There are numerous types of click frauds. Most common would be automated bots, click farms, pay-to-click and manual clicks. These clicks result in huge expenditures for advertisers without any results. Continue Reading

If you are a advertiser, you would frequently wonder if the expenditure on your ad networks are being utilized the right way. You would also be aware of the numerous types of illegal techniques with which fraudsters earn out of your advertisement. Some of the most common click frauds include:

• Automated Clicks or Click Bots
• Manual Ad Clicks
• Pay to Click Sites
• Affiliate or contextual clicks

Though Search Engines have become largely aware of these techniques, there are still considerable numbers of click frauds happening every month. However, click frauds have decreased compared to couple of years ago. Continue Reading

It definitely looks fishy when Google tries to promote Yahoo! Ad agreement repeatedly proclaiming it’s great for Yahoo! And not just that! Google is now on a pursuit for testimonials favoring Yahoo! Ad agreement.

Why should Google be so interested in something which will be good for Yahoo! Well the answer is MONEY! Yes, when Google partners with Yahoo!, it means its partnering with one of the largest Ad Networks to display its ads. This would obviously mean more money in Google’s pockets.

But how does Google promote this self-money making scheme? Something as follows:

Benefits of the deal

1. Consumers
   - See more relevant ads when looking for information or browsing the web
   - Easier communications through interoperable Instant Messaging
   - Yahoo! remains a vibrant and innovative presence on the Internet
2. Website Publishers
   - Benefit from better ad matching technology, potentially increasing the revenue they earn from their sites
3. Advertisers
   - New ways to reach target customers online more efficiently

Google seems to pounce on every opportunity where it can make some money! Now, its favoring its direct competitor to make some extra money.

MySpace has now officially launched a self-serving ad platform. With MyAds, users would be able to create their own ad banners and use demographic targeting.

MyAds claims to provide more features than its competitors. Some of its top features include:

1. Create your own ads

   Myspace provides all the necessary templates and instructions to build your own add.

2. Audience Targeting

   You can choose which audience can view your ad. For example: An advertisement on home loans can be blocked for kids or teenagers and displayed to audience above 30 years of age.

3. Choosing Budget

   You can fix your maximum budget for the day so that you will not experience unanticipated costs.

4. Performance Monitoring

   Real-time data on the performance of your ad campaigns are possible which can help you better determine the demographics and the audience your campaign reaches.

MyAds would become competitive and popular as Google Adsense if MySpace uses them on its own website alone. Currently, MySpace looks like targeting only Musicians. However, MySpace states that the service is for everybody.

With more number of players in the internet advertising market, advertisers may get the edge with lower PPCs. But this would also affect publishers to a large extent.

Google Adwords is coming up with interesting features lately. The recent one being Demographic Bidding.

The new demographic bidding feature can help you display ads to only specific age and gender segments within the Google Content Network. This can not just help increase click through rates but also understand and analyze how the ads perform under each segments.

With this feature, you can utilize two options:

1. Increase your bid rate for certain segments like teenagers or the middle age segment based on your ad product category.
2. Exclude certain groups from viewing your advertisements. For example: If you are displaying ads for kids like toys or children books, you can avoid them from being seen by the older generation. This can help you reduce cost and stop ad viewership by non-targeted audience.

The reports can be run using the Report Center. The report center provides various campaign performance metrics like conversion data, CTR, clicks and impressions based on the age and gender of the viewer who viewed your advertisement.

Many Google Adwords users received a mail stating that the exchange rate displayed in their Adsense account is incorrect. The exchange rate was listed as 1:1.

Google adwords account holders from countries where the dollar rate was lower than their rates, were surprised, rather shocked to see the exchange rates issued incorrectly. However, users with rates lower than the US dollar were happy as the income would be higher. Well, Google is not that faulty or dumb.
Here is what Google had to say about this issue:

Sub: Important message about your AdSense account

Hello,
We’re writing to let you know that your AdSense account is displaying anincorrect exchange rate for your most recent AdSense payment issued onSeptember 23, 2008. While the exchange rate is incorrectly listed as 1:1,please rest assured that your payment has been issued with the correctexchange rate. You can expect your check to arrive according to the normaldelivery time, within two to four weeks.

If you normally receive communication from us in a language other thanEnglish, we will provide additional information in your preferred languagenext week.We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team
Google Inc.1600
Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View,
CA 94043
USA

Similar issue occurred with Google Adsense few years back.

Click Frauds are clicks made on advertisements with the sole intention of creating a charge for the advertiser without an intention to know about the site or make a transaction.

PPC companies have informed that millions of dollars are lost to click fraudsters and PPC companies have taken up major measures to restrict or bring to notice any computer, bots or automated programs which indulge in this practice. Continue Reading

Click fraud is the use of illegitimate ways to make money from a Pay Per Click program. The fraudster would either click on the advertisements on their own sites themselves or use automated programs to click on the advertisement.

It is estimated that around 14.6 percent of all pay per clicks on ads are being done using fraudulent ways. This has cost $800 million in the year 2005 alone.
Continue Reading

A new survey based on 300 advertisers states that advertisers prefer quality of search traffic than clicks in pay-per-click search engines. Eighty-five percent of the online advertisers consider that quality of search traffic is the single and most important factor followed by bid prices and quality of search traffic.

It is interesting to note that when similar advertisers were surveyed a year ago, they voted for Bid Prices to be the most important considerations. In today’s world, an untargeted traffic would not yield results or a transaction. Targeted customers are the most important. Marketers or advertisers are not looking for a click to their website, but for real productive e-commerce traffic that would directly result in measurable returns in the investment on pay-per-click programs.
Continue Reading

Considered one of the highest settlements ever, Yahoo Inc informed that it would refund money to thousands of advertisers as early as January 2004. However, the agreement would not limit Yahoo’s liability.

Preliminary approval was given to the agreement by the United States District Judge in Los Angles.

Due to this outcome, Yahoo has assured that it would work with others in the industry to come up with an agreement on what constitutes a click fraud. Continue Reading