Forum Moderators: martinibuster
If the advertiser targets your site for adwords, and then puts the conversion tracking code onto a page they never show users (or don't put it at all) then your site will have awful conversions. They can then show their ad to another site but put the conversion tracking on the landing page, giving the other site monster conversions (remember the advertiser doesn't pay Google per conversion so it won't add a cent to their bill to do this).
What's happened now? Your site has been marked at really badly converting. The CPC plummets and your advertiser can get his clicks for peanuts. Most of your other advertisers, if not all of them, probably don't have conversion tracking set up.
This seems, now I think of it, a very obvious and simple abuse of the system and unless AWA can give some explaination why it can't happen, should probably be assumed to be happening now.
So, if your CPC suddenly drops without explaination, perhaps you should be looking to manipulation by your advertisers. How you'd ever detect such a scam is impossible to judge.
I've been site targetted several times and each time I found the results cruddy enough that I chose to block the advertiser. Now, I block any advertiser who sets up a site-targeted campaign.
Forgive the newbie question but how can one tell if their site has been targeted?
Hope
Smart pricing is based upon conversions from a given advertiser...
Just out of curiosity, where did you hear that?
The only way I can see this working as a conspiracy theory is if you break up badly with your girlfriend, who happens to be an AdWords advertiser.
Now, I block any advertiser who sets up a site-targeted campaign.
and may i ask how you do that?
So with this trick, the advertisier would also have a strange conversion at Goolge's search pages.
When my theory is right, it should also happen, that ad prices on some content pages are higher than on Google's search pages if the conversion is better.
If they made one site appear to convert less than average, then by definition they'd have to make other sites appear to convert MORE than average, and they'd end up paying proportionally more for that traffic.
If I show ads only intermittantly, or with a low budget / cpc on other sites, it costs me very little. I can then run full budget on your site getting clicks for peanuts.
For eg. if you have a dynamic script so that for leads from one site, the conversion tracking code (showing a successful conversion) is put rarely and always put for other sites leads (maybe right on the landing page to show very high conversions), then automatically the first site gets a low conversion score and the clicks get cheaper due to 'smart pricing'. It should be pretty trivial to implement such code by checking the referrer tag.
Of course it could then work the other way wherein a publisher could theorotically get a better 'smart pricing' score for his website by advertizing on his own site and showing high conversions compared to other sites on the content network with the method above.
Oh and about jenstar's blog, the info she put on her blog about smartpricing was got from a post by one the members on this forum, whether it is true or not is not verified.
Of course it could then work the other way wherein a publisher could theorotically get a better 'smart pricing' score for his website by advertizing on his own site and showing high conversions compared to other sites on the content network with the method above.
That is a good point. However, do you think that it needs to run on the 'high converting' website all the time? Or will a few days run be enough to establish the 'par conversion' for the ad, and then enable the advertiser to get cheap clicks in the targetted 'low converting' site. You can certainly change your CPC per site to ensure that you are very rarely shown on the 'high converting sites' - in fact, as the sites start converting well - won't the minimum to get shown go up and potentially do this automatically?
The only way I can see this working as a conspiracy theory is if you break up badly with your girlfriend, who happens to be an AdWords advertiser.
The bottom line is that advertisers should be equally responsible for conversion. Not solely the publishers.
Please send your feedbacks to Adsense, they are very good and they consider the matter well.
Thank you.
Do you seriously think that advertisers who pay their own money for displaying their ads through AdSense network AREN'T interestend in sales?
They certainly are interested in sales. Unfortunately, their sale conversions actually change the price they pay on a site. They pay less per click on places that don't convert well. It seems so simple to just hide the conversion code for a given site to drastically reduce the cost per click (and the income of the adsense user!).
Now about "advertisers being responsible for conversion".
I've been an AdWords advertisers for two years before I started AdSense (and still am). As an advertisers I want to make more money than I spend.
Now, let us say you got smartpriced. We'll make it very simple. You got smartpriced because my ad on your site has a 2% conversion rate and my ad on another site has a 5% rate. Some suggest that it's my responsibility, as an advertiser to increase conversion rate. Allright, let's say I worked hard and doublded it. Now CR for my ad on your site is 4% and on another site 10% and you are still being smartpriced. You see, smart pricing coefficient just shows how likely your audience is likely to buy. If you get people who want to buy stuff, you should not have problems with smartpricing.
You see, no one has been able to show that one advertiser can drive a site into being smart priced. Let's just entertain the possibility that the premise of this very post may in fact be true. Then why not simple test the idea and find out if it's true or not?
Why blame google that "even one avdertiser can manipulate Smart Pricing", when there is no evidence whatsoever that this is possible in any way, except for in someone's head?
It seems so simple to just hide the conversion code for a given site to drastically reduce the cost per click (and the income of the adsense user!).
The conversion code isnt shown to visitors coming from one site whereas it IS shown for visitors from other sites. (A little script which checks the referrers would do the trick) So automatically visitors from the first site even if they convert show 0 conversions and clicks become cheaper because of smart pricing. (because other sites show conversions)
Although I wonder about the effectiveness of this considering many advertizers but it seems plausible.
Now, I block any advertiser who sets up a site-targeted campaign.
and may i ask how you do that?
Now, I block any advertiser who sets up a site-targeted campaign.
and may i ask how you do that?
I asked something similar when this thread first started. Is there really a sure way to tell if your site has been targeted or not? Is it a big secret or am I supposed to read between the posts somehow and guess at the answer?
Let's see... I'll guess NO.
Hope
Now, I block any advertiser who sets up a site-targeted campaign.
