More Click Fraud Discussion
Josh has a great post at Hunc Tu Caveto, The Dark Side Strikes Back, that raises a lot of great points about the problem of fraud associated with PTR.
I agree with him when he says CPM ads have no place in PTR or any other kind of incentivized site. As he says, "Paying people to view ads, day after day, month after month, when the advertiser is paying you for nothing more than their view just doesn’t work." Yet that's exactly what's happening on lots of PTR sites, especially those that run PTP (Paid to Promote) pages.
I think his comments about pay-per-lead ads, or paid sign ups, are spot-on as well. As long as the advertiser specifically allows incentivization, then there's no problem in theory. But if the reality is that members are signing up for free trials just for the incentive, then there's a problem.
The companies that allow incentivized sign-ups are aware that a certain percentage of people who sign up for free trials will never become paying customers. Some of them deal with that by being a bit sneaky in their fine print, others just hope that people forget to quit. The smarter and more ethical ones simply do the math and set their prices and pay-per-lead offers accordingly.
But none of that takes away from the fact that signing up for free trials just for the incentive is no better than doing incentivized searches. All of these activities need to be done in good faith. If not, the whole thing will eventually fall apart. Either the incentives will disappear, or the companies that offer them will disappear. Anybody who was around in the early days of online rewards programs (1999-2000) has seen it happen.
I agree with him when he says CPM ads have no place in PTR or any other kind of incentivized site. As he says, "Paying people to view ads, day after day, month after month, when the advertiser is paying you for nothing more than their view just doesn’t work." Yet that's exactly what's happening on lots of PTR sites, especially those that run PTP (Paid to Promote) pages.
I think his comments about pay-per-lead ads, or paid sign ups, are spot-on as well. As long as the advertiser specifically allows incentivization, then there's no problem in theory. But if the reality is that members are signing up for free trials just for the incentive, then there's a problem.
The companies that allow incentivized sign-ups are aware that a certain percentage of people who sign up for free trials will never become paying customers. Some of them deal with that by being a bit sneaky in their fine print, others just hope that people forget to quit. The smarter and more ethical ones simply do the math and set their prices and pay-per-lead offers accordingly.
But none of that takes away from the fact that signing up for free trials just for the incentive is no better than doing incentivized searches. All of these activities need to be done in good faith. If not, the whole thing will eventually fall apart. Either the incentives will disappear, or the companies that offer them will disappear. Anybody who was around in the early days of online rewards programs (1999-2000) has seen it happen.
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