Re: PPC and Index tools

From: John Marshall <jmarshall_at_clicktracks.com>
Date: Thu 13 Feb 2003 15:26:39 -0600

> This is EXTREMELY helpful - thanks so much for taking the time to post
> it.
>
> That said, we have a situation with LookSmart in which the number of
> clicks they reported in a four-day period exceeded the ENTIRE number of
> hits to our site. Even what you describe here couldn't possibly explain
> that away, could it?
>

I'm reluctant to blame the PPC engines for overcharging. Let me offer
another possible explanation, again from the point of view of developing a
tool to track all this stuff. Bear in mind I don't know how indextools or
others really work, I only know how ClickTracks does it.

I'm sure I don't need to discuss the problems of keeping track of a single
user session during the analysis. During the days of portals a great focus
was made on 'unique visitor sessions'. All kinds of mechanisms, be they
server log or page bug based, are used to distill a sequence of page
requests into the single session of a single human being.

As search engines have come to dominate the source of traffic for sites you
are seeing an interesting phenomena in the user behavior : the user has the
expectation of large numbers of relevant search results. This gives them an
incentive to click into a search result or paid placement, glance at the
home page, back out and move on to the next search result. From the
end-users perspective all the search results are equally good, at least in
the first 10 pages. A search will involve them trying many different
results, each for only a few seconds before deciding on one or two worth
spending time at.

During the above process the user may well loop in and out of your site
multiple times, clicking into a search result, then a PPC ad, then another
PPC ad on page 4 of the results and so on. Think about your own behavior
when using google to find a certain product. You're in and out of those
sites in a heartbeat.



Received on Thu Feb 13 2003 - 15:26:39 CST