At Clickshift (password required), we've noticed some pretty interesting numbers recently:
1. In one test, we used an analytics provider to count clicks on a search campaign - they counted 124, but Google billed 51.
2. In another test, the analytics package counted 62 and Google billed 13.
3. One of our clients recently told us their analytics package shows about 30% lower conversion rate from paid search clicks than our tracking shows. Again caused by the disparity between clicks received and clicks billed.
This seems like a huge problem caused by click fraud (I think the term is a misnomer), and one that I haven't seen get much attention. The real victims of the fraud are the analytics companies - and the people who try to make decisions based on what they see in those reports.
There's some great analytics software out there, but the reports they provide are just eye candy if they're wildly miscounting - and they are. That makes it tough to run your business based on their numbers.
Related Tags: click fraud, search engine marketing, sem
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
The real victims of click fraud
Posted by John Rodkin at 6:04 PM
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3 comments:
The real victims of the fraud are the analytics companies - and the people who try to make decisions based on what they see in those reports.
I can see how the latter might be victims, but the former? If anything, the analytics companies ought to know that there are likely
to be differences between what they and Google (or whoever is providing the ads) consider to be clicks.
Is it Click Fraud, or Click Neglect. Lazy accounting or devious accounting? Is it even possible to count the clicks properly? If so, then devious. If not, then lazy. Either way bad for the client. How is Google for accountability when billing? Do the charges add up?
The charges Google sends are definitely accurate as far as clicks billed times charge per click goes. Of course, whether the clicks billed number is right is the whole point behind the click fraud debate.
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