TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: PPC Advertising, Click Fraud, and Its Effect on Search Engines

Re: PPC Advertising, Click Fraud, and Its Effect on Search Engines

Greg Skinner (gds@best.com)
19 Apr 2005 21:03:36 -0000

Robert Bonomi (bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com) wrote:

> In article <telecom24.171.17@telecom-digest.org>, <gds@best.com>
> wrote:

>> I guess I don't understand the general tone of your response. It
>> seems you are agreeing with me that PPC is a poor business model.

> It is what the *advertising buyers* have *demanded*. This wasn't some
> bright idea dreamed up by the folks selling ad space. Fixed pricing
> is much simpler for _them_ to deal with.

Hmmm ... in my experience fighting click fraud, I got the impression
that the buyers were dissatisfied with PPC, and wanted to pay fixed
fees. But perhaps that's because relative to its competitors, they
got virtually no conversions via the publisher. Perhaps PPC works
well for a much more trafficked publisher. But this doesn't bode well
for small publishers who want to sell via PPC.

>> The advertisers can use information that comes from companies such
>> as Nielsen NetRatings to estimate how many people use a search
>> engine, and what queries they submit to it, to determine a fair bid
>> for an ad buy.

> *snicker*

> Nielsen NetRatings lacks -- by several orders of magnitude -- having
> enough reporting sources to produce estimates that are within a factor
> of _ten_ to _fifty_ for all the various 'keywords' that the
> search-engines selectively sell ad-space for.

Fair enough, but that's not a flaw in the methodology. I would expect
that as the Internet matures as an advertising medium, it will be
necessary for the ratings services to get more survey participants.
Certainly, the advertisers will demand this, as they become more savvy
about the value of their buys.

Anyway, thanks for your feedback. If anyone else knows of any
technical work (even open-source work) along these lines, please let
me know.

--gregbo

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: T. Sean Weintz: "Re: PPC Advertising, Click Fraud, and Its Effect on Search Engines"
Go to Previous message: Scott Dorsey: "Re: PPC Advertising, Click Fraud, and Its Effect on Search Engines"
May be in reply to: Greg Skinner: "PPC Advertising, Click Fraud, and Its Effect on Search Engines"
Next in thread: T. Sean Weintz: "Re: PPC Advertising, Click Fraud, and Its Effect on Search Engines"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page