Pay per click advertising, PPC search engine articles

AdWords' Broad Match can reveal a gold mine of relevant keyword phrases that your competitors might have missed! Once you've enabled Broad Match, simply watch your server logs for referals from Google and note the search terms visitors used. This might open up entirely new sales channels for you!

But don't stop there! Take the terms revealed by Broad Match and create Exact Match entries for them, enabling you to track their performance. 

After several months of refinement, you'll wind up with a comprehensive list of effect keyword phrases, many of which your competitors have overlooked. Not only can you optimize your ad creatives with these keyword phrases, but you can also take the opportunity to optimize your website copy.

Understanding how to thwart click fraud via metrics alone is a complex and laborious task. Click fraud detection companies offer an affordable and effective option for marketers who want to initate auditing without having to understand all the mechanics behind it.

• WhosClickingWho.com - This fraud detector tracks all PPC search engines, detects multiple IP's. They also provide a deter feature that pops up a "ClickMinder" after suspected click abuse.
• ClickDetective - ClickDetective allows you to monitor click-throughs from all sources, detect and deter potential click fraud, and manage your campaigns. Real-time reporting is a standout feature.
• Clicklab - Clicklab provides PPC advertisers and publishers with managed click fraud detection, custom web analytics software, and professional services to help you increase online marketing ROI.
• Click Defense - Click Defense provide click fraud and web analytics services. Their systems utilize over 50 proprietary filters giving you true insight into your search engine visitor behavior.

Click fraud is an unfortunate side effect of PPC marketing, and wise marketers know that click fraud auditing is an important part of an overall PPC strategy.

Google announced today changes to keyword evaluation, including account management simplifications and the introduction of quality-based minimum bids. These changes provide advertisers with more control over important keywords. See the AdWords Help Center to learn more.

Jennifer Laycock has penned a good explanation of how to use the PPC Calculator tool.

AdSense rolled out a new tool called the Budget Optimizer last month, aimed at automating bid management, but to what extent should you trust Google to manage your advertising dollars?

Here's how it works: You determine how much you're willing to spend every day in your campaign, and the Budget Optimizer will adjust your bids to maximize the number of clicks you get for that amount of money. The Budget Optimizer is not likely to fail at spending your daily budget amount.

It only takes common sense to see that the Budget Optimizer might not always work in your favor. Determine your bids based on your own testing, not on the results of an automated tool that is not familiar with your niche!

That being said, daily budgets do have their place: they can prevent a financial disaster if you make a mistake with your campaign and are quite helpful to marketers working on new campaigns where the ROI is not yet known.

It's a longer read than the average blog post, but Joe Holcomb's assessment of the current state of click fraud is worth more than a glance. It's interesting to hear the observations of someone who sits on both the advertiser and PPC engine side of the fence.

The solution to click fraud according to Joe?

"The solution to the click fraud problem lies solely on the shoulders of the PPC’s to invent the technologies necessary to stop click fraud from taking place. The pay per click industry is looking awfully dirty lately. How do we clean it up? Force the engines to change their ways. Speak with a louder voice and withhold your ad dollars from the engines that don’t comply. Work with SEMPO, the SMA-NA, and other marketing organizations to bring these issues to the forefront of the industry. Nothing speaks louder than money. Choose not to spend a dime until the engines solve this problem."

With PPC marketing gaining steam, it's not a surprise that several new PPC engines are emerging that allow advertisers to target specific audiences within a vertical sector. Vertical PPC might prove to be an excellent model for your marketing efforts, depending on your industry. Duncan Parry over at PayPerClickAnalyst.com uncovers a few vertical PPC engines in his recent article.

Google has won its suit against Auction Experts, an AdSense partner publisher that Google accused of deliberate click fraud. Google alleged that Auctions Expert hired dozens of people to click on the site's ads, totalling upwards of $50,000 in click revenue. More information from WebProNews.

I was just reading an article over at Wired penned by Adam Penenburg about click fraud. What stood out for me was the last paragraph:

"What can a victim of click fraud do? One solution bandied about at the conference seemed simple enough. Contest the charges on your credit card as fraudulent. If enough merchants did it, they could enlist powerful allies: American Express, Visa and MasterCard, who would likely pressure the other search engines to do something about it."

Sounds like a great idea to me! 

On June 24, Click Defense Inc. filed a lawsuit, which also seeks class action status, against Google claiming that the search engine giant has failed to protect users of its advertising program from click fraud.

As Nathan Weinberg of BlogNewsChannel points out, Click Defense's actions are curious given that they profit from click fraud–without it, they wouldn't have any services to sell. Publicity stunt or the act of a good samaritan looking out for AdWords clients everywhere?