Time for Third-Party PPC Validation

Over the years I’ve noticed curious patterns of PPC usage, sometimes I can trace it back to a competitor trying to drum up our charges. Depending on the intensity of the click-fraud I will contact the ad provider asking for a refund. Usually, I receive the standard corporate mantra that their system guards against click-fraud and those illicit clicks will not be charged to my account.

Today we received triple the normal amount of traffic, largely outside of the United States, yet they were searches on very localized terms. The majority of the clicks originated from Overture / Yahoo and ironically today we received a notification from Yahoo that our Overture account will be refilled by charging our credit card another $500 lump sum. That made me think, where are the third-party checks and balances to hold these ad networks to a set of standards that we can all trust?

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