Fighting Click Fraud At The Click Sentinel

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If you’re concerned about invalid clicks on any of your pay-per-click campaigns you want to take a look at Jay Stockwell’s newly formed web site. After reading an interview between the editor of Pay Per Click Search Engines Newsletter, Allan Gardyne and Jay Stockwell. It’s free to join and I’m sure you’ll find this a valuable resource for help determine where your visitors are coming from.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview ‘The Battle Against Click Fraud’ to read:-

"PPCSE:

Does your click tracking software do anything else other than
just track for click fraud?

JS:

Yeah, the click fraud tracking software gives you lots of extra
information about your PPC campaigns. Even if you don’t care
about click fraud, it is worthwhile using the software for the
other extra benefits. For example you can dynamically track your
keywords as well as return on investment (ROI).

I believe that even if click fraud didn’t exist, every PPC
marketer should be using some sort of way to separate their paid
traffic from their organic traffic. It just makes sense to have a
centralized and detailed breakdown of every visitor that is
costing you money to obtain. The Click Sentinel software does
this for you. The fact that it is free also makes it easier for
people to get motivated to use it.

PPCSE:  What are the steps a PPC user should take to see if they
have been affected by click fraud?

JS:

Well firstly, you need to get yourself some sort of way to track
your traffic. Whether you pay for another service, or use the
Click Sentinel free software you need to make sure you’re using a
method that doesn’t rely solely on JavaScript tracking.
Fraudsters just turn this off.

Once you have your tracking software installed, you need to send
all of your paid traffic through this. Each click will be
analyzed and flagged automatically if it looks fraudulent.

Once you have a few days’ data under your belt, run some reports
to see the activity on your campaigns. You’ll then want to run a
report for a 24 hour period and compare that to what your PPC
vendor is saying. If they’re drastically different, send them the
CSV output of your report and you can then negotiate a refund
from there."

I highly recommend becoming a member of Click Sentinel to test out the free software tools for yourself.

Recommended Reading & Resources:

Are You In Breach Of The Google Adsense Terms?

Blatant Adsense Click Fraud

Adsense Videos

Google Launches Their ‘Click To Pay’ Video Ads