Google to show click fraud stats to advertisers
Responding to concerns about click fraud in the online-ad industry, Google will be revealing to advertisers the number of invalid clicks on their ads with changes it's set to make to its AdWords system late Tuesday.
Now advertisers will be able to see the number of invalid clicks Google found, as well as what percentage that represents of total clicks registered, said Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for trust and safety at Google.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6098469.html
- Y! MyWeb
it is not the invalid clicks
it is not the invalid clicks they detected that you have to worry about...
nice feature
to trump up before they even enabled it
pretty useless, especially when combined w foo's comment.
I posted a screenshot at
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=114117
The stats are interesting in that you can see if your competitors are clicking on your ads all day.
It ain't "click fraud"
It ain't "click fraud" stats, it's "invalid click" stats. There's a very big difference.
As foo alluded to...
...a nice pre-emptive sense of pro-active behaviour from Google and a sense of assurance things are "working" at the Plex.
Now what aren't they showing and how much aren't they showing?
SB
Do they define what 'invalid
Do they define what 'invalid clicks' are vs 'click fraud'?
pro-active or a finger in
pro-active or a finger in the dike? Somehow the newfound "transparency" rings hollow, its a ridiculous measure. You know what they say about the first one to mention a number but I guess drawing the line in the sand is better than keeping your head in it.
Tulzihilin's report alluded
Tulzihilin's report alluded to the difference, but if I remember correctly the only specifics he gave was that double clicking on an ad would be an invalid click. I'm of a mind that these probably make up a large percentage of those reported. But that's just based on my own habits when I'm using Adwords ads to find something specific.
(Danged Acrobat, keeps crashing the browser so can't get to that report to refresh my memory.)
Hmmm..
I wonder when they'll allow advertisers to block IPs and types of traffic preveland to click fraud like some powerhouse competitors like Lycos already have enabled.
foo, I do think it's helpful
foo, I do think it's helpful in that Google is giving more data than before. Not everyone realizes that Google prefilters a lot of invalid clicks and never charges for those clicks.
grnidone, my perception is that search engines think it's not as accurate to use the term "fraud" because that has a different meaning. Tulzihilin talks about it on page 17 or so of his report, I think.
All of this is just my personal opinion as an engineer. I am not a lawyer. Your mileage may vary. No implied guarantee provided, "as is" or otherwise. :)
Data in and of itself is not helpful
Matt, in my opinion data is only helpful if you can act on it or learn something from it. I checked the figure in an account I manage and saw a little over 2,000 invalid clicks in one day. The 2K is just a number to me - from what I can tell there's nothing I can do about it or learn from it.
I guess my main question is how does having access to that data improve the AdWords experience? What is the benefit to the advertiser? How exactly is it helpful? In all honesty I don't see the benefit(s).