One of our clients spends about $2,500 per day on Yahoo Search Marketing. In this particular instance, the client is opted into the Yahoo Content Network and spends about 20% of their daily budget or $500 per day in content. One of our senior SEM’s was reviewing daily click activity and noticed that the account, which the previous day was funded with $10K was offline and the entire available balance depleted. After further investigation we found that two particular keywords within the content network accounted for almost the entire $10K previous day deposit in less than 12 hours (rough estimate of time).
This kind of unusual click activity created a spiral of events within the Pepperjam Search Division, which initiated an immediate internal investigation by our senior team of the cause for the activity and likelihood of click fraud.
Interestingly enough we were able to run some reports and find that on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis the keywords in question never represented a significant source of traffic from Yahoo’s content network. In addition, we were able to verify that these particular keywords were not being managed by our analytics software, which includes an automated bid management module. Furthermore, we were able to verify that for this particular client that at no point did our daily ad spend from the Yahoo content network equal more than roughly 40-50% of the entire ad spend. On the particular day in question the ad spend from two keywords within the content network represented over 90% of the budget before the entire account went offline because the available balance went to $0. By the looks of it if we had $100K in the account it may have been spent based on the volume of “activity” that took place.
Based on our internal investigation, we concluded that this particular account experienced click fraud from Yahoo’s content network. I personally contacted our agency team at Yahoo. Here is an edited (to maintain confidentiality of client) version of the first e-mail we received where we were told that there was no unusual activity:
FROM YAHOO (e-mail #1):
We have reviewed your account activity for [XXXXX Keywords XXXXX] and we were unable to locate any questionable activity.
The traffic you receive from Content Match will fluctuate greatly as this depends on relevant content across our affiliate network, depending how popular that content is dictates the number of impressions you received. For the term [XXXXX Keyword A XXXXX] you received 674,701 impressions and [XXXXX Keyword B XXXXX] 618,479 impressions but your click though rate for both terms was 0.003, which means only a very small percentage of these impressions resulted in clicks.
If you happen to have any questions regarding this, please feel free to give us a call, our number is 866-YAHOO-SM (866-924-6676) or 626-685-5700.
OK – Clearly, this boilerplate e-mail was unacceptable and didn’t address our concerns, which included evidence based on historical patterns of very unusual click activity. Therefore, I sent a follow-up e-mail requesting an escalation and a thorough investigation from Yahoo’s Click Activity team. Here is the e-mail I received about 15 minutes ago notifying me that they have decided to credit our client’s account almost $10K – the amount that was in question due to the unusual click activity. However, note that they don’t admit click fraud; instead, they say they are issuing the credit as “a measure of goodwill and appreciation for your [Pepperjam's]business.”
FROM YAHOO (e-mail #2):
Thank you for your patience while our Loss Prevention team reviewed your activity….
In response to your concerns about the click activity your account has received, we have issued a goodwill credit to your Yahoo! Search Marketing account balance in the amount of $X,XXX.XX for clicks that were billed to your account during the period of November 19, 2006, to November 27, 2006.
Please note that we have issued this credit as a measure of goodwill and appreciation for your business. Please allow up to five business days for the adjustment to appear in your account. Once adjusted be sure to review your billing history in the Reports section of the Manage My Accounts Page under Billing Transaction Detail to confirm your adjustment.
Well…the purpose of this e-mail is not in anyway to bash Yahoo. In fact, we are very pleased that we received the credit and that Yahoo conducted an investigation into the unusual activity. Why was the credit issued? Yahoo says goodwill – our historical data suggests something much different.
By the way – another one of Pepperjam’s senior SEM’s informed me earlier today that after approaching Yahoo with a similar problem for a different client he (the Pepperjam account manager) was shocked to receive an e-mail sometime yesterday notifying him of a multi-thousand dollar credit. In this case, as well as the above example we are talking about some pretty major clients that spend a lot of money with Yahoo and there was pretty clear unusual click activity.
The moral of the story. Be persistent if you or one of your clients experience unusual click activity. Conduct your own investigation internally before you contact Yahoo to complain of click fraud or unusual click activity. I do believe that both Yahoo and Google realize that click fraud exists and they are very interested in identifying it and providing advertisers with credits when appropriate. It doesn’t hurt that Pepperjam is a major SEM firm and that we have a relatively powerful voice in the SEM community, but I strongly believe that if you make your case with evidence and you are persistent, you stand a good chance of getting issued a credit for unusual click activity. If you have trouble getting your money back, start a personal blog at wordpress or something similar and blog about it until you get the attention of the search-engine in question.
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