BusinessWeek Article On Click Fraud Comes Up Short

I just finished reading this week's featured BusinessWeek article Click Fraud, the dark side of advertising and it comes up a little short in providing marketers with a full picture.  Sure it does a good job of diving into the business of click fraud and highlights David and Renee Struck's time engaging in it.  It even showcases Martin Fleischmann from Mostchoice.com as an expert in search strategy with all of his spreadsheets.  Unfortunately these expert advertisers are diving into content targeting where anyone with real experience knows it is hard to make work because of the lack of visibility into the sites it is running on and the fact it is not really the PPC advertising which made Google such a star.  You see, content targeting is a part of Google/Yahoo which you opt-in to have your text ads shown on sites that are part of Google/Yahoo's extended network (see Google ads on left margin).

What got me so fired up with the article is this paragraph: "Fleischmann, like most other advertisers, has agreed to let Google and Yahoo recycle his ads on affiliated sites. The search engines describe these affiliates in glowing terms. A Google help page entitled Where will my ads appear? mentions such brand names as AOL.com and the Web site of he New York Times. Left unmentioned are the parked Web sites filled exclusively with ads and sometimes associated with click-fraud rings. "

Well left unmentioned in the article is how easy it is to opt-out of participating in it, how you can set different bid amounts, and if you want, hand select sites for your ads to appear on.  Anyone with any limited experience knows that content is an area that you need to watch closely.  Almost all of the search campaigns that I have ever run either have content turned off altogether or set to a very low CPC amount.  The so called experts like Fleischmann should never have had it on to start with or at least should have shut it off long ago.  See the picture on the right to understand how easy it is to turn it off or set different bid amounts.  Just a check off box, but this was left out of the article.  Now you have more expertise than the Fleischmanns of the world without his pile of spreadsheets!!!

What annoys me the most about content (besides the fraud) is the lack of visibility which Yahoo and Google refuse to give advertisers when they want to advertise in these networks.  Unless you have a bid manager, you have no idea where your ads run.  The only thing you can do is opt-in using Google's site targeting and hand pick sites, but for that honor you get to run your ads on a CPM basis.  Here's a screen shot which BusinessWeek neglected to include.

The primary reason advertisers go to Google and Yahoo is for the targeted cost per click advertising found on Google and Yahoo.com search results.  Not from the complicated, fraud intense content networks that BusinessWeek focused on and in my opinion didn't do enough to point out the differences between Google.com and these sites.

If you really must advertise in content follow the tips found in the continuation of this post.  Otherwise just turn it off and watch your results on Google.com and Yahoo.com.  Sure there might be what BusinessWeek calls Version 1.0 fraud (competitors clicking on your ads) but Google and Yahoo do a good job of filtering that out.  BusinessWeek forgot to tell you that, but then again they  probably would have sold less magazines with a less than eye-catching title.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

********UPDATE TO MY ORIGINAL POST********************************

I've received a few comments plus trackbacks to this post and I'd like to provide a little more information on it,  And, yes I do know a little something about content targeting.  I've been off and on content for both Yahoo and Google for years and it has mostly been off.

GOOGLE - Within Google you can select to opt-in to Google.com, network search results (ex - searches conducted on MySpace and others), content (text ads appearing on pages in the sites in their network), and site targeting (CPM buys on sites so that your image ads appear on those pages).  So, if fraud is really your issue keep your ad buys to Google.com only.

Yahoo - Yahoo is a little more difficult because even if you opt-out of content match you still end up in Yahoo's network for search results. Basically, Yahoo Sponsored Search is similar to having Google.com+Network Search results.

Personally, I don't have any issues with having ads shown as the results of a search on Google or somewhere else within the network.  It really is a matter of return on investment and getting your results in line.  I still believe that Business Week could have done more to educate (and they've done this before in articles of this size) advertisers on how to protect themselves, but they chose not to.  Instead, you have an article that positions search marketing as a dangerous place because of fraud and really only Yahoo and Google benefit.  If that was the case, then what about all of the campaigns that I've run that have delivered excellent cost per actions?  Are they all a result of fraud?  No.

Eric

********9-28-06 UPDATE*************

Michael Andrew from MostChoice.com comments on my post and provides more clarification on what their search strategy is.  Thanks Michael.

                           PardonMyFrench Tips For Advertising in Content

(WARNING:  USE CONTENT AT YOUR OWN RISK!! IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THESE STEPS, JUST TURN IT OFF)

1. Keep separate bids for content
2. Start off small and monitor results.  I usually start with a 10 cent CPC
3. Make sure you are tracking post-click results (sales, leads, emails, etc)
4. Use a bid manager to get visibility into where your ads are running; if not, check out your referring urls for strange traffic
5. Try opting into sites you want to advertise on using Google's site targeting platform.  Sure you pay on a CPM basis, but at least you know where your ads are appearing
6. Turn everything into a cost per sale

Comments

[Carrie]

Your comments on the fact this is just lack of understanding of content networks is completely offbase.

The article specifically acknowledges Google performing better than Yahoo because they had content turned off. The commentary on Yahoo is directly acknowledging their search distribution, which by the way, is invisible. Yahoo has lowered the bar to accept "domain parking" websites and that is where rubber meets the road. There are thousands of Yahoo Distribution Network partners delivering more traffic than feasibly possible.

Please be careful in making statements which you are not completely knowledgable.

[Eric Frenchman]

Carrie,

I don't agree with your comments at all. Domain parking is bad as is the rest of the fraud in the article. The point of my post was that BusinessWeek could have done a better job educating people on how to turn off content or make adjustments to their search plan instead of just keep pounding away with their content turned on.

How is that offbase or show a lack of understanding in content networks? For the most part I keep my content turned off and don't experience these problems in the article - on Yahoo or Google. The reason for the invisibility and unknown nature of content is why I've kept it turned off for years.

I think BusinessWeek is trying to throw the Search baby out with the Content bath water.

Eric

[Richard Ball]

Nice post, Eric. I, too, was amazed at the lack of sophistication displayed by the advertisers portrayed in the article. I blogged about the differences between search ads and content ads and how the article didn't address the core issues of click fraud adequately.

Was just looking at the clickfraud tag on Technorati post and saw your blog. Nice commentary. Note that I've created a tool that lets advertisers see where their Google content ad clicks are coming from. No one should run content ads unless they know exactly where the traffic is coming from.

[PardonMyFrench]

Thanks Richard. After my first comment, I was wondering if I was missing something so I was glad to have such a noted search marketer comment back. I will indeed check out your advertising tool to see where their traffic is coming from. Thanks again.

Eric

[Richard Ball]

Hi Eric, I like the sound of that: "noted search marketer." ;-)

What's interesting is that someone from MostChoice responded via comments to my blog post about the BW article. I think they realize the article made them look foolish. I wonder if there'll be some letters to the editor.

Perhaps Carrie who posted to your blog works at MostChoice? I doubt it, though, as the MostChoice poster on my blog was quite cordial.

[Michael @ MostChoice]

Hi
I work at MostChoice and I manage much of the online marketing and worked on the story with the CEO of our company, Martin Fleischmann.

I wanted to clarify some of the comments on here. First, there is no Carrie who works at MostChoice, so that wasn't from anyone here :)

Second, we are well aware of the problems with content targeting and turn that off. The problems we had were with the search partners that are included in the Yahoo network and a few within Google. While it may not come through in the article, most of our issues have been primarily with Yahoo recently and not as much with Google, given that Google has more control and allows you to opt out of distribution. With Yahoo you are forced to have your ads shown on their "search partners," many of which are parked domains and sites of a questionable nature. If we could have just gone for Yahoo traffic we would have done so, but that is not a possibility.

I look at it like buying a dozen eggs. If you buy a dozen, you want all of them to be good, you don't want to expect that you are going to get bad eggs each time. Currently the search engines bundle "bad eggs" with the good and you are paying the high price for it. It is not that you don't want to eat eggs, but you don't want to be forced to pay for bad eggs each time, or in this case, clicks.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that pay per click is totally worthless and we should just stop -- that is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That said, until these issues are addressed and cleaned up, the trust in the marketplace will be diminished and many advertisers will be losing money to fake domains and questionable affiliates when they really shouldn't have to pay for it. If the search engines weren't making money from this they would be far more inclined to deal with the issue.

Real content partners should be rewarded for their quality traffic and visitors and not fraudsters who set up fake domains and pump clicks through the system for cash. Stories like this help to raise awareness and help clean up the pay per click market which in the end benefits everyone, including the search engines.

thanks
Michael Andrew @ MostChoice

[PardonMyFrench]

Michael,

Thanks for clarifying. It wasn't clear in the article whether you had content turned off or on. Most of my commentary was directed at BW who I thought should have done a better job clarifying and educating people on content and search.

I'm disappointed that you are seeing bad traffic off Google. Have you tried just limiting it to Google.com only? Yahoo doesn't surprise me and I agree with you that there needs to be visibility. If only Yahoo had the same traffic selection that Google has then we would have more control.

I don't think that you want to throw the search baby out with the content bath water; I do however firmly believe that was BusinessWeek's slant on the article. I've been a subscriber for years and I've seen them educate people on different subjects. They chose not to position it that way (ex - the paragraph highlighted in my post that got me so fired up).

Good luck to you. And, thanks for posting.

Eric