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I somehow doubt that any PPC search traffic, even 2nd tier, is cheap enough to arbitrage off in this manner. PPC costs have climbed over the years and any PPC -

by arbuge 13y ago

I somehow doubt that any PPC search traffic, even 2nd tier, is cheap enough to arbitrage off in this manner. PPC costs have climbed over the years and any PPC -> CPM arbitrage seems unlikely to me these days. I'm thinking they have other sources. Do you know for a fact it's PPC search they're sourcing visitor count from?

meritt 13y ago
I can't speak for today but in 2008-2010 this was definitely the case. It's not exactly a direct arbitrage play as a lot of the end advertisers tend to be doing full media buys. Top banner ad, background page ads and they are just paying for 100% coverage for a day or week or month. One large gaming news/reviews site was buying about $10k/day worth of mostly fraudulent traffic. The traffic wasn't bots, per se, it was "real" users but they had compromised machines with popups and toolbars. So there was a high visit count of real users but there was no conversion metrics or time-on-site to be measured. They continued buying the traffic for at least a month so I can only assume it was meeting their goals. We had a lot of publishers all doing the same thing. As this was second tier, I wouldn't really call it "search" traffic. Just a ton of users with keyword-like queries being routed to various xml feeds/exchanges. When we'd send the traffic to actual publishers with conversion goals the rates were abysmal and we'd end up issuing lots of refunds. The only publishers that seemed to like the traffic were ones that sold their own dedicated ad units to large brand advertisers. I'm just glad to be out of that industry :)
- CrankyPants 13y ago
  Yeah this kind of scenario is absolutely realistic. I've seen, firsthand, stuff that makes the above look downright honorable, and done by major, major players. When there's money and success at stake, it's difficult to be too cynical about what tactics are probably being employed.
il 13y ago
It's more likely CPV(cost per view) traffic, which can be bought as low as $5 CPM.
EvanL 13y ago
Motion Seconded. To the best of my knowledge this is not an economically viable traffic inflation technique in todays ecosystem. Possible, but not much value for an arbitrage savvy publisher. Not going to name names, but a good deal of fuckery is afoot in under article link exchange widgets. You know the ones, the boxes with link bait thumbnails that show up on a good deal of popular entertainment sites. Dealt with a lot of fake traffic coming through from the link exchange network. It appeared other publishers were sending tons of fake bot clicks to our site, in order to give themselves a higher amount of free reciprocal traffic from the link exchange.
brandnewlow 13y ago
Outbrain, Taboola and the other "content recommendation networks" are selling clicks in the $0.05-0.15 CPC range. Those prices are going higher and higher, but publishers are buying up all the traffic they can at those prices to arbitrage against their direct-sold inventory.

by arbuge 13y ago

meritt 13y ago

I can't speak for today but in 2008-2010 this was definitely the case. It's not exactly a direct arbitrage play as a lot of the end advertisers tend to be doing full media buys. Top banner ad, background page ads and they are just paying for 100% coverage for a day or week or month. One large gaming news/reviews site was buying about $10k/day worth of mostly fraudulent traffic. The traffic wasn't bots, per se, it was "real" users but they had compromised machines with popups and toolbars. So there was a high visit count of real users but there was no conversion metrics or time-on-site to be measured. They continued buying the traffic for at least a month so I can only assume it was meeting their goals. We had a lot of publishers all doing the same thing. As this was second tier, I wouldn't really call it "search" traffic. Just a ton of users with keyword-like queries being routed to various xml feeds/exchanges. When we'd send the traffic to actual publishers with conversion goals the rates were abysmal and we'd end up issuing lots of refunds. The only publishers that seemed to like the traffic were ones that sold their own dedicated ad units to large brand advertisers. I'm just glad to be out of that industry :)

CrankyPants 13y ago
Yeah this kind of scenario is absolutely realistic. I've seen, firsthand, stuff that makes the above look downright honorable, and done by major, major players. When there's money and success at stake, it's difficult to be too cynical about what tactics are probably being employed.

il 13y ago

It's more likely CPV(cost per view) traffic, which can be bought as low as $5 CPM.

EvanL 13y ago

Motion Seconded. To the best of my knowledge this is not an economically viable traffic inflation technique in todays ecosystem. Possible, but not much value for an arbitrage savvy publisher. Not going to name names, but a good deal of fuckery is afoot in under article link exchange widgets. You know the ones, the boxes with link bait thumbnails that show up on a good deal of popular entertainment sites. Dealt with a lot of fake traffic coming through from the link exchange network. It appeared other publishers were sending tons of fake bot clicks to our site, in order to give themselves a higher amount of free reciprocal traffic from the link exchange.

brandnewlow 13y ago

Outbrain, Taboola and the other "content recommendation networks" are selling clicks in the $0.05-0.15 CPC range. Those prices are going higher and higher, but publishers are buying up all the traffic they can at those prices to arbitrage against their direct-sold inventory.