Marketers` worries about click fraud rise from yellow to orange
40% of online advertisers and more than 50% of search engine marketing agencies surveyed say they were the victim of click fraud in 2005, according to a new report from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. 16% of advertisers consider the problem serious, about triple the number who did last year, SEMPRO found.
The new data, collected in December 2005, and compiled by Radar Research from 553 advertisers and agencies, revealed that more than 75% of advertisers say the source of fraud is publishers, networks or affiliates attempting to increase revenues through non-authentic clicks. More than 50% say they also have been the victim of competitive click fraud.
The problem may be even bigger than the reported incidence of click fraud in this year’s survey. Nearly one third of advertisers polled were not actively tracking click fraud at the time and don’t know if they’ve experienced it on their sites. About 25% of those surveyed do not believe click fraud is a problem.
“If left unchecked, click fraud could amount to millions of dollars in unwarranted expense to advertisers,” says SEMPRO board of directors member and Did-It CEO Kevin Lee, who called network click fraud “a significant hurdle” to traffic growth at Google and Yahoo. “Our advertisers and agencies need to ensure their advertising dollars are being spent well and not subject to inflated expenses due to click fraud in PPC campaigns,” he says.
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