Click fraud in paid search is rising
October 24, 2007
Click fraud, the bane of every marketer who deals with paid search, is currently sitting at around 16% of the clicks you may be receiving. The average rate is 16.2% and can be significantly higher on content networks.
The average rate was 13.8% a year ago and 15.8% last quarter so it is rising quite fast:
The average rate of click fraud on content networks such as Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher Network has risen more sharply:
The graphic below shows a threat map for where click fraud can be generated:
So why this continuing rise? Well as it’s coming from content networks I can only guess that it may be being generated by rogue publishers and bloggers who are auto-generating extra clicks on their sites in order to raise their income. This kind of practice could really be affecting your bottom line and giving you a falsely inflated CPA (cost per acquisition) on your paid search campaigns.
Well worth keeping an eye on! And if, like me, you have a large campaign under your remit then contact your agency asap to check that you are receiving any rebates the search engines such as Google provide.
Thanks to Marketing Vox.
