Saturday, May 15, 2010

Why Pay Per Click Programs Suck

Have you ever tried to make money with your website and/or blog by posting ads?

Many of us have used Google AdSense or other pay to click ads trying to monetize our sites, just trying to make some money.  We were not doing anything wrong.  Yet unfortunately most, if not all, people who have tried AdSense have had a roadblock put before us while going down the road to making money online.

Since the beginning AdSense has been scrutinized as being easy prey for click fraud.  Many AdSense users have been victims of click fraud with the ads on their sites.  Of course, there are those who are dishonest who do click on their own ads, or get friends and family to do so.  Google doesn't even like it when sites with AdSense are placed in the Traffic Exchanges, such as Traffic Swarm.

Yet for those of us who are honest, we get our AdSense accounts terminated because other people are fraudulently clicking on our ads without us being aware of such.  Unfortunately, Google could be looked at as an evil corporation.  Some AdSense users get their accounts terminated just because they are making money, and Google is justifying that by saying your site has been suspected of fraudulent clicks, whether or not that is true.

When click fraud is suspected, whether or not it is the case, you forfeit any earnings, which are refunded back to the company who had the AdWords account which brought the AdSense ads to your site.  The thing is, your site was suspected of click fraud, even though you did not click on your own ads and other visitors to your site did without your knowledge.

What's bad is no matter what, once your AdSense account is terminated, there is no going back.

So after that I tried Bidvertiser.  Things were going great there until I was recently terminated for "invalid clicks".  I did not make these clicks.  I can attest to that.

Moreover, I'm not sure how much credibility Bidvertiser should have.  They did not even send an email saying my account was terminated.  After not being able to see ads on my blog, I had to login to my account and see that my account was terminated.  Here is the screenshot:


This is a screenshot with my added comments.  Notice it has a blank after "Dear," and no reason for termination.  Notice my comment, "What if I don't remove the HTML code..."  I also pointed out that if this is the way the screen is that their HTML coding sucks.  I actually logged in to the support area and expressed my concern.  I even uploaded this screenshot and told them about their HTML code.  Then again, I don't think Bidvertiser cared.  They just stated my account was terminated for invalid clicks and that the decision was final.

I did rebuttal with threats that I would not purchase ads from them and with improper language as well as threats to slander the company, but then again, I don't think they cared.

Of course I can also say Bidvertiser has no credibility because they are hypocrites.

As per this screenshot, they show FriendFinder as one of their advertisers.  In fact, in this screenshot, FriendFinder is a featured advertiser:

   

But here's another screenshot that says something different:



Bidvertiser does not allow you to place ads on sites with adult or sexual content!  HELLO!  FriendFinder is considered an adult/sexual program!  If a company had integrity, they would not accept an Adult/Sexual program as an advertiser when they don't allow publishers to post ads on adult or sexual content websites!  This makes Bidvertiser hypocrites!

Then again, if I were to bring this up with Bidvertiser, they would deny that FriendFinder is an adult program.  IT IS!  They advertise themselves as such!  Bidvertiser can say what they want, but as far as I'm concerned, they get no credibility from me!

So yes we can say pay per click programs are shams.  Another reason is with Google AdWords. 

Google does not want you to make money from AdSense, but if you're an AdWords user, they will try to squeeze as much money out of you as they can.  Bidvertiser does the same thing with their advertisers.

If you're an AdWords user, you are charged each time someone clicks on your ad.  You also set up a budget for bidding on keywords.  Each keyword has a cost per click (CPC), and the lower the gravity of that keyword, the higher the CPC.  This can cost AdWords users a lot of money with no return on investment (ROI).  If you are not getting enough clicks from your ads, or if Google believes you are not, the only advice they would give you is to increase your budget.  Doing that will end up giving you a bill too high to pay.  That is too costly, especially if no one purchased anything when clicking on your ad. 

This happened to me, and I complained to Google.  I just got the generic response about how ads should be related to what site visitors will go to when they click on the ads.  The response also included that visitors will leave without purchasing anything if it turns out the site is not related to the ad.

You see, on the internet you have more window shoppers than buyers.  People just want to click on Google ads and see where they will go by clicking on the link.  They have no interest in buying anything.  Each time someone clicks on the ad, it costs the AdWords user.  Hey, I could go to any site, and click on ads over and over again, doing so repeatedly without buying anything.  Each time I click I will cost the AdWords user money and I will give the AdSense user a temporary feeling of making some money through AdSense only for his/her AdSense account to be terminated for "fraudulent clicks" and never to have an AdSense account ever again.  Yet the AdWords user will be charged for the clicks causing a loss of income.

What can be said about this?

I am not longer an AdWords user because of this.  If somehow AdWords users could complain to Google that they suspect click fraud when they get charged so much for clicks with no ROI.  Google would supposedly investigate but would only refund the charges for known big companies, not affiliate marketers advertising a product, website, or blog.

This is what sucks about pay per click programs.  I think I'm better off promoting Amazon or Clickbank.  I don't know, but this is my rant on this topic for now.

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