Now some like to mislead advertisers and say that click fraud is an issue that is under control, that it really doesn’t affect their business or that the end is near for click fraud.

All of the above in my opinion is untrue. Click fraud affects all sizes of business, any ad budget and will probably never stop. I like to think of click fraud in the same way as viruses. Every day we find ways to stop viruses, however the virus creators always find a way around. It’s the same with Click fraud, We might stop one method but the people doing it will find a way to keep it going.

Another thing to think about is, What sort of resources are really put into stopping click fraud at the search networks? At the end of the day how much money does a search network make from click fraud? As long as someones clicking, the networks profit. So if we stop click fraud 100% and ads become more effective would ad network revenues drop by 10 – 20%? More than likely, cause if there is no click fraud advertisers would be able to spend less and get more.

Anyways that is my thought of the day. It’s an opinion that I know is shared by others. If you want to talk click fraud contact me. If your looking for a great solution to monitor your advertising I would recommend Click Forensics.

Estimates are now in the billions of dollars annually, yes billions. Businesses each year lose billions to click fraud and only a small portion of them take action and attempt to stem the loses related to this growing epidemic. Last year I worked with a company that had major loses, with one month seeing an entire ppc budget being lost to click fraud.

What do you do to stop or reduce the effects of click fraud?

1. Watch for significant variations in ad campaign performance.
2. Be conservative with content ads.
3. Don’t display ads where you don’t sell products and services (e.g. if you only sell in the U.S., don’t display ads in Europe).
4. Use analytics tools or click-fraud-detection tools.
5. Click fraud from search engines is quite low, not so for contextual ads (3rd party websites).
6. Measure your results and ROI so that you can bid to your budget, not because you would like to see your ad in the #1 position for branding purposes.
7. Find alternatives to expensive, high traffic keywords as these tend to attract more fraud.

If you would like more information on click fraud and how it may be affecting your business contact me.