Perhaps it was a coincidence that both front page of the New York Times Business section ran the same story that Business Week profiled on the front page of its weekly edition--which came out one day earlier--Click Fraud--Internet Advertising biggest achilles heel. I'm arguably one of the first that started using Google Adwords--and promoted its use to clients....but throughout that time, I've been shouting about instances of click fraud, and experienced several very costly instances. When complaining--and pointing to the abberational activity, Google's support analysts kept replying with excuses and explanations that made no sense... That caused me to cancel ad programs---and warn my clients about best practices for click advertising.
Are advertisers losing millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions or Billions??? Probably some where in the middle to upper end of the guestimates---and let's face it, no matter what Google or Yahoo! have evangelized, their incentive to take progressive steps to stem this problem is outweighed by the fact that these companies are direct beneficiaries of click fraud.
Its really simple--Google will distribute the placement of your ad through a daisy chain of networks, and get a slice of the pie every time the ad is clicked on. Unless the advertiser specifically configures his advertising program to only display ads within the Google search engine return page, that ad is displayed on upwards of thousands, if not tens of thousands of individual websites..
Now, from the advertiser perspective, that's the goal---presuming the third-party sites fall within the targeted demographic profile.. Which is what Google's recently recent platform 'content network' is supposed to achieve.. (The content network charges based on impressions, not clicks---the old fashioned method...Which is doubly troublesome...) And I have first have experience testing all of the different approaches.... And I can tell you that click fraud is a MAJOR problem...despite what Google or Yahoo! would like you to believe...
By the way, MSN has a new program that purportedly places your ads within sites that conform to the advertiser's demographic target zone---but again, wrought with potential for fraudsters to run up your ad spending with impressions and/or clicks being generated by those looking to get a piece of your ad spending, not access to a product or service that you are advertising.
If you want to limit your exposure--you can simply configure your adwords setting so that your ad only displays within the Google search network. This means your ad will only display when someone does a google search using one of the keywords that you are bidding for.. And this will also make it easier for Google to track those nasty competitors that are clicking on your ad hundreds of times so that they buy up all of your air time-
The downside is that you will get alot less exposure (figure 1/10 of what you are getting now if your ad setting includes both "Google search' and 'network partners')---the upside is that your ad will be displayed to a qualified audience that are specifically looking for results based on the Google search...But it will cost you more (figure 2x-3x) to get your ad displayed on the first or second return page.
Or we can all vote with our checkbooks and inundate Google Support with emails telling them we're refraining from advertising until they address the problem to our satisfaction... Sounds crazy?...
Not if you appreciate what happened over the past two weeks after FaceBook's users revolted when that company started publishing 'newsfeeds' profiling every single activity and posting of its members... That was a really stupid idea put into production by the brash 22 year old Harvard dropout that runs FaceBook --- 200,000 or more of its college student users revolted in mass, prompting FaceBook's pimply-faced genius to realize how much he screwed up. And his plan to open the network to anyone with a valid email address (as opposed to limiting it to college students/teachers---and more recently high school students) is perhaps the last goose that will kill his golden egg. This kid should have finished his coursework in Harvard--he might have been exposed to a few case studies that documented what happends to a company when they expand to quickly and disenfranchise the customer base that made them what they are..
This kid should hit whatever bid MSN has put on the table---take his $100 million in cash and call it a life...FaceBook is never---repeat NEVER--going to become a global social network---it was perfectly designed to cater to one very narrow audience---but if I'm allowed to have a page, my college daughter would puke---and immediately turn off her own page.
Enough said.
No comments:
Post a Comment