What To Do when you suspect Click Fraud?
By Lori Weiman
Direct Response Technologies, Inc.
As a
provider of click fraud detection software, KeywordMax’s
Click Auditor, I often get asked – what do I do when I
suspect click fraud?
First its
important to be able to identify the various types of fraud
that exist. There are 3 fraud culprits:
(1)
Your
Competition: In the pay-per-click search model real
estate is limited. Your competition wants you to spend it
all and then go away – so they click on your ads. (by the
way – this only helps your ranking in Google Adwords – so
say thank you when they do it).
(2)
Search Engine
Affiliates: Affiliates make money everytime a user
clicks on your search listing. There indeed are
unscrupulous affiliates concocting ways to run up your bill
to line their pockets.
(3)
Traffic Thieves:
Traffic thieving is when a search engine affiliate diverts
clicks from your web site to the web site of another.
Although we have seen limited evidence to support our theory
that this type of fraud exists, we believe that traffic
thieving is happening today.
Next, you need to catch the
fraud in the act. This means deploying tracking tools, like
Click Auditor, to watch for some tell-tale signs of fraud,
including:
§
Click spikes
§
Lower conversion
rates
§
Repeating IP
addresses
Click Fraud artists will go to
great lengths to trick you so that you don’t recognize
fraud. Many times IP address tracking is not enough as this
can be masked or maybe the IP of an ISP. You need to track
the following closely:
§
Who is sending
you the traffic. Its not enough to know that the click
came from a listing on Google Adwords (for example), you
also need to know which affiliate sent you the click. You
can view this information by looking at the referrer in your
web logs or in your tracking tool, like KeywordMax.
§
Where the
clicks are coming from. Are they coming from India, but
you are only marketing in the United States …hmmm
If you see the tell-tale signs
of fraud – what do you do? Here is what you can do:
(1)
Complain to the
Engine. Contact the search engine and complain.
Provide them with all of the evidence that you have. Your
log files, comparison click charts showing the spikes on
specific date ranges, if you have a log of referrers – then
include a list of affiliates that you suspect are defrauding
you. Give them all of the evidence you can so that they can
investigate. (In KeywordMax’s ROI Tracker, you can run an
affiiate specific report – this lets you compare your clicks
and conversions from different affiliates, which is a quick
way to identify problems).
(2)
Complain
Outloud. Do not just stop at the engines, you should be
vocal. Many times fraud is ignored because it is hard to
police – the more you speak out, the more likely the engines
will start to do something about it.
(3)
Check the IP.
If the culprit was silly enough to leave an IP address
trail, then check the IP to see who owns it.
(4)
Contact your
Competition. If you suspect a competitor is clicking,
send them a note and give them a call. Request that they
stop. You may also want to see if they are experiencing
the same issues.
(5)
Contact the ISP.
If the suspicious IP address belongs to an ISP, and not to a
competitor, then contact the ISP – both by phone and in
writing. If they do not help you, get a lawyer and see if
you can get a court order for the ISP to release the name of
the person clicking.
(6)
Contact a
Lawyer. If all else fails, get a lawyer. Try to get the
engine to release their click logs to you so that you can
see who is clicking on your ads. If you have strong
evidence that it’s a competitor, and enough money in bills
to justify a lawyer’s time, then go the legal route.
(7)
Lobby for
Billing Rights! The invoicing that the industry accepts
from search engines is devoid of details. Can you imagine
if your phone company only provided you with a total owed –
but didn’t show you the calls that you made and the
minute-by-minute break down? How upset would you be at
that? Our industry accepts the bills that it gets from the
search engines without questioning the details. Where are
the details? Why can’t you see the click details for each
click on your bill like the time of the click, and the IP of
the click, and the web site where the click originated?
Don’t you want to know if the clicks were valid or if the
web site where you are marketed is even relevant to your
business? I am for Billing Rights – take a stand and
demand the details.
By Lori Weiman
Direct Response
Technologies, Inc.
