Over $100 per click? How to keep competitors from clicking...

[JChronicle]

I was doing some investigating on high priced pay per click keywords.  I had a client ask me if there is a way to prevent your competition from just repeat clicking your ads which in turn cost him money...  Suggestions?

Also, can you believe this:

| Keyword | Search volume | Average CPC | Category |
| mesothelioma settlement | 1,900  ∼  | $142.67 ↑↑↑ | asbestos |
| mesothelioma asbestos attorney | 5,400  ∼  | $121.68    ↑ | asbestos |
| asbestos attorney | 9,900  ∼  | $117.23    ↓ | asbestos |
| asbestos law firms | 2,900  ∼  | $106.77    ↑ | asbestos |
| sell annuity payment | 1,900  ∼  | $95.16    ↑ | annuity |
| annuity settlements | 5,400  ∼  | $92.36    ↑ | annuity |
| structured annuity settlement | 6,600 ↑↑↑ | $92.36    ↑ | annuity |
| auto donation | 33,100  ∼  | $84.51    ↑ | donate |
| virtual data rooms | 4,400  ∼  | $79.59    ↑ | data |
| donating a used car | 2,900  ∼  | $79.35    ↑ | donate |
| auto accident attorney | 135,000  ∼  | $73.12    ↑ | auto |
| mesothelioma cancer | 9,900  ∼  | $71.30    ↑ | asbestos |
| data recovery RAID | 8,100  ∼  | $70.80    ↓ | data |
| motor insurance quotes | 301,000 ↓↓↓ | $67.09    ↑ | insurance |
| auto insurance discounters | 2,400  ∼  | $66.00   ↑↑ | insurance |
| auto accident lawyer | 135,000  ∼  | $64.54    ↑ | lawyer |
| RAID data recovery | 8,100  ∼  | $64.22    ↓ | data |
| asbestos cancer | 14,800  ∼  | $61.13    ↑ | cancer |

[wrttnwrd]

I can believe anything when it comes to click prices these days. Folks go a little insane.

As far as repeat clicking and spending his money: Google has filters in place to detect malicious clicking behavior. While someone could certainly click once and cost you however much a single click costs, they couldn't click again and again.

You can be really, really devious and find ways to click more than once using proxies, Mechanical Turk style services and such. But it's rarely worth it.

If you're setting up a campaign, the math should always work out such that a few stray clicks here and there don't matter in the overall scheme. Even at $142 cpc. So, if you know you convert 5% of all clicks on your $142 cpc ad, and a single conversion is worth $100,000, then it's probably OK. Same goes for a term that costs $2 cpc.

Hope this helps,

Ian

[KeriMorgret]

You can also help make sure that your ad shows for the most relevant search terms by using negative keywords. An absurd example, but if you are advertising for furniture you want to show up for "night stand" but want to be sure to have a negative for "one night stand". They can't click if your ad doesn't show.

[Marcus_Miller]

And of course, the person looking for a 'one night stand' would be somewhat disappointed with a night stand ..

[irvingw]

what if the person is single and really only needs one night stand?

don't count on Google to accurately filter out click fraud, Google makes all of their money on ads that is their business. Someone can click on your ad once every 24 hours and it will count as a click and you will get billed. with high cost clicks this can ad up to be a lot of money, and it's not hard to have multiple people do this.

We used to use whosclickingwho which shows you where the clicks are originating from and we've caught competition clicking on our ads. you can send this info to Google adwords as proof and ask for a credit on the fraudulent clicks. But like I said, Google is in the ad business so they are going to allow as many ad clicks to count as they can ethically allow to slide.

[JChronicle]

Good point and that's what I was thinking about... However I also started to wonder how the average "Small" business deals with this type of stuff.  I have seen instances where the cpc was enough to hammer a company's cash flow...

[VistageSEO]

Review your web logs too. You might have to supply those to Google anyway if their model can't detect anything.

[Branden_S]

I worked on Mesothelioma campaigns for a while.  CPC averaged $100-150/click.  It's literally AdWords most expensive CPC....but a Mesothelioma Lead is worth $10,000 and a settled case is worth $500,000.  That's why Mesothelioma clicks are so expensive.

Keep an eye on AdCenter clicks...AdCenter causes many more headaches that AdWords.

Look at your search query reports..if you see anything outside of the norm, ask for a refund..and then add that term as a negative keyword.  Its usually only broad match that will cause issues...if you don't use broad match, you shouldn't have many problems.  Once again AdCenter will match up 'related' keywords that are not really related....AdWords is much more accurate for broad match keywords.

look at geo ... do you capture ip address on leads or server logs?  look for IPs outside your targeted geo.  If you find them, ask for a refund

If you find any issues, request that AdCenter or AdWords audit your account...I automatically did this every month with AdCenter ..and usually received 10-15% refund every month...and I didn't have to spend lot of time investigating things ...AdCenter did the work.  Do you have a dedicated rep?  this is what they are for.