Problems with espotting?

[sammyp]

I use overture, google and espotting. About to drop Google as too expensive. Overture seems about double espotting on most of my bids, but the money shoots out of espotting a lot quicker. In fact every time I get above a certain competitor this happens. Seems pretty obvious to me whats happening but the only response I get from espotting is that its not repeated clicks on one phrase and therefore not click fraud. Seems to me that whilst I cant prove that its click fraud, espotting dont seem too bothered about proving it is. Im loathe to drop espotting as has worked well in the past, but not worth continuing at the moment as it will prove unsustainable.Any advice on how I can stop this happening?

[Shak]

welcome to webmasterworld.

Its never nice hearing about such activities.

Have you checked your logs to see where the clicks are coming from, that should show you the following:

ip number, search string, referring partner.

I am sure armed with this information Espotting will be glad to assist you, they are very keen to build loyal advertisers and brand awareness.

all the best

Shak

[sammyp]

Thanks for the advice Shak. As something of a novice, tracking is something that I have not got to grips with. However, am pleased to say that espotting have today agreed that there is something amis and refunded me. In fact about 30% of clicks in last month seem to have been click fraud.

[webdiversity]

Click fraud ultimately gives the advertisers a bad experience, so it amazes me when I see so many people complain that Espotting and others don't care.

However, the definition of click fraud will be different in each camp, will not be clearly defined (to prevent the spammers doing just that bit less than needed to hit the radar), and the onus is on the advertiser to at least provide the beginning of the evidence needed and the stuff Shak said is the bottom end of the scale and if it is large scale spamming then checking logs will probably cost you more in wasted time than the value of refunds you might get.

That being said, tracking all of the activity for the positive outcomes, i.e. sales and actions, will also show you the harmful stuff by default as well, so you don't need to carry out negative research, but if it happens you will have the ammunition you need to get the refund, but also to help Espotting and others to oust any rogue affiliates that might be trying to make a bit of extra commission, or a competitor that has got no brains.

I always say that if your competition have got nothing better to do with their time than click your ads, then your campaigns are working well, as they are clearly not making sales and running around servicing clients, instead they are trying to spoil your party. If there is any justice then they will go out of business any way.

[sammyp]

Youre right, in one way it is I suppose flattering that a competitor is that worried that they want to get up to this sort of thing. However, still costs me a lot of money. I think one of the advantages of PPC is that it enables smaller organisations to compete with their bigger competitors. However, the negative side of that is that if the bigger competitor knows you are smaller, they also know what impact click fraud will have. Showing who is boss so to speak. As a relatively small organisation, click fraud is my biggest problem. On the subject of tracking, can you suggest any good tracking software?

[allcam]

I also met the same problem.

I run the same set of ads on Google, Overture and Espotting last month, and the spending on Espotting is actually 4 times more than what we spend on Google or overture which are almost the same.

I complained to Espotting but they insisted there was no problem. You are lucky enough to get some refund.

I dropped Espotting since them, there is too much click fraud.

I think the main reason is Espotting got too many small partners ( who got very long domain names like: buy-cheap-mp3-player, or buy-cheap-dvd-player sort of thing), some of the partners may just sitting infront of the computer and keep clicking on the links on their domain to earn commission, or they have software to do the job.

[nicebloke]

Yeah as an advertiser in the UK I don't really think I should have to see my listing coming up on some crappy Venezuelan or Ukrainian directory.

[redlion]

What Venezuelan or Ukrainian directory are they partnered with?

thanks