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September 27, 2005
Search Engine Develops Click-Fraud Tool
DMnews.com talks about a 3rd tier pay-per-click search engine SearchForIt.com that has developed a tool to help track and determine the probability of legitimate users clicking on pay-per-click ads. The product "Fraud Print" is currently only available to SearchForIt.com advertisers. They also mention that they are open to marketing the product to advertisers to use with other pay-per-click providers. They have stated that advertisers that have used this product have improved their return on investment.
It's known that second- and third-tier pay-per-click search engines have less traffic and more click fraud then 1st tier pay-per-click search engines. This is because a majority of their traffic comes from their affiliate/content partner networks and not their own search page. They partner because they don't have enough traffic to substantiate advertising only on the search pages. If they partner with just a couple of bad affiliate/content networks they may gain tons of fraudulent activity and of course more revenue. This in turn becomes a bad investment to advertisers and ultimately bad for the pay-per-click search engines.
Google and yahoo also say that they have technology that protects against click fraud. So how is this "Fraud Print" tool any different? They say they can capture a "fingerprint" of the computer that clicks on the ads. In any case this is a good way for SearchForIt.com to gain more advertisers. By opening up communications and making the advertiser feel like they are in charge and more knowledgeable of what is going on. Enabling the advertiser to track, optimize, and manage there advertising dollars efficiently.
Will they open "Fraud Print" to be able to track Google and Yahoo's pay-per-click advertising and will it identify robotic click fraud? Regardless, what advertisers really want is more clicks, sales, and signups. With more advertisers going online there needs to be good way of stopping click fraud and getting higher percentages of converting traffic. For this to happen they need more effective advertising inventory that gets a better return on investment.
DMNews.com
The online Newspaper of Record for Direct Marketers
Executives at a Canadian search engine are so intent on preventing click fraud that they developed their own fraud-prevention technology for their advertisers.
Click fraud is an elusive problem for advertisers, and even industry experts disagree on the extent of the problem. Studies estimate that click fraud accounts for anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of all clicks.
Search for It, Toronto, developed a proprietary technology, Fraud Print, that tracks the "fingerprint" of a user's computer when the user clicks on its advertisers' links and conducts a series of tests to determine the probability that the click is legitimate.
"The primary reason [it was developed] was to address the issue of increasing our traffic levels via external distribution channels while maintaining qualified clicks for our advertisers," said Eric Thaler, business development manager at Search for It.
Some advertisers have noticed a greater return on investment than before Fraud Print was implemented, Thaler said. The technology also benefits Search for It, he said, by "creating a situation in which our advertisers look to continue to replenish their account balance."
Though Fraud Print is used only within Search for It, executives are considering marketing it as a standalone product that advertisers could buy for all of their pay-per-click campaigns in the near future.
Christine Blank covers online marketing and advertising, including e-mail marketing and paid search, for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
Sept. 27, 2005
By: Christine Blank
Contributing Editor
cblank@dmnews.com
http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=34211
Posted by dj at September 27, 2005 08:16 AM