What program is best for ppc managment!

[seandell]

I am currently in a battle with Overture about a competitor clicking on my site. I tracked this competitor down with the software I use, hitbox. Basicaly he clicks on my site via sponsored site keyword when he is at work. He works for a school so I tracked him down by his Domain. Then found out he was a teacher there thru his site regestration name and the teachers roster. Overture has said this is not sufficient enough. No problems with him on google.

Anyway I need to get better software to track this kinda thing. Any help from the Gods on this forum would help.

Thanks,
Sean

[Nieder3d]

You need a cpc service that can block a specified IP. Or ask overture to block that IP from delivering those clicks to your account. Not many services out there do this on a per IP basis so good luck. I know of only one that does it but I would be SPAMMING if I mentioned the name in this forum. Just ask overture to block that IP. If they do not then maybe you should re-think spending your $ with them.

[skibum]

Unless it is automated, I wouldn't expect them to do much about it. It sux, but if they blocked every IP from visitors that had no intention of buying they'd be out of business pretty fast.

[jeremy goodrich]

If it is repetative behavior, about the same time every day, clicking on your link(s) then Overture should do something about it. And from the same IP with the same User Agent, then it is definitely foul play.

I believe Dan Boberg is one of the managers at Overture - complain loudly enough, and they will hear you.

[shady]

I was told that clicks were not counted from the same ip/keyword/ad in a set period of time. I believed this to be 24 hours for overture. Are these clicks all on the same ad?

[stace]

I'm not sure if they can help or not but Gotoast.com was at the Pub conference in London - and from what I gather they have all kinds of services related to ppc management. Worth a look anyway.

[webdiversity]

seandell,

Unfortunately, the issue of competitors clicking your ads is something that does go on.

The issue can stir up a whole bunch of stuff. Many software vendors of PPC solutions are building this sort of "feature" into the product as a "cool" competitive deterrent.

Other techniques include to drive your own price up to 1 cent below their price so they will be forced to pay the full maximum price. Often though it antagonises, and cause some sort of vindictive retort.

How about all the other competitors? Just because you may not be able to track them down does not mean they are not doing the same thing.

PPC is all about ROI, if, inspite of the antics of a bad business person you still make ROI I would be more inclined on spending my time trying to look forward and the positives of PPC rather than the negatives of stupid behaviour on the part of the minority. If that is the best thing he/she can come up with to compete I wouldn't worry, they will not be in business very long....... idiots rarely are.

[seandell]

Thanks for all th great advice. I have e-mailed them again and they responded about how great there software to prevent this is and how it cant be hapening and if it does they will know. I have just sent in all my info so we will wait and see. This has been going on for 6-8 months. Summer time I had a few weeks , no clicks.

Anyway I do get charged because what he does it, he hits my account about every 5-10 mins, 3-8 times, at the same times M-F
He works at this place so he ahs weekends off.

I had heard overture has a 2 min delay?

Thanks again everyone.

[seandell]

Oh and ROI is good but at $1.60 a click, X - 5-10 clicks a day, at 30 days in a month. I might have some extra cash for Christmas.

[bodine]

I guess one of the things you have not done was email the offending competitor. Tell them you know they work at that school, and ask them to stop. They may deny it. They may claim ignorance. Or, they may apologize and stop. Or just stop. My guess is that if you call them on it, they will stop. But, if they do not, then "turnabout is fair play." Have friends? Have them click on their links. You can click too.

But, if you want your money back from Overture, you will need proof. Exact times, keywords, user agents, referrers, etc. I don't know what kind of access you have to your server, but I use a proprietary script to log all clicks on a PPC engine.

Overture will claim anything to get you to go away. They say that they have filters in place to prevent such abuse. But, it only works for clicks that are up to 15 minutes apart. (Anyone have the exact number of minutes Overture considers the click to be two clicks? I have been trying to determine it based on my records, and 15 minutes is the best I can come up with.) And, they will say that they will enable additional filters to stop that one IP, if they find abuse. Don't believe them...

[Jas0n]

It seems like quite a few in this forum mention using proprietary scripts to track the "exact times, keywords, user agents, referrers, etc."

Can anyone indicate some publicly available product that can be used to take raw web log files and track PPC activity through AdWords and Overture?

Can WebTrends be used for this? If anyone has used WT for PPC tracking can you give me some pointers on what to setup.

Thanks.