Fraud I.D. In The News

Forbes - 08/10/06
- Google's Questionable Clicks

DM News - 07/28/06
- Findology Offers Vaccine for Click Fraud Epidemic

Website Magazine - 07/28/06
- Findology unveils Fraud ID

E-Marketing Talkshow - 09/15/06
- How Click Fraud is Affecting the Online Advertising Industry

Click Fraud Facts

FACT 1: 2005 pay-per-click ad dollars: $5.5 billion

FACT 2: Dollars paid out by advertisers for bogus clicks: $800 million (2005)

FACT 3: Advertisers who say they are victims of click fraud: 75%

FACT 4: Revenue lost by Google, Yahoo and other web sites as a result: $500 million

FACT 5: Average Refund: $9,507

SOURCE: OUTSELL INC., FATHOM ONLINE

What Is Click Fraud and How It Occurs

Click fraud refers to illegitimate clicks on Pay-Per-Click ads that result in increasing the cost of advertising without return or benefit to the advertiser.  Here are a few of the ways in which Click Fraud occurs  

• BOT Clicks – Affiliates can create programs that run in the background and generate clicks to various keywords. Often, these programs are difficult to detect due to their ability to falsify logged information, such as IP or user agent.
  
  
• Incentive Clicks - Search engine web site affiliates are paid every time someone clicks on a PPC link posted on their page. Dishonest affiliates generate returns for themselves by directing counterfeit traffic to your site, often doing so in groups.
  
  
• Competitor Clicks - Your competitors may be clicking on your Pay-Per-Click Search Engine listings. We can help you detect and eliminate this activity.

How Fraud I.D. Works To Prevent Click Fraud

Industry sources claim the cost of click fraud is 20% of total online sales. FraudID can provide you the information you need to help prevent Click Fraud while improving your campaigns and margins,and assisting the search engines you work with in locating fraudulent traffic sources 

• Identify each click that you are paying for, and get better insight into where you are spending your ad dollars. Make sure the clicks are actually reaching your landing pages.
  
  
• Track the origin of each click by source and location. This can help you eliminate ad spend for keywords, campaigns and search engines that provide low quality clicks and conversions.
  
  
• Report to the search engines what kind of traffic they are sending. In order to properly seek credits and refunds you will need to provide the most informative data to prove your case.