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> Does it really matter if it's all fraud Uh, yes. If you get 47 sales on $10k in ad spend (pay per click) and $9900 of that $10k was fraudulent then you got

> Does it really matter if it's all fraud Uh, yes. If you get 47 sales on $10k in ad spend (pay per click) and $9900 of that $10k was fraudulent then you got 47 sales on $100 of ad spend. Imagine if you could stop those fraudulent clicks.

dangus 1y ago
The point is, if $10k brings in 47 sales and that’s not enough then you stop buying those ads. It doesn’t really matter why it’s not working. You take your marketing spend elsewhere. You can’t stop fraudulent clicks just like you can’t stop your SuperBowl ad from playing while your viewers are in the bathroom. How much of ESPN’s viewership happens at bars where nobody is watching? At some point it’s not reasonable to expect ad networks to be able to stop sophisticated bots or exclude them from your billed impressions. They should definitely try to minimize it if they want to maintain the value of their impressions but I think there is a good argument that OP just isn’t the right customer for this type of advertisement. If you’re trying to sell a t-shirt you don’t hire a salesperson to cold call people, maybe OP shouldn’t be using web ads in the first place. If fraud was cut down by half would their situation really be that much better?
- ccortes 1y ago
  > It doesn’t really matter why it’s not working. It does, because it changes the strategy. If you think the ads are working and have 10k potential customers then you start thinking about how to increase your conversion rate thinking you could get a chunk of those 10k, you might think distribution is solved. But if it turns out only 2.5k are real humans then your conversion rate might not even be an issue and it’s just the marketing strategy that needs tweaking. The whole point is that they are giving you fraudulent traffic which you use as real data to figure out the next steps. If you don’t know it’s fraudulent or how much of the clicks are fraudulent then you are taking decisions under the wrong assumptions. > You can’t stop fraudulent clicks just like you can’t stop your SuperBowl ad from playing while your viewers are in the bathroom That’s not even a good analogy, we are taking clicks, not impressions.
- paulcole 1y ago
  > You can’t stop fraudulent clicks just like you can’t stop your SuperBowl ad from playing while your viewers are in the bathroom Yes, you literally can stop fraudulent clicks. I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's not possible? This is nothing like the Super Bowl analogy.
whistle650 1y ago
And imagine how much more you’d have to pay for each of those clicks if everyone could stop those fraudulent clicks. In equilibrium it shouldn’t change the total ad spend.
- arichard123 1y ago
  But if you're the only one doing it because the competition haven't figured it out, then you win in until they do. You can outbid on each ad.
  - whistle650 1y ago
    That’s true. But you probably can’t. At least any more than others. It’s a systemic issue in the ad network ecosystem which you don’t have much control over. If you can figure it out, odds are lots of others can too. People do assess the quality of traffic sources and do check the return on ad spend. It’s that system wide process that keeps the return on ad spend roughly constant. The point here, for me, is that a microeconomic perspective on this whole question is more salient than a purely technical one.
- ccortes 1y ago
  That’s the point, without the fraudulent clicks you would just move on to some other strategy because the pricing would not be worth it. Fake clicks give the illusion that ads are working and instead you have to optimize your funnel or whatever else.
- rockskon 1y ago
  A properly informed market is a more efficient market. The online ad market is extremely inefficient because it has no idea how much ad spend is even reaching people.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    You should have a good idea. How to know if an ad reaches people had been extensively studied for a lot longer than the internet even existed. Newspapers don't have clicks, but you still need to know if you ad works. Even on the internet, a large part of the value of ads are see the ad, buy latter without clicking on the ad. We can track this: do it.
kingstnap 1y ago
You can't just "ignore" fraudulent clicks as though those aren't baked into the original price. The only thing you should care about is your own sales vs your own ad spend. Your calculations make as much sense as pouring out 90% of a can of beer, claiming you have just made vodka, and simultaneously trying to pay only for the 10% of beer that is left.
- candiddevmike 1y ago
  Why are fraudulent clicks my problem? Why should I pay for them?
  - garciasn 1y ago
    In my extensive experience, you take irrefutable evidence back to the ad platforms and they provide 'make goods' after the fact for those fraudulent visitors. The entire premise of the article is quite accurate and most companies are spending money on third-parties to do what this guy has done to recoup fraudulent spends; so, none of this is new to the industry. Everyone knows it's happening and it's all part of the gig; it benefits everyone except those spending so little is truly done to correct it.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    They are not your problem. You paid $10k for 47 sales (that is the original example numbers) - is this a good value is the question you need to ask. If this is not good value then you don't advertise there at all, if it is you pay the price. It is the ad network's problem because they are showing ads to all those bots which costs them. It is also the ad networks problem in that they are not effective - maybe for your $10k for 47 sales is good enough, but for most it isn't and so they lose customers who pay attention to value. It is also their problem in that by giving a false number of views they lose some face, but this is always a proxy that isn't of much value to anyone. The more important thing that is your problem is verifying the ads are worth it. How do you know the ad resulted in 47 sales. A large number of adds should be buy this in the future not today, and thus clicks are the wrong measure.
- paulcole 1y ago

dangus 1y ago

The point is, if $10k brings in 47 sales and that’s not enough then you stop buying those ads. It doesn’t really matter why it’s not working. You take your marketing spend elsewhere. You can’t stop fraudulent clicks just like you can’t stop your SuperBowl ad from playing while your viewers are in the bathroom. How much of ESPN’s viewership happens at bars where nobody is watching? At some point it’s not reasonable to expect ad networks to be able to stop sophisticated bots or exclude them from your billed impressions. They should definitely try to minimize it if they want to maintain the value of their impressions but I think there is a good argument that OP just isn’t the right customer for this type of advertisement. If you’re trying to sell a t-shirt you don’t hire a salesperson to cold call people, maybe OP shouldn’t be using web ads in the first place. If fraud was cut down by half would their situation really be that much better?

ccortes 1y ago
> It doesn’t really matter why it’s not working. It does, because it changes the strategy. If you think the ads are working and have 10k potential customers then you start thinking about how to increase your conversion rate thinking you could get a chunk of those 10k, you might think distribution is solved. But if it turns out only 2.5k are real humans then your conversion rate might not even be an issue and it’s just the marketing strategy that needs tweaking. The whole point is that they are giving you fraudulent traffic which you use as real data to figure out the next steps. If you don’t know it’s fraudulent or how much of the clicks are fraudulent then you are taking decisions under the wrong assumptions. > You can’t stop fraudulent clicks just like you can’t stop your SuperBowl ad from playing while your viewers are in the bathroom That’s not even a good analogy, we are taking clicks, not impressions.
paulcole 1y ago
> You can’t stop fraudulent clicks just like you can’t stop your SuperBowl ad from playing while your viewers are in the bathroom Yes, you literally can stop fraudulent clicks. I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's not possible? This is nothing like the Super Bowl analogy.

whistle650 1y ago

And imagine how much more you’d have to pay for each of those clicks if everyone could stop those fraudulent clicks. In equilibrium it shouldn’t change the total ad spend.

arichard123 1y ago
But if you're the only one doing it because the competition haven't figured it out, then you win in until they do. You can outbid on each ad.
- whistle650 1y ago
  That’s true. But you probably can’t. At least any more than others. It’s a systemic issue in the ad network ecosystem which you don’t have much control over. If you can figure it out, odds are lots of others can too. People do assess the quality of traffic sources and do check the return on ad spend. It’s that system wide process that keeps the return on ad spend roughly constant. The point here, for me, is that a microeconomic perspective on this whole question is more salient than a purely technical one.
ccortes 1y ago
That’s the point, without the fraudulent clicks you would just move on to some other strategy because the pricing would not be worth it. Fake clicks give the illusion that ads are working and instead you have to optimize your funnel or whatever else.
rockskon 1y ago
A properly informed market is a more efficient market. The online ad market is extremely inefficient because it has no idea how much ad spend is even reaching people.
- bluGill 1y ago
  You should have a good idea. How to know if an ad reaches people had been extensively studied for a lot longer than the internet even existed. Newspapers don't have clicks, but you still need to know if you ad works. Even on the internet, a large part of the value of ads are see the ad, buy latter without clicking on the ad. We can track this: do it.

kingstnap 1y ago

You can't just "ignore" fraudulent clicks as though those aren't baked into the original price. The only thing you should care about is your own sales vs your own ad spend. Your calculations make as much sense as pouring out 90% of a can of beer, claiming you have just made vodka, and simultaneously trying to pay only for the 10% of beer that is left.

candiddevmike 1y ago
Why are fraudulent clicks my problem? Why should I pay for them?
- garciasn 1y ago
  In my extensive experience, you take irrefutable evidence back to the ad platforms and they provide 'make goods' after the fact for those fraudulent visitors. The entire premise of the article is quite accurate and most companies are spending money on third-parties to do what this guy has done to recoup fraudulent spends; so, none of this is new to the industry. Everyone knows it's happening and it's all part of the gig; it benefits everyone except those spending so little is truly done to correct it.
- bluGill 1y ago
  They are not your problem. You paid $10k for 47 sales (that is the original example numbers) - is this a good value is the question you need to ask. If this is not good value then you don't advertise there at all, if it is you pay the price. It is the ad network's problem because they are showing ads to all those bots which costs them. It is also the ad networks problem in that they are not effective - maybe for your $10k for 47 sales is good enough, but for most it isn't and so they lose customers who pay attention to value. It is also their problem in that by giving a false number of views they lose some face, but this is always a proxy that isn't of much value to anyone. The more important thing that is your problem is verifying the ads are worth it. How do you know the ad resulted in 47 sales. A large number of adds should be buy this in the future not today, and thus clicks are the wrong measure.
paulcole 1y ago