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Posts Tagged ‘click fraud rates’

Bad News Continues as Q2 Click Fraud Rates are Released

Posted in Click Fraud, tagged , , , , , on July 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Even we admit that we’re starting to sound like a broken record here at Junkie when the topic of click fraud comes up.  But don’t blame us for being repetitive!  Even though we’re always thinking positive thoughts and hoping for the best, click fraud data continues to disappoint every three months or so.

The second quarter of 2010 isn’t any different.  In fact, it’s now to the point where the leading click fraud trends are consistently heading in the WRONG direction when analyzed in the big picture, offering no relief in sight for beleaguered web advertisers and marketers.

Anchor Intelligence, our most-trusted source for comprehensive data on click fraud, reports that second quarter fraud actually moderately decreased, down to 28.9 percent from 29.2 percent in the first three months of 2010.

We’d suggest a celebration for this 0.3 percent reduction, except for one glaring problem:  the Q2 rate actually represents a 26 percent increase in fraud compared to the same quarter just a year ago.

What’s happened in 12 short months that makes this possible?  As usual, Anchor cites the “dramatic” growth of botnets in both scale and volume around the globe as the main culprits.  The “exploitation by malicious hosts” of security vulnerabilities in the Internet infrastructure of many countries is also to blame.

Vietnam (37.3 percent), Australia (36.4 percent) and the U.S. (34 percent) continue to lead the rankings around the world for the highest attempted click fraud rates.  But India isn’t far off, after recording a dramatic jump in click fraud from 21.8 percent in Q1 to 31.7 percent in the second quarter.

“Click fraud attempts are not going to go away any time soon.  Cybercriminals will simply reallocate their attempts from well protected ad networks and search engines to those that do not have a fortified line of defense,” says Ken Miller, CEO of Anchor Intelligence.  “Fraudsters are efficient.  Once they stop receiving payments from one set of targets, they’ll simply find another set that is likely to pay out.”

Talk about doom and gloom! Is there anything good to take away from Anchor’s quarterly report?

Anchor did report that search engines and advertising networks that process more than 1 million daily ad clicks were experiencing some decreases in click fraud in the second quarter, attributed mostly to their partnerships with networks that have amped up click fraud defenses and/or don’t bill for fraudulent clicks.  Firm numbers on those decreases aren’t available, however.

We’ve been reporting that same rough news about click fraud every quarter for quite awhile now. So it’s time for you, our readers, to have a say.   Give us your ideas and thoughts on how to turn this click fraud mess around.  What drastic strategic steps do you think need to be implemented? Or is it just a lost cause?  Leave a comment and let’s get an open discussion going here!

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Google Reports Solid First Quarter for Ad Revenue and Clicks

Posted in Ecommerce, General News / Technology, Merchant Tips, tagged , , , , on April 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Google’s sprawling advertising network is one of the most heavily-relied upon resources for many retailers, both large and small.  With a number of different advertising options and perhaps the industry’s most recognizable name, Google has channeled its search dominance into the net’s leading pay-per-click advertising source.

And according to its most recently released data, business is good.

Google unveiled its 2010 Q1 advertising stats yesterday, reporting that total clicks on the ads it placed jumped by 15 percent over last year’s first quarter, and also increased by 5 percent over the last quarter of 2009.

The increase in overall clicks led to higher pay-per-click prices on Google ads as well.  Prices for ads placed through AdWords and the AdSense network were up 7 percent over Q1 2009.   While those prices were lower than in the final quarter of last year, that can mostly be attributed to advertisers and internet marketers raising the bid prices on their ads for the holiday season, when conversion rates typically increase also.

Overall, Google is reporting $6.77 billion in revenue for the first quarter of this year, a massive 23 percent increase over the first quarter of 2009, which saw $5.51 billion in ad revenue.  Of that $6.7 billion-plus, 66 percent was generated directly through the Google search engine; including 30 percent generated by Google’s AdSense program.  International revenue made up over half of all of Google’s revenue for the first three months of the year as well, indicating that not only is the company resonating with U.S. advertisers, but with those overseas as well.

Net income for the first quarter was listed at $1.96 billion, up 38 percent from $1.42 billion a year ago.

“Google performed very well in the first quarter, with 23% year-over-year revenue growth driven by strength across all major verticals and geographies,” says Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette. “Going forward, we remain committed to heavy investment in innovation—both to spur future growth in our core and emerging businesses as well as to help build the future of the open web.”

While most of the U.S. economy continues to recover at a snail’s pace (if at all), it would appear that Google is immune to the economic problems plaguing so many other businesses across the country.  Similarly though, if Google’s advertising revenues are up, that’s a promising sign that more companies are relying on internet advertising themselves to try to get back into the swing of things.

If you’re a company that is considering starting an ad campaign with Google, we’ll advise you as always to do your research beforehand and learn all the terminology involved with their advertising programs.

In particular, become well-versed on keywords and how to choose the right ones to maximize your advertising dollar.  We also recommend keeping track of your own click logs and monitoring traffic from those ads yourself—that’s the single easiest way to make sure you’re not getting ripped off or that your ads are the target of click fraud.

Leave us a comment below!

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Another Quarter, Another Jump in Click Fraud

Posted in Click Fraud, tagged , , , , , , on April 9, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Anchor Intelligence has released its report on Q1 2010 traffic quality and as expected, click fraud has increased yet again across the web.

Anchor is reporting a fraud rate of 29.2 percent for the first three months of this year, building on the 25.7 percent click fraud rate over the final quarter of 2009, and representing an almost 14 percent increase.  That’s also a 34 percent increase in click fraud from the first quarter of 2009.

According to the report, the continued rise in click fraud is largely due to the dramatic growth of botnets in both scale and volume around the world and we’re inclined to agree.  Click fraud rates have been rising steadily for as long as Ecommerce Junkie has been writing about it and it’s no coincidencethat botnets have become an increasingly larger menace over that time period as well.

The report from Anchor also includes data on traffic quality rates by country, with Vietnam (35.4 percent), Australia (35.2 percent) and the U.S. (35 percent) rounding out the top three for highest rates of click fraud among 30 countries across the globe.  Again, botnets and click-fraud rings are likely the biggest cause of fraudulent traffic in these countries.  The United Kingdom has been hit especially hard by botnet activity over the last six months, with click fraud rates rising to 32 percent there this quarter after only 18 percent in Q4 2009.

“As Internet usage has grown in countries lacking appropriate cybersecurity measures, more and more computers have become infected with malware and used as click fraud zombies,” said Ken Miller, CEO of Anchor Intelligence.  “Through this report, we hope to convey the importance of advertising with ad networks and search engines that partner with third-parties such as Anchor to certify their traffic quality.”

Admittedly, it has been a rough few months for cyber security overall, which probably also explains the continued rise in fraud.  There have been recent reports from McAfee and Google on a rise in cyber attacks against blogs in Vietnam that were critical of certain mining efforts.  And of course, we had more than thirty companies (including Google) who were victims of cyber security breaches originating out of China back in December and January.

Despite the fact that the U.S. economy is beginning to rebound, businesses continue to tread cautiously when it comes to their online advertising operations and click fraud is a big reason why.  We’ve heard instances of advertisers being charged extra for multiple clicks from the same web user in certain cases, which is just one example of how damaging and unfair the wrong kind of advertising activity can be to retailers and other web marketers.  As always, we strongly recommend that you do your research before embarking on an online advertising campaign.  Once you have a campaign going, we also suggest parsing the clicks and data from your traffic server logs yourself instead of relying on the third parties you’re advertising with who may offer tracking software or tools as part of their packages.

We’ll keep tabs on click fraud data and cyber security news as it arises.  Leave us your thoughts and comments below.

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