SES London 2008 Interview – Jon Myers
Filed under: Education and Training, PPC on Friday, February 15th, 2008 by Simon Heseltine
Today’s SES London interview is with Jon Myers of Mediavest, a Manchester, England based firm. Jon is actually involved with 5 different sessions at this conference, but this interview deals directly with the Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues session on Tuesday Feb 19th at 11am
Hi Jon, let’s start by getting a little background on you for those people who don’t know the only member of the Geordie SEO society not named Mike…
I have worked in search marketing and online media for more than nine years now. I am working with Mediavest (MVi) as Head of Search/Associate Director and have been involved in SEO for years and Paid Search (PPC) since its inception here in the U.K. As you say I am Geordie born and bred and very proud of it. Newcastle is a fantastic place and me and Mike have spend many a night reminiscing about search and the North East.
It’s hard to believe that paid search has only really been around in the UK for 7 years and how much is has changed. I remember the good old days when Google had 2 staff in London, Yahoo was Go International/Overture and Espotting was going strong. For me to be able to say I can remember day 1 of UK PPC and be in my 10th year of search, as you can imagine people seem to think I am a lot older. I think the market has reached a level of maturity but still has a lot of growing to do. Just look at Yahoo and Microsoft, who would have thought one would be trying to buy the other!
I have actively been involved over the years with industry bodies such as SEMPO, IPA and the IAB as a Search Task Force committee member. As well as a regular presenter at industry events.
So, click fraud. It seems so 2006, people don’t seem to be talking about it as much.
- a)Is it really still much of an issue?
- b)Are the big 3 doing better these days?
- c)Is it really more of a 2nd and 3rd tier engine issue?
- d)Why aren’t people talking about it post Google settlement?
Wow all these questions! Lets deal with them one at a time.
a)This is my 4th Year presenting on Click Fraud and I still believe a lot of marketers are still waking up to the potential threat of Click Fraud so it is still getting interest and talked about a lot. If you think it has matured with the marketplace to the point we now have ‘Click Quality Councils and the IAB has taken an interest in it with click measurement.
b)I would be tempted to say it is not as much of an issue as lot of the Search Engines have undertaken better filtering and guys like us have been pointing out for years poor quality traffic. But as far as the search engines are concerned after they have filtered the traffic and removed what they call non commercial intent traffic they believe all traffic is good traffic unless we say otherwise.
This is due to the fact that they can’t see conversion, it is up to us as marketers to analyse our traffic and conversion data and report back on anomalies and poor quality traffic. It is not a difficult thing to do if you have a decent log analysis package and best practice knowhow which I would hope our panel at SES this year will give you! The search engines are willing to review your data and make refunds against it, in return you are helping them clean up their networks. The big 3 search engines are working hard to improve their traffic performance and quality and it is more refined than it used to be but there is still a lot of work to do. Take the Google Content network back in 2004 you could either switch it on or off and conversion was really poor. Now we can refine the traffic and site target which only improves quality. The thing is that people and technology are always moving forward and finding new ways to create revenue streams via Click Fraud so it will be an ongoing an evolving process.
c)Focus your time into the 2nd tier search engines on the main networks. These are the sites that have taken a search feed from the main engines and these are areas open to the most abuse. This is where a good log analyser comes in, it will allow you to see the urls of the actual site carrying the feed and not that it is just traffic from Yahoo or Google. There are so many ways to look at your data, from site level to increased traffic or conversion drop at keyword level.
A good tip is to use Google Invalid Clicks report, this will tell you how many clicks Google have removed by account that you are not paying for but to me it is a good indicator of accounts or industry sectors that are open to abuse and it may be worth investing your time towards, not only on Google but Yahoo and Microsoft as well.
d)What can I say about the Lanes Gifts and Collectables Settlement of $90 million dollars. A lot of people say it was not enough and always will. It was open to all advertisers on Google from day one until the claim date to apply for refunds. I certainly did as we had spent a bit in the time period. I often wondered when I would see the refund the reality was it went straight back onto the account in Adwords and was that small I probably missed it. This would have been the case for a lot of people as $90 million compared to the billions of turn over in the time period is a very small amount.
What do you think the level of click fraud out there is these days?
For years we have heard number banded around as high as 30% and at the minute we are looking at anywhere from the Google quoted 0.02% to 28% from some of the click monitoring companies. My stance is regardless of the levels, you have to work with it while it may be affecting your traffic. It does exist and it won’t go away, it is part of the industry and has been for years. This is why I can stress enough the need to analyse your traffic data
Some people just lock their advertising down to the main Google, Yahoo and Microsoft search engines as historically and correctly this is the lowest Click Fraud risk at maybe 2-3% in my eyes as most. To me this though is limiting your reach, potential coverage and traffic volumes. There is a need to find a balance and drive online business but at the same time optimise, review and police your traffic.
Do you think there’s any difference in the level of click fraud in the UK market compared to the US?
Looking at some of the data in the market place, they say that the UK and Europe has a much higher risk compared to the US. For me again it comes back to the principles of a need to monitor and police your traffic. There is no doubt that online has grown over the years and will continue to here in the UK. This is down to the fact that it is giving marketers and companies some of the best conversion and sales volumes around. Imagine by policing your traffic how much better that could be?
You’re also speaking on 2 other panels and moderating 2 other sessions at SES London, which of those are you most looking forward to?
I think it would have to be the panel on Day 2 Called Searcher Behaviour Research Update. I am moderating this one. The line up for the panel is a good one with Piers Stobbs of ComScore Europe, Erica Schmidt, of Isobar, Dr. Jon Dodd, Bunnyfoot and John Marshall, of Market Motive. These are all good people with a few years in the industry and after being in contact with the speakers the panel content is looking great. I would say all the other are shaping up to be good ones as well. Not to mention the Local Search on Day 3 that you are on with me as well Simon!
Which of the sessions that you’re not involved with do you think is a ‘must see’?
Looking at the panels across the conference there are some great ones but for me it would have to be the one on Day 1 called “Orion Panel: Universal, Blended and Vertical Search.” It is being moderated by Kevin Ryan with Andrew Goodman, Adam Lasnik of Google, Mike Grehan, Jeff Revoy of Yahoo! This should be a hot topic for everyone to get in to watch and understand. There are some great panelist with a lot of experience in the industry talking about a subject that is important to understand.
If you’re interested in hearing Jon and others talk at SES London, then there’s still time to register for the SES-London show, running from Tuesday Feb 19th until Thursday Feb 21st.
