NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Is there an inexpensive way to spot inflated
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Is there an inexpensive way to spot inflated
doug_at_athletica.com
Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:42:29 -0800
clicks-thru?
Sender: owner-online-ads_at_o-a.com
Precedence: bulk
At 08:30 AM 2/19/98 -0600, Margaret Hicks wrote:
>I would very much like to hear from both advertising sites as well as
>small advertisers like myself how they tackle this issue. Is there any
>means (without paying for expensive third party auditing) of spotting
>if advertising sites which whom you had purchased clicks-through are
>perhaps inflating their stats in any way?
Two thoughts on this.
1. We do a simple match-back from our server hit logs to validate
clickthroughs. We almost always find that the clickthroughs reported by
sites on which we advertise are *higher* than our referrer logs tell us.
So, we may have a report from our ad site saying that 100 people clicked on
our ad in a given week. But, our referrer logs say only 45 people came to
the site from that referring URL. When this happens, we have a discussion
to make sure there is no hanky panky or technical problems. Ideally, these
two stats should match to a T; practically, if we can get within 20%, I am
usually happy.
2. Who cares whether the site is inflating impressions, given the following
two caveats: First, if you are getting devent response (read: clicks), then
look at it as cost per click and forget about impressions altogether.
Second, if the CPM you are paying is low enough, then they can inflate the
stats to a certain extent and your actual cost may still be reasonable.
Personally, if a site delivers on clicks and a decent cost per click, I
couldn't care less how many impressions they quote me.
Just our experience,
dbs
---------------------------------------------
Douglas B. Spink
Founder, Athletica
503.647.9264 / 888.256.3787 toll-free
503.647.9958 facsimile
http://www.athletica.com
mailto:doug_at_athletica.com
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