Fictitious Clicks is the nice way to say it...
Just finished reading the "Fictitious clicks" report from Google. Yeah, it's a good day to not be in the anti-click fraud business...especially if I'm one of the companies that Google used for its case studies in the report--ClickFacts, Click Forensics, and AdWatcher.
In short order, Google makes a very strong case against those services. To me, the most damning evidence was that the so-called fraudulent clicks yielded a conversion rate close to the rest of the campaign, and that last example of the AdWatcher report that claimed 12000 fraudulent clicks for a client's site, when they only paid Google for 6000 clicks for that same time period...oops! How could they possibly claim twice as much click fraud as clicks that even occurred? I don't understand how they could forget to check Google's numbers to see what they were actually charged for. Doh!
I like that Google didn't completely discredit the value of click auditing services, they just point out that the current click auditors' methodology sucks.
I found it interesting (a little cocky, but if it's true maybe it's just confident) that they said "to date, we have not yet discovered a single legitimate vulnerability as the result of a third-party fraud auditing report." But they leave the door open by saying that they would love it if a click auditing company would point out such a vulnerability so they can fix it.
All in all, Google does a good job of discrediting click auditing services (these three companies' services at least), but they don't really shut the door completely on the issue of click fraud. I'm convinced not to trust these third party companies, but I'm still not convinced that click fraud doesn't happen. It just tells me that the third parties aren't any better than Google at catching click fraud.
That being said, Google's actually doing the best at catching click fraud--it's everyone else who should take more of the heat when it comes to click fraud--yeah, you know who you are...you in the back who are just sitting there letting Google take the rap.
I'm sure the click auditors will come back with some kind of response--if they have one--but it might be too late to save their business unless they can come up with a more accurate method of tracking.
In short order, Google makes a very strong case against those services. To me, the most damning evidence was that the so-called fraudulent clicks yielded a conversion rate close to the rest of the campaign, and that last example of the AdWatcher report that claimed 12000 fraudulent clicks for a client's site, when they only paid Google for 6000 clicks for that same time period...oops! How could they possibly claim twice as much click fraud as clicks that even occurred? I don't understand how they could forget to check Google's numbers to see what they were actually charged for. Doh!
I like that Google didn't completely discredit the value of click auditing services, they just point out that the current click auditors' methodology sucks.
I found it interesting (a little cocky, but if it's true maybe it's just confident) that they said "to date, we have not yet discovered a single legitimate vulnerability as the result of a third-party fraud auditing report." But they leave the door open by saying that they would love it if a click auditing company would point out such a vulnerability so they can fix it.
All in all, Google does a good job of discrediting click auditing services (these three companies' services at least), but they don't really shut the door completely on the issue of click fraud. I'm convinced not to trust these third party companies, but I'm still not convinced that click fraud doesn't happen. It just tells me that the third parties aren't any better than Google at catching click fraud.
That being said, Google's actually doing the best at catching click fraud--it's everyone else who should take more of the heat when it comes to click fraud--yeah, you know who you are...you in the back who are just sitting there letting Google take the rap.
I'm sure the click auditors will come back with some kind of response--if they have one--but it might be too late to save their business unless they can come up with a more accurate method of tracking.
posted by Dave @ 1:24 PM
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