In the New York Times this week, Susanna Hamner relayed some great information to readers about the true effects of click fraud, related to pay per click advertising. In her article, Hamner focuses on the automotive retailer industry and points to a substantial number of advertising pay per clicks that originate in locations where these retailers are not doing business, such as Bulgaria and Indonesia.

One point that Hamner makes soundly, is that Google and Yahoo differ in reporting to their advertising clients the percentage of fraud to non-fraud that is really occurring. Google reports that the amount of true click fraud is hovering near 1% and professionals from Yahoo indicate that number is closer to 15%. The variance in those numbers is more than alarming and should be considered negligent. It is time for PPC companies, such as Google and Yahoo, to provide solutions to the click fraud dilemma.

Marketing professionals could use this opportunity to explore other and less expensive alternatives to PPC. Hamner points out that PPC is the only division of internet marketing to actually grow in the last year, despite the rest of the national economic decline.

“Because of the troubled economy, companies have shifted their advertising dollars to more cost-effective formats like pay-per-click advertising, which was the only form of Internet advertising that grew last year. It accounted for 57 percent of Internet advertising in 2008, up from 52 percent in 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group representing online advertisers.”

Other options for internet marketing are springing up. For eCommerce sites, true data feed optimization can turn your data feeds for comparison shopping engines from steam engines of the past to bullet super trains of the future, helping to reduce the dependence on PPC and increasing your bottom line.

Social network marketing can deliver readership from a whole host of social sites and blogs that can answer that age old question when it comes to successfully marketing your presence on the Web: What’s Next? Whether it be the inclusion of blogs, direct marketing on social sites, embedding video into your site or including news feeds, social network marketing is a huge area that stands currently developed and is waiting for your site to pull out of the station.

So with the unexpected toll booths along the information super highway no longer collecting just simple nickels and dimes, maybe it is time to put the car in the garage and jump on the bullet train.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the current article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/media/13adco.html?_r=4&ref&