Forum Moderators: open
Don't blame you - but be glad you don't use UK Overture where minimum bid is 10p ~ 16c.
TW:)
We notice this at the end of the month - each month. We think that some people have a monthly budget and when they reach it they drop off only to come back at the 1st of the month.
Around the middle of the month, we increase our bids to take over all the number one spots as our competition has exhausted themselves bidding against each other and they all work off of monthly funding.
By laying low, then increasing our bids, we spend less than our competition for more click throughs and conversions during any given month.
eWhisper
Haven't seen a bid war in a while. The #1 spot is held by a new comer.
BTW, regarding click fraud. I got my share of it.
Now I discovered the wonderful world of multiple rotating proxy server software.
Appx 200 different IP's. Locked and loaded.
Next time I go on- a 'bid war' will surely hurt the other guy more than me.
PPC is cut throat.
AW
Interesting - "multiple rotating proxy server software" - can you recommend some.
I am sure that we're the victim of multi clickthroughs by competitors.
The only query I would have is how, when thousands of people can use the same C cat IP address' in an office or from a dial up, do you ensure you don't end up blocking legit clickthroughs?
Cheers for any advice.
TW.
The ROI just was not there and the bids on quality terms were way to high.
I would rather spend the money on Adwords.
How on earth did you pick that nickname? ;)
Anyways,
Interesting - "multiple rotating proxy server software" - can you recommend some.
Problem is if you are in the same business I would be shooting myself in the foot.
If you search around enough you can find a few that do it. ;)
I'd like to clarify that I haven't used this to click others as of yet.
I am sure that we're the victim of multi clickthroughs by competitors.
It is pretty hard to prove and even tougher to get credited for. I think the high end accounts could get someone to go over log files.
The only query I would have is how, when thousands of people can use the same C cat IP address' in an office or from a dial up, do you ensure you don't end up blocking legit clickthroughs?
I ran a test. I got a trial of AOL 8 just to see how OV would handle clicks by various IP's, but by the same machine.
I dropped a term that isn't clicked often down to 10 cents and ran the test late at night EST.
I checked my IP each time I clicked and recorded the number of clicks and IP's.
Hmm. In retrospect I wonder if always clicking through Yahoo as opposed to clicking on say the MSN link would make any difference...think not- but never know.
The results were surprisingly good in FAVOR of Overture recognizing multiple clicks by the same machine.
Out of 30 odd clicks - Overture only showed 5 which was exactly how many different IP's I was able to utilize over a few hours time period.
Though- I haven't tested it, I speculate OV uses something like IP+machine name = unique click.
Like you state- many share IP's. AOL being a primary example.
I have read some posts by folks stating they've seen OV adjust there # of clicks lower end of month. That didn't happen with my account.
So, someone with AOL could multiple click you. But only so many times.
But if someone works at a medium sized company they could have access to dozens of PC's.
I don't think click fraud is *quite* as wide spread as folks think, but it's there.
When I was on OV, I checked my logs often. The vast majority of my clicks came from California. My competition-at the time- happened to be in California. Some normal trafic I'm sure- but a fair amount of competition clicks too.
Such is the cost of PPC...especially if you are advertising in a technically smart industry. :(
AW
It's smoke and mirrors i tell ya!
Overture late yesterday stated that they were dropping their projections by 39% because of a "diminished outlook for the paid-for-performance search market.."
Wall street voted with their feet, and as of this afternoon their share price dropped 27%.
1. An increase in clicks and decrease in conversions.
2. I am constantly competing with people using the same KWs as me, and their products have no relevance whatsoever to the KWs. My emails to support complaining about this go unanswered.
3. My ROI on Google leaves Overture in the dust because they rank to some degree by relevance of keyword(CTRs).
Shame really.
>"..Aprils overall numbers with Overture was horrible....Not sure what caused such a change.."<
Coincidentally, I noticed an almost overnight fall-off in ROI starting at the begining of April last year. It's never recovered since.
I'm a former "Gold Level" customer after dropping about 28K on Overture last year. This year I've slashed it 90% I'm averaging six or seven dollars a day now and looking to cut-back even further.
When I first began using Overture in Early December '01 I was kicking-ass through the end of March '02 then the bottom fell-out around the first week of April.
As I wrote in another post, I owe a debt of gratitude to the members of this list that alerted other subscribers of the doubling of the minimum bid to a dime. I used that opportunity to slash all of my bids down to a nickel and I haven't raised them since.
At about the same time I began focusing my effort on search engine placement. I studied up on how to make the website more keyword intensive and spider friendly, specifically to Google. It now seems to be showing some good results following the most recent "Google Dance."
I've read a few posts touting the advantage of Google's Adwords Keyword bidding program over that of Overture. My experience has been that Google's program is even worse than Overture as far as ROI is concerned. I pulled my Google Ad's long ago.
Putting little colored boxes on the far right side of the screen is absolutely idiotic. People begin reading from the top left corner of a page down. However, Google's natural search generated listings are quite productive (I think) if you are able to arrange your website with keywords in a manner friendly to their spiders.
I have noticed that most of the Overture sales I'm now making are with three word key phrases. This may be attributable to the fact that I've fallen way down the bidding order on the more popular one and two word phrases. However, I believe it's quite likely that three word key phrases are often used by people serious about buying.
Regards, Cheapskate
