Click fraud can be as simple as one person starting a small web site, becoming a publisher of ads, and clicking on those ads to generate revenue. Oftentimes, the number of clicks, and their value, is so small, that the fraud goes undetected. Oftentimes publishers will claim small amounts of such clicking is an accident, which is often the case.

Much larger scale fraud also occurs. Those engaged in large scale fraud will often run scripts, which simulate a human clicking on ads in web pages. However, huge numbers of clicks appearing to come from just one, or a small number, of computers, or single geographic area, look highly suspicious to the advertising network and advertisers. Clicks coming from a computer known to be that of a publisher, also look suspicious to those watching for click fraud. A person attempting large scale fraud, alone in their home, stands a good chance of being caught.

Organized crime can handle this by having many computers, with their own internet connection, in different geographic locations. Often scripts fail to mimic true human behavior, so organized crime networks use Trojan code to turn the average person’s machines into zombie computers and using sporadic redirects or DNS-cache-poisoning to turn the oblivious user’s actions into actions generating revenue for the scammer.

Impression fraud is an insidious variant of click fraud where the advertiser is penalized for having an unacceptably low click-through rate for a given keyword. This involves making numerous searches for a keyword but without clicking of the ad. Such keywords are disabled automatically, enabling a competitor’s lower-bid ad for the same keyword to continue while several high bidders (on the first page of the search results) have been eliminated.

It is very difficult for advertisers, advertising networks, and authorities to pursue cases against networks of people spread around multiple countries.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

The display advertising portion of online advertising is increasingly dominated by rich media, generally using Adobe Flash. Rich media advertising techniques make overt use of color, imagery, page layout, and other elements in order to attract the reader’s attention. Some users might consider these ads as intrusive or obnoxious, because they can distract from the desired content of a webpage. Some examples of common rich media formats and the terms of art used within the industry to describe them:

• Interstitial or Expanding ad: The display of a page of ads before the requested content.
• Floating ad: An ad which moves across the user’s screen or floats above the content.
• Expanding ad: An ad which changes size and which may alter the contents of the webpage.
• Polite ad or Polite download: A method by which a large ad will be downloaded in smaller pieces to minimize the disruption of the content being viewed
• Wallpaper ad: An ad which changes the background of the page being viewed.

In addition, ads containing streaming video or streaming audio are becoming very popular with advertisers.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A significant number of firms, from small businesses to multinational corporations, incorporate online advertising into their marketing strategy. This is even true of firms which conduct their business through more traditional brick and mortar channels. In response to this demand, a number of firms specialize in facilitating online marketing. Therefore, online advertisements typically involve at least two separate firms: the advertiser or agency which purchases or sponsors the advertisement and the publisher or network which distributes the ad for display. Additional parties may also be included, such as an ad serving technology provider, a third party sales network, or other combinations.

In capitalizing on the increasing importance of the Internet as a marketing medium, the online advertising industry has developed specialized technical systems to manage the ways ads are distributed and viewership totaled. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has established guidelines for the counting methodology, size requirements, and other aspects of the business.

Because of the close relation between technical innovation and online advertising, many firms specialize in both. For example, most search engines couple their search service with an advertising program, exploiting the benefits of keyword-based search technology by including ads in search results. Many technology firms specialize in ad serving, the systems used to select the ads to show, optimize results, and generate reports.

Email advertising

Legitimate Email advertising is often known as opt-in email to distinguish it from spam.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a form of advertising where the advertiser allows a potentially large number of small publishers to pick specific creative elements or offers to market in exchange for payment should such marketing create sales or other revenue. This is usually accomplished though a self-service online system, such as those offered by third parties Performics, BeFree, CommissionJunction, or Linkshare. Affiliate marketing was an early innovation of online retailer Amazon, which has used its program to generate enormous volumes of low cost brand exposure.

Contextual advertising

Many advertising networks display text-only ads that correspond to the keywords of an Internet search or to the content of the page on which the ad is shown. These ads are believed to have a greater chance of attracting a user, because they tend to share a similar context as the user’s search query. For example, a search query for “flowers” might return an advertisement for a florist’s website.

Another newer technique is embedding keyword hyperlinks in a webpage which are sponsored by an advertiser. When a user follows the link, they are sent to a sponsor’s website.

Ads and malware

There is also class of advertising methods which may be considered unethical and perhaps even illegal. These include external applications which alter system settings (such as a browser’s home page), spawn pop-ups, and insert advertisements into non-affiliated webpages. Such applications are usually labeled as spyware or adware. They may mask their questionable activities by performing a simple service, such as displaying the weather or providing a search bar. Some programs are effectively trojans. These applications are commonly designed so as to be difficult to remove or uninstall. The ever-increasing audience of online users, many of which are not computer-savvy, frequently lack the knowledge and technical ability to protect themselves from these programs.

Links

• IAB

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

AdSense for feeds

In May 2005, Google unveiled AdSense for feeds, a version of AdSense than runs on RSS and Atom feeds that have more than 100 active subscribers. According to the Google Blog, “advertisers have their ads placed in the most appropriate feed articles; publishers are paid for their original content; readers see relevant advertising — and in the long run, more quality feeds to choose from”.

AdSense for feeds works by inserting images into a feed. When the image is displayed by the reader/browser, Google writes the ad content into the image that it returns. The ad content is chosen based on the content of the feed surrounding the image. When the user clicks the image, he or she is redirected to the advertiser’s site in the same way as regular AdSense ads.

AdSense for search

A companion to the regular AdSense program, AdSense for search lets website owners place Google search boxes on their pages. When a user searches the web or the site with the search box, Google shares any ad revenue it makes from those searches with the site owner.

Abuse of Google AdSense

Some webmasters create sites tailored to lure searchers from Google and other engines onto their AdSense to make money from clicks. These “zombie” sites often contain nothing but a large amount of interconnected, automated content (e.g. a directory with content from the Open Directory Project). Possibly the most popular form of such “AdSense farms” are splogs (“spam blogs”), which are centered around known high-paying keywords. Also many sites use the free Wikipedia content to attract visitors. These and related approaches are considered to be search engine spam and can be reported to Google.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

AdSense is an advertising program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text and image advertisements on their sites. These ads are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis. Google utilizes its search technology to serve ads based on website content, the user’s geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google’s targeted ad system may sign up through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the ads are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the ads is often relevant to the website.

It currently uses JavaScript code to incorporate the advertisements into a participating site. If it is included on a site which has not yet been crawled by the Mediabot, it will temporarily display advertisements for charitable causes known as public service announcements (PSAs). (Note that the Mediabot is a separate crawler from the Googlebot that maintains Google’s search index.)

Many sites use AdSense to monetize their content and some webmasters work hard to maximize their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:

1. They use a wide range of traffic generating techniques including but not limited to online advertising.
2. They build valuable content on their sites; content which attracts AdSense ads and which pay out the most when they get clicked.
3. They use copy on their websites that encourage clicks on Ads. Note that Google prohibits people from using phrases like “Click on my AdSense ads” to increase click rates. Phrases accepted are “Sponsored Links” and “Advertisements”.

The source of all AdSense income is the AdWords program which in turn has a complex pricing model based on a Vickrey second price auction, in that it commands an advertiser to submit a sealed bid (not observable by competitors). Additionally, for any given click received, advertisers only pay one bid increment above the second-highest bid.

Links

• Google AdSense
• Google wants to dominate Madison avenue, too (The New York Times, 2005)
• AdSense patent application

Click-through rate or CTR is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions). For example, if your banner ad was delivered 100 times (impressions delivered) and 1 person clicked on it (clicks recorded), then the resulting CTR would be 1%.

Banner ad click-through rates have fallen over time, often measuring significantly less than 1%. By selecting an appropriate advertising site with high affinity (e.g. a movie magazine for a movie advertisement), the same banner can achieve a substantially higher click-through rate. Personalized ads, unusual formats, and more obtrusive ads typically have higher click-through rates than standard banner ads.

References:

• Sherman, Lee and John Deighton, (2001), “Banner advertising: Measuring effectiveness and optimizing placement,” Journal of Interactive Marketing, Spring, Vol. 15, Iss. 2.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Cost Per Click or CPC (as it is often initialized to) is a phrase often used in online advertising and online marketing circles.

With many advertising networks and websites, the advertiser is charged for advertising their ad (on the advertising network or website) only when a user clicks on their ad. How much they pay (for that click) is called their Cost Per Click or CPC.

The CPC can be determined by different factors, depending on which advertising network or website the advertiser is advertising on.

Other common forms, of charging for advertising, include:

• CPM
• CPA
• CPT

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Many spyware programs reveal themselves visibly by displaying advertisements. Some programs simply display pop-up ads on a regular basis—for instance, one every several minutes, or one when the user opens a new browser window. Others display ads in response to specific sites that the user visits. Spyware operators present this feature as desirable to advertisers, who may buy ad placement in pop-ups displayed when the user visits a particular site. It is also one of the purposes for which spyware programs gather information on user behavior.

Pop-up advertisements lead to some of users’ most common complaints about spyware. A computer can become overwhelmed downloading or displaying ads. An infected computer rarely has only one spyware component installed—they more often number in the dozens ^[1]—and so while a single program might display ads only infrequently, the cumulative effect becomes overwhelming.

Many users complain about irritating or offensive advertisements as well. As with many banner ads, many spyware advertisements use animation or flickering banners designed to catch the eye—thus they become highly visually distracting. Pop-up ads for pornography often display indiscriminately, including when children use the computer—possibly in violation of anti-pornography laws.

A further issue in the case of some spyware programs has to do with the replacement of banner ads on viewed web sites. Spyware that acts as a web proxy or a Browser Helper Object can replace references to a site’s own advertisements (which fund the site) with advertisements that instead fund the spyware operator. This cuts into the margins of advertising-funded Web sites.

References

1. ↑ ^{a b} “AOL/NCSA Online Safety Study“. America Online & The National Cyber Security Alliance. October 2004.

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