Pay per click, or PPC advertising is the development of certain business related keywords or keyword phrases and advertisements, setting them up with Google, Yahoo or other advertising vendors, and paying the vendor when an internet searcher finds your ad in a search and clicks on it.
How is Fraud Committed with PPC?
PPC fraud can be as simple as one of your competitors clicking numerous times on your ad to run up your advertising costs, to as complex as a sophisticated robot going through the web and clicking on ads that would bring revenue to the robot's creator. Your ad is displayed on pages where it is relevant to the content. The owner of the page where it's displayed receives a portion of the click revenue if the site visitor clicks on it. Thus, they can increase their income if they can create a scheme that clicks on ads on their site numerous times without the ad vendor recognizing the fraud.
Should I Worry About it On My Real Estate Ad Campaigns?
There are doomsayers out there who claim that huge percentages of PPC ad costs are fraud, with some respected sources claiming as much as 20% could be fraudulent. Let's put that in perspective though. Even if the 20% amount is accurate, it would take some really sophisticated schemes to fool Google, Yahoo and other vendors for extended periods. Generally, those schemes would probably not be targeting your small real estate campaign budgets.
As a real estate advertiser, you would probably be more concerned with competitors doing multiple clicks to run up your costs. No doubt this has happened. The question is this: Will this competitor make this a career decision and keep doing it long-term? That's doubtful. But even if they do, there are mechanisms to catch it. Multiple clicks from the same IP address can be discovered, and you can ask for a refund for the fraudulent activity.
There are third party solutions that allow you to set up an online account to track PPC clicks and catch potentially fraudulent ones. Most of these services, some linked below, cost a nominal sum on a monthly basis. If your budget is considerable, you might want to consider these resources.
All considered, fear of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) fraud shouldn't stop you from using this form of advertising. Benefits include:
• Restrict ad placement only to actual search result pages, not on site pages
• Only show ads if specific terms are entered in specific sequence (as "YourTown real estate": must be typed just that way)
• Set daily and/or monthly budgets that cut off ads when budget is exhausted
The key is to set up campaigns, monitor them closely, especially at first, and keep you eye on unusual patterns down the road.
