What, Me Worry About Click Fraud?
Any company engaged in pay-per-click advertising knows it's a risky proposition, because advertisers shell out money to a search engine every time a surfer clicks on the
company's links, a practice notoriously difficult to control. The price and placement depend mainly on how much the advertiser wants to bid for its keywords, but the potential for
fraud perpetrated by deliberately manipulating the keyword searches and clicks can amount to far more than chump change.
The amount of click fraud is difficult to quantify; estimates of the proportion of fake clicks run from as low as 1 in 10 to as high as 1 in 2. In a recent study,
MarketingExperiments.com, an online marketing research outfit, reported that "as much as 29.5%" of the clicks in three experimental PPC campaigns on Google were fraudulent.
Outsell analysts estimate the phenomenon at about 13%.
Marketing Sherpa conducted a study of 3,944 search marketers to learn how high concerns about click fraud really run. The numbers came as a bit of a surprise to the survey
team, reflecting lower-than-expected levels of worry.
* 55% said that, like e-mail spam, click fraud will continue to cost time and money;
* 20% say click fraud is a non-issue or will become a non-issue before long; and
* 9% were worried that click fraud will only get worse.
Marketing Sherpa cited three types of marketers that could be particularly vulnerable: extremely competitive niche SMB industries; sites paying affiliates and partners by the
click; and second-tier search advertisers.
Shh! Don't Talk About Our Ethics...
While most companies agree that ethical behavior in the workplace is very important, they are surprisingly reticent when it comes to discussing such issues around the water
cooler. According to an IABC report conducted in May 2006, "The Business of Truth: A Guide to Ethical Communication," most organizations maintain or practice a generally "healthy"
climate for ethical concerns and issues. Findings included:
- 70% say their organization makes it clear to employees what is ethically acceptable and what is not acceptable.
- 67% agree with the statement that top management has let it be known in no uncertain terms that unethical behavior will not be tolerated.
However, the research also found that only 61% of companies encourage openness about ethical/unethical conduct in their organizations and only 46% of companies encourage
discussion of moral dilemmas and censurable conduct in their organizations.
The research also explored organizational values about ethical conduct of managers. The majority of the study's respondents (69%) disagreed with the statement that managers in
their company often engaged in unethical behavior. When questioned further on corporate values on reprimanding unethical behavior, 68% of communicators said their companies would
promptly reprimand managers found to be acting unethically for personal gain. However, if the unethical behavior was primarily for corporate gain, only half the respondents (51%)
believed that the manager would be reprimanded by their company.
Responsible Companies Bounce Back Better
According to a new survey from Weber Shandwick, global business executives are touting the positive impacts of corporate social responsibility in a big way, especially when it
comes to crisis recovery. The study, which surveyed 950 global business executives in 11 countries and was conducted in partnership with KRC Research, found that:
- 79% of surveyed executives believe that companies with strong CSR records recover faster from a crisis than those with weaker records; and
- 55% say that being recognized as committed to corporate responsibility contributes "a lot" to a company's overall reputation.
Employee Relations 911
Employer/emloyee relations are on shaky ground according to a recent Watson Wyatt survey, which suggests that changes to pay, health care and retirement plans are negatively
impacting recruitment, motivation and retaining key talent. Of the 1,110 workers surveyed (from 262 large U.S. companies across all industries), the following statistics were
compiled:
- 71% of top-performing employees rank pay as one of the top three reasons they would leave an organization, but only 45 percent of employers believe pay is a top retention
issue;
- 68% rate promotion opportunities as one of the top three reasons employees leave, closely followed by career development; and
- 63% of employers report a moderate or high level of difficulty in attracting critical-skill staff.