Adwords ads appearing in emails

[danielanaidu]

I got a click from a referrering URL that contained: "http://us.f314.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=" I am assuming this came from an email that was opened by someone with a Yahoo account. How do you distribute Adwords thru email? Is that considered part of the content network? How does it and under what circumstances does it happen? Thanks for your replies.

[youfoundjake]

Could be an advertisement on the yahoo page that displays ads next to the text of the email?

[TMF_Melissa]

Adwords on a yahoo e-mail?

Sounds fraud'ie to me.

[jkung]

I'm thinking it could be a newsletter that sends in HTML format and has Adsense ads in it.

[poster_boy]

I have similar referring URLs in my logs and I don't participate in the content nework.

[AdWordsAdvisor2]

danielanaidu or poster_boy,

I have a few ideas of what this could be, but I'll need a bit more info to really look into it. Can either, or both, of you StickyMail me the weblog entry and your account ID?

Thanks,

AWA2

[biking4jesus]

I have seen many similar things in Analytics if I filter source for yahoo.com

us.f527.mail.yahoo.com

[AdWordsAdvisor2]

If anyone can provide their raw weblogs that show Yahoo mail as a referrer, we would be interested in having a look. I would expect that this isn't that common an occurrence, but curiosity has been officially piqued over here and we'd like to have a definitive answer instead of just good theories.

AWA2

[tantalus]

I have AWA2

Whats your maximum bid?

[bostonseo]

"Whats your maximum bid?"

That awesome! I love how our QA work is always free :)

[toomer]

Whats your maximum bid?

LOL. Whatever the answer, tell him his bid has been deactivated and he must raise it to $5 or $10 ... ;-)

[otc_cmnn]

Is it possible to simply include your adwords javascript in an outgoing html formatted email? Then when the page rendered in a javascript compliant place like a web browser as Y! mail does than the ad would show. Sounds easy enough to do... Let me go and give it a try.

Hmmm, looks like Y! mail is smart enough to strip it out, but I'm sure there is a way around that for someone more creative than myself.

[Brett_Tabke]

Someone was emailed an HTML page off the web and that page contained adwords/sense ads that were later clicked. With most of the modern browser/email systems, emailing an entire html page is quite easy. The emailing of google serps is quite common.

[gregbo]

The emailed web page containing AdWords ads is plausible. However, referrers can be easily faked, so that one could have been. Could also be a buggy browser.

[AdWordsAdvisor2]

tantalus,

I have AWA2

Whats your maximum bid?

Depends on the quality of the information you're providing.

Emailed SERPs are the easy answer, but there are some other possibilities we'd like to check.

AWA2

[youfoundjake]

ASA, I took just had one of these. Do you need the logs? I just sticky'd you the referral link.

[venrooy]

I wouldn't limit the possibilities to adsense advertisers - with the crap they're letting in to the search network lately, it may be a "legitimate" search.

[AdWordsAdvisor2]

youfoundjake,

If you could send the full log entry, that would be perfect.

Thanks,

AWA2

[youfoundjake]

on its way. i sent you the log for today. sadly enough its not alot of visitors, but i'll get there.. i'll make it to the top. :)
it happened at 8:11 am.

[danielanaidu]

AWA2, will you share the answer with everyone if you figure out what is going on?

[AdWordsAdvisor2]

danielanaidu,

I will. With the examples we've seen so far, there is nothing stranger than people emailing each other links and results pages. If anything interesting happens, I will let everyone know.

AWA2

[celgins]

We all know that publishers aren't allowed to put Adsense ads in emails, so it all sounds rather fishy to me.

But like Brett mentioned, it could be just one page being sent via email to one or two people.

If you notice hundreds of referrals from Yahoo emails, it sounds more like an Adsenser sending ads via newsletter submission.