How to verify Click through Rates

Am I being Done?

[George]

Hi,
Some advice from a Guru please, I seem out of my depth again! Having dug so far, I am stuck!

The Situation

I am currently paying 20p per click from a partner, and after a few months, with the bill going steadily up, I thought I had better check the ROI, and audit the results.

What A shock. Of the 735 (approx) clicks they claim to have sent me, I had only 145 people land on the unique page I gave them, with about 170 page views on it.

I also track referers with AWstats, and surprise...148 referers from their URL!

So, where has the 735 come from? I then checked it with Webalizer, and Webalizer showed 730 "hits" referred. Now I think hits is a misnomer in this case, so I assume each one is meant to be a refer not a hit. The biggest difference between Webalizer and AWstats that I know if, is that Awstats separates out the Robots...Am I right?

Conclusion...

They are making me pay for Robot visits...Not a charge I want to make lightly, so I am hoping there is a more reasonable explanation.

Thanks for your help.

George

[Shakil]

I am not a GURU, but I will try and help out.

Going by the amount of information you seem to have, any reputable partner should credit your account immediately.

I am sure the big PPCs would in a situation like this.

Shak

[Hannu]

The robot thing seems like a reasonable explanation. Have you tried to check the user agent names - hopefully it will be quite easy to identify most (or some) robots - this could give you the ammo you need.

How do they count clicks sent to your site, via a redirect script or...?

[George]

Hi Shakil and Hannu,

Thanks for your responses. They are arguing the point at present, saying that they are right, and I am wrong and so I must pay the bill. All this would be irrelevant if I was making sales from them, but alas, I am not!
So yes, they track through a redirect, like this:

www.theirdomain.co.uk/servlets/click?catId=10730&listName=10730&pos=1&itemId=524

I have access to my raw logs, but not theirs, but I am not sure how to read them. How can I tell? Say I have 10 lines, all showing them as a referer, and each line...

ahhhhh, each line calls an image, does that mean that no page has been called? So, they are using my images here on their pages...

Each occurrence is different, so I think I need to learn to read the log reports properly, can you advise a good resource?

If you are interested, I will let you know the out come!

George

[Hannu]

You're welcome

.../servlets/click?catId=10730&listName=10730&pos=1&itemId=524

Because they use a redirect script, I doubt robots will follow the link.

ahhhhh, each line calls an image, does that mean that no page has been called? So, they are using my images here on their pages...

(Almost) Bingo! If they have eg. a logo (from your server) on their link page i will result in a request on your server with their page as referrer.

But if they count clicks to your site via a redirect script how can the image requests appear in their stats?

Can you post eg. 10 lines from your logfil (replace the names of course)?

[George]

Hi Hannu,
it depends on which page it is on. Recently they have put me into a database, so this seems to be where they are calling the pictures from.

Here is a a part of the log file from another visit. It is difficult to follow as there are hits from several visitors I have had to cut out, hopefully correctly :)

Probably best if I sticky you.

George

[Hannu]

George,

The log file you sent (with 1 user session) showed only 1 referrer from theirdomain.com, the rest of the referrers were from yourdomain.com:

GET yourdomain.com/theirname_uniqepage REFERRER theirdomain.com
GET yourdomain.com/picture1.jpg REFERRER yourdomain.com/theirname_uniquepage
GET yourdomain.com/picture2.jpg REFERRER yourdomain.com/theirname_uniquepage
GET yourdomain.com/picture3.jpg REFERRER yourdomain.com/theirname_uniquepage
etc...

The pictures requested had yourdomain.com as referrer - so how Theirname can count them as clicks referred is beyond my imagination...

IMO it looks like they're trying to sc... you. If they want to charge for traffic - they must provide solid proof of the clicks they sent.

Not much of a help but I hope you can use the input.

[George]

Hannu,
You are a great help, thanks! Perhaps I there are better examples, I will see what I can find.

I now have their logs, and it is in xls format, with some of the http links underscored, and some not. On my PC I have to use return to set up hyperlinks...

Still, they give me cookie info and all sorts:

02/10/2002:13:12:38 theirdomainshopbot 10810162.64.251.158 ac370-f0a4ccb87f-290
02/10/2002:13:14:09 theirdomainshopbot 10810162.64.251.158 ac370-f0a4ccb87f-290
02/10/2002:13:14:29 theirdomainshopbot 10810162.64.251.158 ac370-f0a4ccb87f-290
02/10/2002:13:14:35 theirdomainshopbot 10810162.64.251.158 ac370-f0a4ccb87f-290

If I read these right, these 4 clicks are within 2 minutes, with the same cookie, and the same IP address. Is it fair to charge each as a click? Am I being unreasonable?

George

[Hannu]

I don't think you're being unreasonable - not at all. You should only be charged 1 time IMO.

But the problem is that you have signed a CLICK-based deal. Basically they deliver 4 clicks in your example - even though it's from the same ip/cookie.

Still, I have a hard time figuring out why a user would click on a link on their site... go to your site - and then repeat this action eg. 3 times... Something's wrong.

Have your tried to follow the link from their site to yours and then hit the back-button? If it's a poor script it might not let the user go back - and thereby the user activates the script everytime he/she it hitting the backbutton...just an idea.

[George]

Hi Hannu,
I think this is a lesson learned! They were claiming they could supply 2500 click throughs per month, and as a public Co, and a supplier of results through out Europe I thought they would play fair, even if they clearly would never supply that many. Seems not.
Most IP address's are different, but 159 of the 735 are all from 195.xxx.xxx.xxx, which surprises me. I think I am about to be stuffed for click throughs as I have 1 month to go before termination of contract.

Oh well! Thanks

George

[Hannu]

You're welcome!
:)
Hannu

[bcc1234]

Make sure that the server set exiparion to the past on that particular URL(s).
Also, check the IPs with large number of clicks; see if those are proxies or not (for example AOL).

I get about 1 sale per 1,000 referrals from affiliates; life sucks, I know :)

[George]

Hi bcc1234,
Is there is a list of AOL IPs? Alot of them are 195.9X.XX.XX, and many more start with 62.

Also, I do not understand :

server set exiparion to the past

This is a new area to me, so sorry for being slow to catch on! 1/1000 seems about right, at 20p per click...I offered then 1p...

Thanks

George

[bcc1234]

Make sure your server returns expiration header with a past date so it does not get cached by proxies.

That way you can be certain that your unique URLs account for all referrals.

And with IP addresses - check who owns the block.

[George]

thanks,
I will look into that.

George