You Got Lots of Clicks, So What?
Over the years, marketers have raved about how many clicks they got from programmatic campaigns. They even reported this up the line to their bosses as indicators of success. And everyone just assumed “more is better” just like higher scores are better in video games. But after a decade of playing digital marketing like a video game, it’s time to ask “so what?”?
So what if you got millions of clicks?
So what if you got millions of clicks and very high click through rates? Were those clicks from humans? Did the humans go on to buy your product or service after clicking on your ads? What if 96 - 99% of those clicks were bots clicking on your ads and not your ads performing better due to better targeting (see the 15 cases in the slide below - dark blue means humans, orange and red means bot clicks on your ads)? Too shocking to believe?
90% discrepancies with site analytics
Let’s take a step back (to ease the pain). Many marketers have also noticed discrepancies between the clicks reported by their programmatic ad platforms and the clicks that arrived on their landing pages, as recorded by their site analytics. Sometimes these discrepancies are 90% or higher -- that is, the programmatic campaign reported 100 clicks, but Google Analytics only reported 10 clicks that arrived on the site. Google Analytics filters some bots but it does not tell you which bots they were and how much was filtered. So you are left with a discrepancy you cannot explain. The fact that Google Analytics filtered the clicks from bots meant the bots were so simple and obvious that even Google Analytics could determine it was fraudulent and thus filter them out.
领英推荐
FouAnalytics in your programmatic ads
Advertisers are adding FouAnalytics tags into their programmatic ads. Data collected by FouAnalytics can be seen in the Clicks tab; examples are screen shotted below. Looking at the first row of 4 grids, you see 4 examples of 300x250 ad units and the locations of the clicks (green dots). Can you tell what was being clicked? Right, the user was trying to close the ad not click the ad.?
In the second row of 5 grids, you see blue clicks spread out across the face of the 300x250 ad unit. These are actual clicks on the ads; and these should have arrived on your landing pages and recorded by your site analytics.?
FouAnalytics on your landing pages
Advertisers are also adding FouAnalytics to their sites so they can see more details and troubleshoot the discrepancies in the numbers of clicks reported in their digital campaigns versus their site analytics. FouAnalytics does not filter anything; we record all pageviews and label the visitors as bot or humans. A key thing to realize is that bots might click through on your ads and arrive on your site, but they may do nothing on the site (because they were not paid to do so). You will see this in your analytics as low time on site, high bounce rate, or low pages per visit. But in FouAnalytics you can confirm either 1) the complete lack of activity (no mousemove, no page scroll, no clicks) or 2) faked activity, as seen below. Note the orange (declared bot) clicks. The larger circles means the clicks were overlapping, repeated clicks on the same pixel location on screen. The red (bad bots) circles show the same. The blue dots further below show a click pattern reflective of human activity on the site -- the clicks are individual dots and spread out across the entire webpage. There’s a natural clustering of the dots (but not overlapping) because humans have to click on links, buttons, and site navigation.
So What?
Farmers, don’t just count your cows as they come home. Advertisers, don’t just count your clicks as they come to your site. Analyze your clicks to make sure you are getting the “wagyu of clicks” -- clicks from real humans. You don’t even need a lot of clicks. You just need clicks that convert. Humans that arrive on your site and then go on to look around and possibly even convert! Optimize towards humans and away from bots. More tips and tricks here: Digital Marketing Based on Business Outcomes, Not Vanity Metrics