Here’s some food for thought: Click Fraud is not an excuse for a failing online
marketing campaign - why do marketers use it as one and what should they really
be paying attention to?
Marketing folk tend to be very creative. Search marketers for the most part are
creative as well. (The argument that search marketing is Art vs. Science can be
discussed another time.) Quite often marketers can be creative with their
excuses as to why a campaign may have failed when it was supposed to be the next
big thing. Creative excuses very rarely “fly” with management however. For
online search marketers one of the most common excuses that I have heard search
marketers use for a failing online marketing campaign is click fraud. “Click
fraud is synthetically forcing our sponsored budget up… as a result our return
is not where it should be.” Are you serious? Click fraud being the reason why
your campaign is failing? In addition, there are those people who report on the
fact that click fraud is going to be the downfall of search marketing. They just
don’t get it. They don’t understand the business of search.
Why Worry About Click Fraud when there are Bigger Fish to Fry?
While the importance of click fraud as an issue should not go away, those who
blame their failing campaigns on click fraud need to look at the big picture.
Especially in light of the fact that Google has
announced with hard numbers, for the first time, about how much of Google's
traffic could actually be considered fraudulent. With the bottom line for
advertisers being such as small amount at .02%, click fraud is extremely
overrated. Based on these numbers, click fraud represents a small percentage of
fraudulent traffic. In my opinion, to blame click fraud as to why your campaign
is failing is ludicrous. Instead of paying attention to click fraud and using it
as an excuse, search marketers should be paying attention to the things that
truly matter.
Forget click fraud, there are a number of other issues where search marketers
should be shifting their focus on. Here are ten factors that search marketers
should be paying attention to instead of worrying about click fraud:
- The conversion rates of your landing page(s) – riddle me this, if you can
bump your conversion rates by .5%, you’ve just made 25 times more impact on your
overall campaign performance. This seems better than continuing to fret about
click fraud on Google.
- Inaccurate conversion tracking – tracking the wrong numbers can cause you
grief and over-inflate potential leads and conversion numbers
- Poor conversion paths – not generating enough leads? Rather than worrying
about click fraud, identifying and addressing poor conversion paths is time well
spent.
- Shopping cart errors – ensuring that people can actually convert on your site
is key for a successful online marketing campaign.
- Limited calls to action – not having enough calls to action can have a direct
impact on the leads (or lack thereof) that you receive via your site.
- Wrong types of calls to action - wrong types of calls to action will also
impact your conversion rates.
- Poor user experience – getting traffic to your site is one thing, knowing
what to do with them when they arrive on your site is another. (and you want to
worry about click fraud?)
- Identifying, defining and monitoring proper metrics and key performance
indicators – why worry about click fraud when you have not even identified the
proper metrics to measure your site’s success?
- Establishing proper budget allocation for search marketing campaigns –
obtaining budget for your online marketing campaign seems more important than
click fraud to me.
- Having a well-balanced campaign that include both sponsored and
organic components – don’t focus solely on your sponsored campaign as an effective
online marketing campaign should include an organic component as well. Click
fraud is not an issue when it comes to organic search marketing.
The way I see it, looking at click fraud should be the least of your worries.
Online marketers need to understand that it is people that make purchase
decisions, not algorithms or computers. The above list presents a number of
areas where search marketers and advertisers should focus their efforts on to
succeed in the online marketplace. Instead of worrying about click fraud so
much, why not focus your efforts on any of the above items and look at the big
picture? I’m pretty sure that by understanding the “big picture” proper focus
can be placed on the items that can have a positive impact on your return on
investment.
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enquiro research
Jody Nimetz