Ask Marketing Experts search engine marketing forum

[7thDsites]

Those new to PPCs should be wary and watch their stats to make sure they're not paying for false clicks!

Though all PPCs, established PPCs that is, have protective measures to eliminate the numbers of false clicks that people pay for some inevitably slip through and you can get a serious reaming if you're not keeping an eye on things.

By false clicks I'm referring to:
Traffic being bought and sent from traffic sellers - sites like allclicks.com (who pay people to send traffic to their site so that they can in turn sell it to PPCs or these ridiculous traffic generation schemes) it couldn't be less targeted traffic i.e. tons of traffic with no sales;
and PPCs that don't track IPs so that someone could click on your listing multiple times with you paying for each click;
there are of course other false clicks that manifest that I can't think of right now...

I've known many people who've had horrible false click paying sprees on a few different PPCs and I had my own very costly experience on Kanoodle.

So, check them out prior to making deposits and keep an eye on your stats. I often monitor PPCs and the traffic with the stats they provide, my own site stats, and in some instances a third party stat provider/ monitor.

[admin]

[quote:b48927e494="7thDsites"]Those new to PPCs should be wary and watch their stats to make sure they're not paying for false clicks! [/quote:b48927e494]

This is absolutely true. One of the most shady operators is Looksmart.com which has hundreds of "partners" that show their PPC results. You can get hundreds of clickthroughs per month from Looksmart.com but there is no tracking to let you know the origin. This is a very sketchy organization - they offer no stats to let you know what keywords you pay for. I have also heard horror stories of people not being able to unsubscribe from their service.

[7thDsites]

I agree fully about Looksmart, though I've never actually tried them - as I really don't appreciate wasting money - but I do know MANY reliable people who have been burned by them.

[GreatBigHippy]

What kind of response have people got from Google Adwords.
At first I thought this was a great service,
"wow, now I only have to pay for people that may actually buy something!"
But now I find that the conversion rates aren't as high as I hoped.
Also, does anyone know of ways to stop people who are just browsing or your competitors (I'm paying 6p for every competitor that check out my site!!!! HERE, have my money!) from clicking that link?

[admin]

[quote:76a43e6846="GreatBigHippy"]What kind of response have people got from Google Adwords.[/quote:76a43e6846]

General response from adwords is good, but expensive. You really have to watch your budget on Google for this one. To get a better ROI, make sure you have a CLEAR, fast website that offers concise descriptions of your products. Personally, i dislike irrelevant bandwidth suckers like Java Applets and flash movies. If i want to be entertained i'll watch a movie. Give me the goods only.

[7thDsites]

I've heard nothing but negative responses from clients and associates about adwords - huge drain on cash and few buyers.
I've also heard and personally experienced the same thing with overture. It gives a good traffic rush to sites, especially newer sites; but personally I'll not give either a another penny.

[DanThies]

If you want to make money with Adwords, I'd recommend you learn how to make the most of their keyword matching options, and consider limiting the distribution of your ads to Google only.

You can use "exact matching," which means you put the keywords in your list into brackets like this:
[search term]
That way, your ad is only displayed for that exact search.

If you don't want to use "exact matching," you can use "negative matching," to rule out searches that contain words you don't want, for example, to avoid showing up when the search includes "free", add -free to your keywords.

Third, at the very least use "phrase matching" - this means that you put your search term in quotes. For example, if you want your ad to show up when someone types "search terms" but not when they type "search for better loan terms" you have to put it in your list with quotes around it.

You can see a full list of keyword matching options here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/faq/account.html#keywords

You can edit your campaign settings and uncheck the boxes that say "search sites in Google's network" and "content sites in Google's network" - this will keep your ads off of search partners (AOL, Yahoo) and content partners (blogs, etc.) sites.

The big benefit of using keyword matching is that you can target the searches where your ad will be most relevant. This increases the click-through rate. Your position on Adwords is determined by your bid *and* your click-through rate, a higher CTR moves you higher, even if your bid isn't any higher.

All of this, combined, means that you get higher quality traffic, at a lower cost, and it's remarkably easy to run a profitable Adwords campaign. In my experience, much easier than the constant bid management of Overture and other PPC channels.

[admin]

i am sick of overture giving me clicks for words i never bid on. i believe this is a massive disservice to its users and i have scaled back all my campaigns with them.

[DanThies]

I agree, and I pretty much gave up on Overture when "MatchDriver" came along. Not only do you not get a choice, what they do is as unfavorable to the advertiser as possible.

You'll get the same experience with Looksmart - I heard from one person whose listing is for a golf course in Hawaii, who blew through their $299 in no time at all, without even a single lead captured, nearly all the clicks were apparently for "Hawaii."

And don't get me started on some of the so-called second tier PPCs out there. Open affiliate programs that attract fraud are a major problem, to where you can't bid above a nickel without getting swindled.

Some of the really small "PPCs" are doing even worse stuff like running 'surf for clicks' programs on the same server as their supposed search engine. I think we know where their clicks really come from, eh?

[jim madison]

I just thought I would try to get some free publicity, but EmpowerSearch is the only minor or 2d tier search engine that has a fraudulent click protection built in. It follows the 1 in 1 system. You only get charged 1 time from the same I.P. Address 1 day.

Now that the free publicity is over, Click charges are allways an issue and the bottom line reason is that too many companies are using too many keywords that are irrelevant. Try "exact keyword matching". Your advertising dollars go furthur but you get better qualified leads.

just my .02

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