you opt into the search partner programme, you will pay the same price to show your ads on low quality parked domains as you would on high quality search partner properties such as AOL or even the main Google search page.

In my experience, parked domains produce low quality clicks, this means that you will be less likely to gain your desired action from the click, be it a sale on an e-commerce enabled site or a sales lead where a potential client contacts you about your services.

What is A Parked Domain

A parked domain is a domain name which has been registered but is not serving any real content. The site owner will be publishing Adword ads in line with the domain name’s context, for example if the domain name is purplewidgets.com, Google will display ads for widgets on those pages.

What is Google Search Partner Program?

The search partner is a group of Googles trusted partners whom are allowed to run syndicated ads on their own properties. The ads come from a special par of the adwords programme called Adsense for Domains

The difference between Adsense for domains and the wider Adsense service is that Google trusts the quality of these parked domains to be higher, and as a result you pay a premium for any clicks coming from that domain.

Why are my search queries showing there?

Because you have opted into the search partner ad distribution system. I am not being disrespectful of the whole programme, it contains some excellent quality properties such as AOL and ASK, and these will bring high quality clicks, but there are also the chaff.

Google Claim these are high quality Clicks!

In a recent query about the quality of parked domain clicks Google said

Please note that since these clicks are legitimate, we will not be able to
refund the cost of any clicks that you received from these sites. We have
found that AdWords ads displayed on parked domain sites receive clicks
from well-qualified leads within the advertisers’ markets. In general, we
have noticed that the return on investment gained on these pages is equal
to or better than that gained on other pages in the search and content
networks

I would argue that Google does not have the post click data to confirm this information.

What to Do?

The best way to show your displeasure with parked domains is to opt out of them, in recognition of their low quality (in my opinion anyway). Google have added a function in your Adwords account which allows you to stop running your ads on any parked domains, content network or search partner. From your Adwords account, do the following:

Tools-> site/category exclusion ->select your campaign ->page types

From this page, check parked domains, it is as simple as that.

This does of course beg the question, why create an opt out process if the clicks are of such high quality.

What Outcome Do We Really Want?

Transparency of the search partner programme. Let me decide where my ads are showing. I want to show my ads on high value properties such as AOL but not on shoddy MFA parked domains. If I decide to run my ads on parked domains, then acknowledge their low quality and discount my click, don’t charge me premium rates.

Give me Your Feedback

I invite readers to leave comments on this post if they join the crusade, in particular comments from people who have advertised with search partners and have received a high ROI from parked domains would be welcomed. My rants against parked domains are from my own experiences only.

Tags: parked domains
Posted in Features | 3 Comments »

The Forgotten Victims of Click Fraud

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

I spend a lot of time writing about advertisers suffering from click fraud problems, but I think there is a forgotten victim of click fraud; the falsely accused content network publisher.

I read many blog posts from legitimate content network publishers running Adsense or Yahoo publisher network ads who are being banned due to click fraud attacks on their sites by competitors trying to remove them from the blogging niche.

Why Would This Happen?

If you are writing in a very crowded niche, there are only so many blogs and readers to go around. It is only natural that the driven and ambitious members of that niche will stop at nothing to get their share of attention, if their content is not quite up to scratch, it is time to turn to more dubious practices, make blogging in the niche financially inviable by removing a key revenue stream; their Google or Yahoo income.

How will this happen?

Your competitor will repeatedly click on your ads. The click fraud will be picked up by your ad provider and they will consider your account as fraudulent, you will then be banned from showing adsense/YPN ads.

As in all click fraud attacks, the actual clicking will be done via one or more of the following methods:

• Manual clicking - a person sits and repeatedly clicks on ads.
• Click Bots - the competitor will program a click bot to automatically clicks on your ads repeatedly.
• Click Farms - your adversary will employ groups of people to manually click on your ads. As most blogs are small concerns, it is unlikely that click farms will be employed in this brand of click fraud.

What Should You Do?

I think the key to protecting your ad publisher income is to pro-actively monitor your ads, and to report any suspicious activity to your ad provider. If you are seen to report problems, Google or Yahoo will appreciate your transparency (something they never show to advertisers, but that is anther story all together) and you will hopefully be above suspicion.

The clicks will probably be marked as invalid and you will not benefit from that revenue generated, but I think the protection of your account as a long term revenue stream is more important.

What are you looking for?

Unusual click through levels, repeated clicks coming from the same IP address and clicks coming from weird user agents.

This will require analysis of your publisher metrics and access to your web server log files.

How The Heck Do I Do That?

A very good question, you can monitor for unusual click through rates from your Adsense or YPN account. Keep an eye out for unusual spikes in traffic. Unless you have done some pretty amazing blog marketing, your click through rate will be pretty flat, and a sudden increase in clicks is a warning you should take notice of.

With regards to analysing referral information, you will need a bit more technical knowledge, and I will leave this one for my next post on this subject.  In preparation for this you may want to review this excellent resource from Aaron Wall’s SEO Book:

http://www.seobook.com/archives/001370.shtml

I am keen to get other blogger’s opinions on this topic, please leave comments on any of the following subjects:

• Can you recommend a plugin which gives you click tracking of your ads?
• Have you been banned and re-instaed, how did you do this?
• Do you suspect niche competitors are clicking on your ads

Ideally I would like to create a series of easy to install and update resources which can help to proactively monitor ads for click fraud

Tags: publisher click fraud
Posted in Features | 1 Comment »