- Original Poster
- #1
Hi All
I said I'd mention this in another thread so here it is, nothing major to worry about but it is something you need to be aware of if youre running PPC campaigns alongside voucher systems. If you dont have any active voucher codes this still effects you too and can mean your PPC budgets get wasted by people who were already on your site!
What Ive seen happening is some of the voucher sites are using PPC links in there pages which are disguised as normal links, the link referrer information is then cleaned and passed back to yahoo/overture then back to the website thats paying for the click. Sounds strange doesnt it, well this is what Ive spotted happening to a client of mine while monitoring the PPC campaigns and site sales. This client of mine doesnt not currently have any active voucher codes but its been costing a few £ each day in click fraud! Ok this will Im sure be refunded but it was very well hidden and I was lucky to see it!
It does sound a little complicated so Im going to show you stage by stage how it was being done, by example.
If you want to check this isnt happening to you, you will need to keep an eye on your logs, and also useFireBug which is a firefox plug-in to view the GET requests after a link has been clicked. To do this install firebug, now click the bug on the bottom right of your screen. Select the net tab and enable it. Now click the link and if there is anything odd happening youll see it in the net pane.
Sorry if that makes no sense to you but Ive tried to be a clear as I can! Feel free to ask any questions but Im not going to name any sites at this point, but all I can say it is one of the bigger voucher sites doing this! I have no idea how many people they are doing this 2 but I have found a couple of examples. It is also possible that this site has been compromised and someone has slipped a few links in, abnother reason I'm not naming any sites.
This brings me nicely on to find out what you are all using to track traffic? Standard log packages like aw stats? Im sure a lot of you use Google Analytics, but what about the others? I like trace watch but its a bit dated now. Im in the process of developing a little system that will track your sales traffic
you can use it to see where all your sales are coming from and then drill down to more detailed info. Its in basic format at the moment but will have loads easy to read info & graphs all over it when its finished! The reason Im making my own is the ones Ive seen not only cost too much but they often are way over complicated.
If anyone has a ecommerce site that would like to beta test this in a month or 2 let me know via PM and Ill add you to my list when its a little more polished.
Ash
I said I'd mention this in another thread so here it is, nothing major to worry about but it is something you need to be aware of if youre running PPC campaigns alongside voucher systems. If you dont have any active voucher codes this still effects you too and can mean your PPC budgets get wasted by people who were already on your site!
What Ive seen happening is some of the voucher sites are using PPC links in there pages which are disguised as normal links, the link referrer information is then cleaned and passed back to yahoo/overture then back to the website thats paying for the click. Sounds strange doesnt it, well this is what Ive spotted happening to a client of mine while monitoring the PPC campaigns and site sales. This client of mine doesnt not currently have any active voucher codes but its been costing a few £ each day in click fraud! Ok this will Im sure be refunded but it was very well hidden and I was lucky to see it!
It does sound a little complicated so Im going to show you stage by stage how it was being done, by example.
- Visitor arrives at Clothing store Website (Natural traffic google, yahoo, bing etc..)
- Visitor browses site and selects products
- Visitor gets to checkout to buy products and spots voucher code option
- Visitor then googles Clothing store voucher codes - weve all done it! 
- Visitor clicks on a SE result, and gets a page with link back to site and fake voucher code
- Visitor copies code and clicks link
- Visitor is now redirected (by use of a script) through a search site then through the overture/yahoo link and finally back to the site.
- The visitor that you already had on your site has just cost you £0.50!
If you want to check this isnt happening to you, you will need to keep an eye on your logs, and also useFireBug which is a firefox plug-in to view the GET requests after a link has been clicked. To do this install firebug, now click the bug on the bottom right of your screen. Select the net tab and enable it. Now click the link and if there is anything odd happening youll see it in the net pane.
Sorry if that makes no sense to you but Ive tried to be a clear as I can! Feel free to ask any questions but Im not going to name any sites at this point, but all I can say it is one of the bigger voucher sites doing this! I have no idea how many people they are doing this 2 but I have found a couple of examples. It is also possible that this site has been compromised and someone has slipped a few links in, abnother reason I'm not naming any sites.
This brings me nicely on to find out what you are all using to track traffic? Standard log packages like aw stats? Im sure a lot of you use Google Analytics, but what about the others? I like trace watch but its a bit dated now. Im in the process of developing a little system that will track your sales traffic
you can use it to see where all your sales are coming from and then drill down to more detailed info. Its in basic format at the moment but will have loads easy to read info & graphs all over it when its finished! The reason Im making my own is the ones Ive seen not only cost too much but they often are way over complicated. If anyone has a ecommerce site that would like to beta test this in a month or 2 let me know via PM and Ill add you to my list when its a little more polished.
Ash
