Pay-Per-Click marketing is the heart and soul of most CPA campaigns. Click fraud is an obvious concern. I wanted to give you a summary of a report which released on January 28th by Click Forensics. In the report, they state that Click Fraud has grown to 17%, but you only get that number from the body of the article. The huge graphic depicts something else. You see a sharp rise and the final Q4 number at a staggering 31%.

Botnet Click Fraud NOT Total Click Fraud

31%. That’s one-third.

Some marketers may have their heart skip a beat at that number. Some may look for a company to hire to help them with click fraud, such as, Click Forensics.

Hmmmm.

A closer inspection shows you that the 31% is the BotNet activity of click fraud. In other words, of all the click fraud happening world-wide, botnet click fraud is responsible for 31%. But the actual number is 17%. Meaning it isn’t one-third, but one-sixth. Half of what Click Forensics wants you to believe.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

I come from the school that click fraud is going to happen. Just as theft will occur if I owned a store. Spending all of my time chasing the fraud takes me away from my core business. Factor in click fraud into your business model and realize, 5 of 6 clicks are legit.

And be wary of reports such as these who try to use scare tactics so you will buy a service you don’t need.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10151618-83.html

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, Webmaster. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.