Pay Per Click - Be Aware

[Malcolm Cooper]

Click fraud is growing. Google brush it off as "a cost of doing business" but it's a real problem for small business. It takes seconds for a competitor or malicious casual browser to cost you £1 every day. Multiply that by a number of them and work out the cost over a year.

http://news.com.com/Click+fraud+growing+on+the+Web/2100-1024_3-6118902.html

Malcolm

[JustOneUK]

That's what makes adwords such genius for Google.
Let the businesses click each others ads whilst we rake in a profit from their shenanigans. You have to admit... it's smart.

James.

[Scott-CopyandDesign]

I don't understand why the major search engines can't just integrate an IP limiter, stopping the costs after 3 or 4 clicks from the same person over a given period. It's a complex addition but I'm sure it's better then paying 90 million dollars.

That's what makes adwords such genius for Google.
Let the businesses click each others ads whilst we rake in a profit from their shenanigans. You have to admit... it's smart.

James.

You're right it is smart but but it could end up working against them if everyone stops buying Ad-words because of it, I know I'd certainly think twice about it with this kind of malicious behaviour around.

[JustOneUK]

You're right it is smart but but it could end up working against them if everyone stops buying Ad-words because of it, I know I'd certainly think twice about it with this kind of malicious behaviour around.
Yes, but if people stop bidding on adwords the price comes down, erm... making people bid.
It can only go so low before it becomes viable again :p

James.

[Malcolm Cooper]

I don't use adwords or overture but I do use the shopping comparison sites (the likes of Pricerunner). The monthly cost is pretty scary.

I believe the way to go is paying a fixed fee for inclusion in such a site. Not pay per click. That's what the development of Great Stuff UK is all about. Low cost product exposure for small business with a fixed and easily budgeted fee. There's a lot of work to do on it yet but it should be up and running in a month.

[SillyJokes]

I don't use adwords or overture but I do use the shopping comparison sites (the likes of Pricerunner). The monthly cost is pretty scary.

I believe the way to go is paying a fixed fee for inclusion in such a site. Not pay per click. That's what the development of Great Stuff UK is all about. Low cost product exposure for small business with a fixed and easily budgeted fee. There's a lot of work to do on it yet but it should be up and running in a month.

Malcolm I afraid don't agree.

Fixed price directories are a waste of money and I never pay for inclusion. This I have learnt from experience.

At least with PPC directories, they make an effort to get some clicks through and you can cancel if they don't perform. You can track the sales and see if it pays or not.

Where's the incentive to get traffic if all you have to do to gain revenue is get the merchants to sign up?

I've got to admit I'm surprised you are starting a directory site so it will be interesting to hear how you get on.

[Malcolm Cooper]

Mmmmm, I don't wholly disagree with you, I just think that many PPC sites exhibit nothing short of greed. It costs me too much money and I'm sure others who use them will agree.

Now, my main business is jewellery so I don't need to be greedy on GSUK. The site is well capable of operating on a PPC basis but surely it's better for a small business to have a site similar to shopping.com that charges a clear fixed fee?

GSUK isn't going to be a directory, it's a shopping comparison mall.

[robknight]

Just noticed your proposed pricing. £59 a month to be included in a start-up price comparison site is absolutely ridiculous. Your site will never succeed with a pricing model like that. Make it £4.99 a month and people might be interested.

[carps]

As I understand it, PPC fraud is only a problem on the content network (i.e. the ads carried by third party sites rather than on the main Google search results.) Certainly the claims made against Google come from the content network.

On Google itself, I've always found that the protection from clickfraud is fairly decent (one or two questionable results though). It's when the ads are hosted somewhere else that it gets horrible for Google to maintain any sort of control. If you're unsure, you can just change the settings so the ads don't show on the content network.

On Google's site, it tracks clicks on an ad from a single IP, and doesn't count them multiple times. If you want to test it, set up an ad and click it yourself lots of times! There are some complications behind some ISPs who use shared IP addresses (looking at you, AOL and NTL!) and multiple IPs per user, but generally I haven't found it to be a problem.

The main problem really is that even if clickfraud is happening, Google is still pretty much the only game in town if you really want to go to work with your online advertising. Until there's some serious competition, you have to decide whether the ROI is worth the small risk of defraudment.

[Malcolm Cooper]

Just noticed your proposed pricing. £59 a month to be included in a start-up price comparison site is absolutely ridiculous. Your site will never succeed with a pricing model like that. Make it £4.99 a month and people might be interested.

What experience do you have of feeding your product line to the likes of shopping.com. shopzilla, pricerunner etc?

As someone who does I can tell you that £59 a month is peanuts.

[Eagle]

G**gle.

Just say No.

[Malcolm Cooper]

Forgive me, I'm a really nice guy and this is not confrontation but what is your point?

[Eagle]

My point is; don't give G**gle your money. :)

[Malcolm Cooper]

Oh, in that case I totally agree with you. IMHO if you sell products use Froogle, shopping.com, shopzilla etc. by all means but Google Adwords is just "mud at the wall" and what sticks is expensive!

I'm by no means anti Google. Adwords has its uses but it has to be used with care.

[Eagle]

I'm by no means anti Google.
I am! :D ;)

[Malcolm Cooper]

Google is your friend!

[Eagle]

www.live.com (http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true) is mine. :)

[Malcolm Cooper]

So what are you saying? Please expand.

[Malcolm Cooper]

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/09/26/online-advertising-fraud-involves-google-and-yahoo/

[SillyJokes]

£59 a month is not peanuts unless you are catching a lot of elephants!

Its £700 a year and for what? There is no guarantee you will send any traffic at all.

Maybe you are coming at it from your Jewelry site propective where I'm guessing your average order is going to be £100 plus and maybe your conversion is high because your market is very wide and your product popular.

Many sites, mine included, have a much smaller average order size and and much smaller market so therefore must work much harder and do more sales to justify every bit of advertising.

I see new directory/comparison sites every week joining our affiliate program and very very few of them ever do anything.

If you can get your site working then I suppose it will be a success for you, but I'm not paying £59 to find out. The comparison shopping site avenue is absolutely packed with affiliate marketeers whose soul love in life is search engine optimisation and they are very good at it i.e. comparestoreprices.com.

They don't charge me to be in them and I pay them when a sale is made and that's the way I like it. Very few earn more than £59 a month from me, even the very best.

[Malcolm Cooper]

I do take your point. I'm looking into offering PPC on the site as an alternative for those who prefer it and at a very low fixed rate.

I'm no slouch when it comes to SEO and I wouldn't be doing GSUK if it wasn't going to be top 10 Google material. It'll take a little time of course but I'm not playing at this.

[HeritageIntlGroup]

It's the small PPC networks that you really need to look out for such as go-click and adbrite that has nothing but junk traffic and adware directed traffic. I am sure there are others out there but these are the worst.

In the US more and more advertisers are turning to Pay Per Call and away from PPC, Google and Ebay started a partnership to deliver this option I believe starting next year.

[pnelson]

I would certainly recommend turning off "content network" in the adwords settings as most click fraud undoubtedly takes place on the syndicated ads section.