5 Bad PPC Symptoms that Usually are NOT Click Fraud
Filed under: Analytics, Audits, PPC on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 by Joy BrazelleClick Fraud has been a serious concern for careful marketers for a long time now. But, Click Fraud also has become a scape-goat for some poorly performing campaign symptoms caused by laziness or lack of knowledge:
1 – High bounce rate/low average time on site
Most often, you will find this is the case when you have a descriptive ad that takes the visitor to a generic or a content-mismatch page (for example an online jewelry store with an ad about a silver bracelet that links to their home page describing gold jewelry).
2 – Low conversion rate
There are many causes for a low conversion rate – ranging from a user un-friendly checkout process to a bug on your site. Or, your ad may produce traffic that is just not interested in your product (if your ads imply that you are the lowest price online shoe site and you are clearly not).
3 – Traffic from same IP address (with a caveat)
If you find that you are getting a lot traffic to your site from your PPC from the same IP address, go to www.dnsstuff.com and use the WHOIS lookup. Many IP addresses resolve back to the ISP (like Earthlink or AOL).
4 – Expensive CTR (Your initial Max CPC gets you no traffic even though there is a lot of inventory)
This is a common occurrence when you initially get started in PPC. Your CPC is based on not just what you are willing to spend in relation to what your competitors are, but also your quality score, and importantly your CTR history. So, if you are launching your first campaign, expect to bid high until you can get a history of good CTR
5 – Traffic from non-Google sites, even though you have opted out of the Content Network
Opting out of the Content Network does not guarantee that all of your traffic will be a result of Google searches. Not only might your ad still show up in Gmail, Google Maps, or other Google sites - and unless you have manually opted out of the Search Partner option – you will still see results from sites like Ask.com, AOL, and many, many, many other smaller search sites that are Google’s search partners
More common symptoms of Click Fraud generally result around a big change in campaign performance. Some examples below are:
Spike in traffic from a campaign with no spike in spend or logic/seasonality-cause
Drop in traffic from a campaign with no spike in spend or logic/seasonality-cause
Change in ad performance – if your campaign has been running for a time with a high CTR and a high conversion rate, and all of a sudden the performance drops. First check to make sure there is not a problem with your site. If nothing has broken on your site, start the deeper dive.
Traffic from same IP – when the results of the WHOIS lookup shows that the IP resolves to competitor or other non-ISP traffic
No one wants to waste their PPC budget on bad clicks, but before you go to the search engines with the accusation of Click Fraud, make sure that you’ve done your due diligence to eliminate the symptoms caused by a poorly performing or expensive ad.
I think I read this post three years ago.
↓ Quote | Posted August 27, 2008, 1:39 pmHi Carrie -
Thanks for the comment. It is true, you may have read something similar. Three years ago I was working at ClickTracks when its ‘Click Fraud’ report came out. We really wanted to make sure that people who were running PPC did not just run the ‘Click Fraud’ report and immediately send it to the search engines and expect/demand a refund.
It is interesting that still today, years later, there is still a lot of confusion about what is and what is not click fraud and what to expect from the search engines.
The bottom line is that there is much due-diligence that a marketer should perform before turning to the search engines with the accusation of click fraud.
↓ Quote | Posted August 27, 2008, 3:18 pm[...] 9. Ignoring Click-Fraud or Invalid Clicks – I know that researching to determine click fraud can be time consuming, and arguing with the search engines can be frustrating and potentially even a dead-end. I am not saying that you should spend all of your time or focus on this, but I do think it is worth paying a little attention. ClicKTracks has a great Click Fraud report. But, you must know when it is potentially click fraud versus just a poorly performing ad. [...]
↓ Quote | Posted September 30, 2008, 9:01 amgood ppc tips that are still important, old or not
↓ Quote | Posted March 10, 2009, 10:32 am