Last weekend TechCrunch published a piece claiming that advertisers running cost-per-click ads on Facebook were complaining of click fraud of up to 100 percent.

Advertisers had posted numerous complaints at WickedFire, accusing Facebook of being indifferent towards click fraud.

Those complaining said that Facebook was recording and charging for clicks that did not exist. In other words, while the various tracking systems (including log files) used by advertisers were recording a certain number of clicks, Facebook’s system was recording multiples of those clicks and charging advertisers accordingly.

Facebook subsequently told TechCrunch that it had noticed an increase in suspicious clicks and was implementing a solution to ensure advertisers were charged (or credited) appropriately.

Whatever the case, it goes to show that you can’t just rely on your advertising network to track your stats for you. You certainly can’t afford to take your eye off the ball and assume that all is well based on someone else’s numbers. You need to use your own means of tracking clicks and landing page impressions.

While the ad network’s stats and your stats are bound to vary somewhat (for example just because someone clicks on your ad… doesn’t mean they visit your landing page) you should see a consistent relationship emerge between the clicks the ad network tracks and the clicks you track.

If a sharp discrepancy occurs between the two, it bears investigating as soon as possible. While click fraud may not be the culprit, you definitely want to know the source of the deviation. Especially since it may be costing you money – whether in terms of your ad budget, sales, opportunity cost, etc.

Source: Michael Arrington, “Facebook Click Fraud Enraging Advertisers (Updated), TechCrunch, June 21, 2009

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Feature, Law, Search Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.