How Could EU Ruling Affect PPC?

Posted on Apr 5, 2011 by Joey to Pay Per Click

Google has been mired in an investigation by the European Commission, which enforces EU policies, for antitrust activities. Only a few years ago, Microsoft lost a battle with the EU that cost them billions of euros, and Google is hoping to escape a similar fate. According to a Reuter’s source, “Google and European Union regulators are in early talks to resolve an antitrust probe against an Internet’s dominant search engine…there is some interest from both sides, some tentative discussions in resolving the issue, but no really concrete proposals on the table.” Still, Google is not the only one hoping for a positive resolution.

Duncan Parry of Search Engine Watch was sent a series of documents, which the EU requested his firm complete as part of their investigation into Google. He writes, “I feel a growing unease that the bureaucrats who will ultimately pass judgment on Google may do more damage than good.” It is some of the questions that the EU is asking that has Parry, and others, on edge. Specifically, there are “a surprising number of questions around how easy it is to port data between AdWords and other platforms, how easy Google makes this and if it could be done ‘by a programmatic tool,’ as well as questions about the AdWords API, legal agreements with Google and anyway Google tries to restrict the use of other platforms.”

How could this impact PPC? According to Parry, Google could be ordered by the EC to add tools that allow promotions to be copied and pasted from Google to other services, such as adCenter, which is a Microsoft product, so competition could be expanded. However, Parry points out, simply moving a campaign from Google to another platform “won’t bring the best results.” “The systems have different campaign options, treat search strings and match types different, have different consumer user bases, etc.” Something would be lost in the translation, in other words.

If this were to happen, it could impact the quality of PPC campaigns and weaken returns on investment for marketers. Parry is hoping that answering the EU’s questions could help convince the Commission not to take this step. Instead, concentrating on Google’s practices of contacting advertisers without telling their agencies or locking top AdWords slots for its own products, will be a larger priority for the Commission to tackle.

Tags: AdWords, Pay Per Click, ppc

Pay-Per-Click Fraud on the Rise

Posted on Mar 10, 2011 by Joey to Web Marketing

The last quarter of 2010 saw a decrease in the incidence of online click fraud, which targets the most popular online ad form, cost-per-click, or pay-per-click, advertising. Still, while decline from the third quarter’s record high of 22.3 percent is certainly welcome, fraud still affects one in five online PPC ads, rendering them useless – and expensive – for the advertisers who are paying for them. Year after year, click fraud has grown from 15.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 19.1 in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to research and analysis firm, Click Forensics.

The quality of ads is a major concern to any legitimate advertiser who buys the ads, as well as any legitimate distributor and publisher who sells them – and there are a lot of them. Between 45 and 50 percent of all online ad spending goes to PPC ads; in the first two quarters of 2010, US marketers alone spent $5.7 billion on PPC ads. Click Forensic’s CEO, Paul Pellman, says, “While the overall click fraud rate dropped last quarter for CPC [cost per click] advertising, we saw the emergence of new schemes focused on display advertisements. We are investigating the malware-driven attacks in more detail, but early evidence points to an impression inflation scheme.”

PPC ads work when advertisers buy from the sellers, who share the commissions with the publishers that allow the ads on their sites. The advertisers only pay when their ads are clicked on: in this way, accidentally clicking on a pay-per-click ad is not “fraud,” but it does cost the advertiser. Fraud works on a whole other level. The ads are clicked maliciously by rogue web publishers who want to increase their commissions. How successful are they?

According to a 2010 study from Information Warfare Monitor, the operators of Koobface, a program that installed malicious software to participate in click fraud, made over $2 million in just over a year. It is obviously profitable, but it dilutes the efficacy of PPC ad campaigns and cost collective online advertisers untold millions.

Tags: Pay Per Click

You Too Can Advertise on Myspace

Posted on Nov 7, 2008 by Rick to Pay Per Click

For small and medium-sized advertisers interested in advertising on myspace, the time has finally come. Well, it really came a long time ago, but now it’s easier and more accessible for lower-budget advertisers to run campaigns through myspace’s new myAds Beta advertising platform. Finally, myspace has caught up to, and possibly surpassed, Facebook with an easy to use campaign management tool.

Here’s the lowdown on myspace advertising:
Myspace takes users through a step-by-step banner ad campaign creation process consisting of a few simple steps:

• Select a template: To begin with, myspace offers a number of pretty good-looking premade templates that require little more than quick text edits to create a clear and effective banner ad. At the time of this post, banner ads came in two sizes, 728×90 and 300×250. For the artistically-inclined, myspace allows users to upload images for their banner ad.

• Customize template: Next, you’re given a number of tools to customize the template you’ve chosen or the image you’ve uploaded. Customization options include adding and editing images and text to the template background.

• Target audience: Next, users determine the URL to point their ad to and they also select the targeted audience. Demographics can be targeted by gender, age, location and interests.

• Campaign budget: Lastly, advertisers set the campaign budget. Campaigns are spent on a cost per click (CPC) basis, allowing for a total campaign budget. The minimum CPC for any ad is $0.25 and the minimum campaign budget is $25.

Myspace’s myAds network will no doubt open up a world of opportunity for advertisers whose target audience is, well, just about anyone. As one of the largest social networks on the planet, myspace’s demographics cover consumers of all ages, locations and interests. In my opinion, it’s worth a try for just about any business.

Tags: banner advertising, myspace advertising, Pay Per Click