Start Up Funding - 10 Steps For Fighting Click Fraud

It wasn't as serious as it is lately since the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is becoming very popular for getting highly targeted traffic as well as making an affiliate-based commission, only. Pay-Per click fraud dates back even from the time when Overture was still Goto.com.

What's pay-per click fraud, so?

We make money. The visitor then examines our site and eventually makes a purchase. You and I will pay a fee to a site that offers PPC program and hosts our ads whenever those ads are being clicked by a visitor, in an ideal world.

We lose money. And even affiliates that just click on our ads in order to earn commission offered by the PPC providers, underhanded competitors, automated scripts known as "hitbots", but from scam artists. Those clicks that you and I pay for are not coming from potential customers, in click-fraud-world as it is nowadays.

Fraudulent clicks happen on a regular basis - even more than what we could possibly imagine. Or a website visit not being originated by a legitimate user, fraudulent clicks or "click spam" can be defined as any kind of click that occurs with zero possibility for a conversion to occur.

But diligently keeps count - it's $0.18 to $0.25 per click, she doesn't care about the ads. She is clicking on PPC advertisements. India Times published a shocking article about a mother who gets down to work every evening while holding a baby in her lap.

" And needs to be curbed, this is unethical. And anybody who can manipulate numbers gets the edge. Advertising Council of India - "It's a numbers game as far as media buying is concerned, chairman, " - says Goutam Rakshit, "The trend is catching up in India.

They are spending about $10 million on consumers that don't exist. Estimated that his company's clients are spending approximately $10 million a year on fraudulent clicks, the vice president for product marketing for Coremetrics, john Squire.

How much are you paying for customers that don't exist?

Or if you are simply suspicious of the traffic that occurs without any increase in sales - then perhaps you need to start getting tougher with your PPC analysis, affiliate-generated fraudulent activity, if you think your PPC campaign funds are depleting due to a fraudulent click activity.

You won't get the refund unless you have hard core facts to prove it, but. You can always ask for refund from the PPC provider running your campaign if you have suspected a fraudulent click activity.

Let's get down to the facts, and now.

Clone your sales page and save it under a different URL. Define a unique URL for the sales page that will go through the PPC program, on a less technical note. 1a.

hotvitamins.com. Such as power, create a sub-domain, or. Save it as hotvitamins.com/power, and lets say your URL is hotvitamins.com, if your page is selling vitamins for an example.

You want to have 100% pure PPC traffic so you can keep an eye on it. Do not link this new URL to any other website, only. The only traffic coming to that page is from the PPC website, that way. Use this "cloned" sales page for your PPC campaign, then.

I'm seeing both techniques being used. You can assign unique session id to each of your URLs within your PPC campaigns, for more technical people. 1b.

" Your webhost should already provide you with a log analyzer program or a "Site Statistics Tool. Etc, iP, uRL, page views, referrer, time, including date, use a basic log analyzer program to begin to investigate the data on the received clicks. 2.

Or you have to install log analyzer software yourself, maybe it's time for you to change your webhost, if not.

At the end of the day you want to be able to capture the IP address from each click, based on how comprehensive your "Site Statistics Tool" is. What you want to do at this stage is look for anything suspicious.

Run a "reverse IP address lookup" to see who is making those clicks. Click behavior and click timing, look at the quantity of the clicks from each IP address, then.

Make sure you have the capability of capturing the IP address, or you will contract it out, or you will install a software yourself, whether you will depend on the tool your webhost is providing you. You want to be able to gather as many details as possible for each and every click, basically.

" That's an indication of clicks being generated by automated scripts known as "hitbots, or cookies were not generated, if the IP address was not captured.

There are plenty of low-cost conversion tracking solutions. Or by using a third-party conversion tracking tool, you can choose to track conversions either by using your own conversion tracking system. Start tracking the conversion ratio. 3.

That's a service you definitely want to get if you don't want to deal with it yourself. The services offering to track your clicks will have a sales conversion option available for you, in some cases.

The chances are very high that you could be a victim of click-fraud, but if you're getting high amount of traffic from your PPC campaign and low to zero sales, it could as well be the low demand of your product or a high competition. Your chances are very high that you're being bullied by someone, if your sales ratio is very low or even zero, but.

What do you do if you suspect that you're receiving fraudulent clicks on your PPC campaign, so?

The PPC provider will ask you for facts and not an opinion. Ensure that you have a legitimate case even if you have to double check your records. You have to have evidence of the suspicious clicks. Make sure you have data that points to questionable traffic. Be meticulous - very thorough. 4.

Etc, screen shots, reports, scribbles, email exchanges, document anything related to the campaign - handwritten notes. Carefully document your traffic analysis during your PPC campaign. 5.

Whether they're from your server logs or from a third party processor that you might be contracting for this purpose, be sure to record every one of the clicks. 6.

There have been various reports on competitors of a same product manipulating Google's new system, ever since Google changed its policy on PPC ads. Document all relevant competitor positioning. 7.

But they know when to pause their campaign (knowingly) and when to reactivate it again, they're not breaking Google's rules. It's the people with more technical knowledge manipulating the system for their own good while killing the campaigns of the people with no technical knowledge.

Two victims' cases presented to the PPC provider will make a stronger case. Your PPC campaign might not be the only one experiencing these fake clicks. You might want to contact your competitors to see if they're experiencing click fraud, on the other note. 8.

And do take time, their investigations can. Contact your PPC account representative and submit your data with a request for refund, when feeling highly confident that you have a strong case and clear facts that you've been a victim of click fraud. 9.

Continue to monitor your click activity and record any additional data, meantime. 10.

You snooze - you lose. . . . . . . . But with the seriousness of PPC "click spam" nowadays. We pay for advertising so we can free up our time and let someone else do it. It's unfortunate that we have to be so much involved to protect ourselves.

Perhaps there are other ways of bringing highly targeted traffic with less stress, if the PPC providers don't solve this problem.