Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
krebsonsecurity.com
Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
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Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#2Sometimes referred to as 'reverse click fraud'. Here's how it can look from the point of view of one of the sites that hosts the ads paid for by the victim: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Adsense-Click-Fraud-88596
The site gets lots of visits from random IPs, all searching for the same odd phrase, such as 'Female Impotence' in this case.
Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#3I do wonder since he is using a gmail account if it is a honeytrap.
That seems like a very, very dumb thing to do if one's objective is to defraud Google. His entire client list will be accessible through them.
Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#4I was looking for this tool called XRumer but I can't remember the link...
Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#5I do wonder since he is using a gmail account if it is a honeytrap. That seems like a very, very dumb thing to do if one's objective is to defraud Google. His entire client list will be accessible through them.
Does he really defraud Google? They're still getting paid.
Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#6I do wonder since he is using a gmail account if it is a honeytrap. That seems like a very, very dumb thing to do if one's objective is to defraud Google. His entire client list will be accessible through them.
Does he really defraud Google? They're still getting paid.
I suppose that was the wrong phrasing. I should have said defraud Google's customers.
Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#7I do wonder since he is using a gmail account if it is a honeytrap. That seems like a very, very dumb thing to do if one's objective is to defraud Google. His entire client list will be accessible through them.
Does he really defraud Google? They're still getting paid.
At the very least, it devalues Google's own service. Victims of this service will see lowered impact of advertising through Google, so they are more likely to simply drop/lower reliance on Google as a form of advertising and look for alternatives.
Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#8As opposed to how VC's drain competitor's adwords budgets?
Meaning, this is too often how I see competitive bids going over time:
1) You sell a widget for $100, and it costs you $50, so you spend $10 on the ad, & make $40 margin.
2) Your competition gets in, & has similar price/costs, & bids $11 on the ad.
3) After a few iterations, you both bid $49.50 for the ad, making near zero (positive) margins & stay in business.
4) But, VC-backed businesses enter that market. The VC (rightly) tells the startup that they aren't going to make profit in the first year anyway, but they MUST show user-growth. And, here's the VC money to pay for user growth.
5) So, the VC-backed startup bids the ads up to $100+, far above profitability for legit bootstrapped or existing profitable companies.
That's how the ad budgets can be drained in the ecosystem.
I know a lot of investors here that don't want to take the blame for this impact and may downvote me, but I do see this happening for many keywords over time. I don't need to be popular on this issue.
Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#9As opposed to how VC's drain competitor's adwords budgets? Meaning, this is too often how I see competitive bids going over time: 1) You sell a widget for $100, and it costs you $50, so you spend $10 on the ad, & make $40 margin. 2) Your competition gets in, & has similar price/costs, & bids $11 on the ad. 3) After a few iterations, you both bid $49.50 for the ad, making near zero (positive) margins & stay in busines…
There is a difference between actively and maliciously targeting adwords to destroy people's money and healthy competition b/t pools of capital/businesses.
You are engaging in false equivalence.
Re: Service drains competitor's Adwords budget
#10As opposed to how VC's drain competitor's adwords budgets? Meaning, this is too often how I see competitive bids going over time: 1) You sell a widget for $100, and it costs you $50, so you spend $10 on the ad, & make $40 margin. 2) Your competition gets in, & has similar price/costs, & bids $11 on the ad. 3) After a few iterations, you both bid $49.50 for the ad, making near zero (positive) margins & stay in busines…
There is a difference between actively and maliciously targeting adwords to destroy people's money and healthy competition b/t pools of capital/businesses. You are engaging in false equivalence.
I'm not saying that the VC-backed company is intentionally or maliciously poisoning the healthy profit of the competition.
I'm saying that it's an unintentional byproduct of the otherwise naturally healthy approach to "grow first, profit later". Just like, I'm about to release a free game in the app market, no IAP, no cost, as I'm generous. But, that can & does have unintended consequences in the ecosystem to make it harder for those who do need to profit from their similar work.