I’ve written two articles on click fraud related to pay-per-click services of Citysearch and Yellowpages.com. Both articles have received many comments from small business owners who had similar bad experiences. I’ve also received several phone calls from blog readers who wanted some advice from me regarding what to do after they’ve found themselves locked into a contract with a company like Citysearch, Yellowpages.com, Dex Online etc and are very unhappy with the results.

So here’s my advice to small business owners on how to avoid getting caught in the costly web of online pay-per-click advertising.

1. Avoid signing any long term contracts - there are pay-per-click companies (like Google AdWords) that do not require any long term commitment - not even for a single day. I’ve heard from so many folks who are now struggling to get out of monthly or annual contracts with CitySearch, YellowPages.com and Dex - and while some are eventually successful, many others are now facing threats of legal action, collection agencies and other nasty things.

2. Don’t believe what the salespeople verbally tell you - over and over again, I’ve heard from my blog readers that pay-per-click sales people exaggerated and mislead them - and I’ve had this experience personally from representatives of YellowPages.com and Dex. Only trust what you get in writing or read on their company website.

3. Read the fine print. Many folks where surprised to find that when then signed up for a Citysearch or YellowPages.com or Dex directory listing via pay-per-click, their ad showed up on all kinds of other directories - some that were garbage directories or what’s known in the web world as arbitrage, or made-for-adsense directories. My blog readers didn’t read the fine contract print, and understand that they were authorizing wide distribution of their ads onto “affiliate” networks - whose real sole purpose may be to accumulate fraudulent clicks.

4. Make sure you have control over your pay-per-click ad. A reputable pay-per-click advertising company will give you complete control over your ad campaign. You should be able to control your ad text, where and when your ad is displayed, and most importantly, how much you’re paying for each click and your overall budget. You probably wouldn’t put a ad in a newspaper if you had no control over what the ad copy was or what the cost of the ad was. Pay-per-click should be no different. The reason that this control is not given to you, is because you’re hiring pay-per-click middlemen - versus hiring Google AdWords directly.

5. Getting out of a contract. If you have already signed a contract and now find yourself in the unfortunate position of feeling like you’re not getting value for your money, don’t simply give up. Start communicating in writing - avoid phone conversations that can’t be documented. Move up the corporate food chain by escalating your issue if the current level of interaction isn’t giving you satisfaction. Be prepared to continue this battle for months; persistence will eventually pay off. And if all else fails or you’re simply not the kind of person who is comfortable with conflict, hire an attorney who has experience with click fraud - they’re out there.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 12:25 pm and is filed under the Pay-Per-Click category. Read other Aldebaran Website Design Blog articles by returning to main blog page. Need a blog added to your website? Click here to read about blog installation services or click here to contact Aldebaran Web Design. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.