« What Bill Clinton Wanted To Accomplish | Main | The Big Four: Hot Senate Race Updates »

September 25, 2006

Consultant's Corner: At The Click Of A Button

Pols are continuing to gear their campaign efforts online, with some allocating money to broad Internet buys. For instance, Deval Patrick, who won the MA GOV Dem primary 9/19, made a buy in 4/06 consisting of banner ads and video space on various web sites including Boston.com, CNN.com and Bostonherald.com. The ad buy, which cost between $50K-$100K, was designed to run for four weeks and produce 2.7M ad impressions. The question is: Are candidates really getting what they pay for?

AdWords, Google's "flagship advertising product and main source of revenue," offers advertising for text and banner ads. There are currently two ways online ads are priced:

  • Pay-per-click (PPC) -- The client sets the price they'd like to pay each time a user clicks on their ad. Therefore, the client is charged only when a user clicks.
  • Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) -- The client sets the price they'd like to pay for each 1K impressions the ad receives. Therefore, clicks don't matter and the client is charged whenever the ad is shown to a user.

    • For the campaigns using the former, you may want to revisit your online ad buy. Click fraud has increasingly become a problem due to the fact servers can count clicks on ads, but cannot know what the intent of the user was when they made the click. Click fraud occurs when a user or program clicks on an ad for the purpose of generating an improper charge per click. ZDNet's Donna Bogatin writes: "Google and Yahoo PR machines are convincing advertisers that click fraud is 'under control.'" And "without allowing the advertiser to independently audit the engine's claim ... is as cavalier as saying, 'don't worry, you got your money's worth'" (8/25).

    Bogatin talked with Google Business Product Manager, Trust and Safety Shuman Ghosemajumder about click fraud, finding Google has made some changes. For instance, Google charges its advertisers for only for "valid clicks." "Invalid clicks," which are characterized by AdWords policies as "clicks generated by prohibited methods," are uncovered through "automated methods of analysis." In the "name of transparency," Google "recently added an 'invalid clicks' column option to AdWords customers' 'performance' reports" (9/2).

    Moreover, as part of the settlement in the click fraud case Lane's Gifts v. Google, Google agreed to have an independent expert determine if the company had implemented measures to protect its advertisers. In a 7/21 Google blog posting, Ghosemajumder writes: "The bottom line conclusion of the report is Google's efforts against click fraud are in fact reasonable" [KATHERINE LEHR].

    Any questions, comments or thoughts about what you've seen in Consultants' Corner, or what you'd like to see, email us.


    Posted at 02:00 PM

    Comments

    Post a comment





    Remember Me?

    (you may use HTML tags for style)

    By using this Service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable. Although Hotline On Call does not monitor comments posted to this site (and has no obligation to), it reserves the right to delete, edit, or move any material that it deems to be in violation of this rule.


    Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group Inc.
    The Watergate · 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW
    Washington, DC 20037
    202-739-8400 · fax 202-833-8069
    NationalJournal.com is an Atlantic Media publication.