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11 May 2002 ValueClick banner clicks are going missing - fraud or lousy programming?...
 

After adding Banners to each page, using FastClick, I then desperately began to try to get some money made from this site - at least to try to recover my costs. What a farce this is.

Some banners were soaking up thousands of hits & paying nothing. After trimming this deadwood Fastclick was taking 40% of page impressions & paying $1.50 a day. The other 60% was initially sent to Easily (a domain name company), but after 100,000 hits this had paid nothing, so I added ValueClick, which initially was paying about 45 pennies on every 10,000 hits, but then mysteriously dropped to 20p - see 16 May. What a farce this is.

ValueClick's reporting is so difficult to make sense of as to be almost value-less (get it?), but it does report the number of people that click on the banners. This report was only one third of what FastClick reported - 2 of out 3 clicks were going missing, and of course this is what they pay on. If done deliberately this is known as fraud, and is a criminal offence, at least in my country. It may, of course, just be lousy programming, and I need to know if the clicks are being lost from FastClick or from ValueClick, so have added 2 test banners (19 May one of them is above - no point in clicking it now as the test has finished).

FastClick has excellent publisher reporting & management. If they also had some decent media sales people I would recommend them unreservedly. ValueClick I would avoid. Below are some recent stats from FastClick for you to peruse.
  (Added 19 May - see 16 May for an interesting addition to this story) The stats accumulated: 
    May Day  FastClick My Stats
    11:          6        5
    12:         35       27
    13:         19       20
    14:         19       17
    15:         39       40
    -------    ---      ---
    Totals:    118      109 (92%)
    -------    ---      ---
Thanks to everyone that helped. As you can see, some of the clicks have been lost, but most are passed through.

 468x60 Earnings History  ?
Date Paid Impr
Total		 Paid Click
Total		 CTR Effective
CPM		 Default
Impr		 Default
Clicks		 Default
Percent		 Total
Impr		 Total
Clicks		 Total
 Earnings 
05-01-02 5,119 79 1.54% $0.21 9,616 34 65.26% 14,735 113 $1.07
05-02-02 6,345 100 1.58% $0.24 10,588 33 62.53% 16,933 133 $1.55
05-03-02 6,445 82 1.27% $0.24 9,729 38 60.15% 16,174 120 $1.57
05-04-02 5,020 62 1.24% $0.25 9,747 35 66.01% 14,767 97 $1.28
05-05-02 4,226 77 1.82% $0.26 9,191 34 68.50% 13,417 111 $1.09
05-06-02 4,987 71 1.42% $0.31 10,455 35 67.70% 15,442 106 $1.55
05-07-02 5,505 83 1.51% $0.25 10,979 39 66.60% 16,484 122 $1.40
05-08-02 5,993 63 1.05% $0.24 10,253 28 63.11% 16,246 91 $1.45
05-09-02 5,906 67 1.13% $0.24 10,319 36 63.60% 16,225 103 $1.40
05-10-02 6,669 86 1.29% $0.32 10,201 25 60.47% 16,870 111 $2.11
05-11-02 911 11 1.21% $0.21 1,266 2 58.15% 2,177 13 $0.19
Total: 57,126 781 1.37% $0.26 102,344 339 64.18% 159,470 1,120 $14.66

 Active 468x60 Campaigns for Spirit of Self Help  ? 468x60 Ad Code   Auto-Select   Add a Default   Earnings History
On/Off Campaign Name Total
Impr		 Total
Clicks		 CTR Type Gross
CPM		 Gross
CPC		 Payout
(%)		 Eff.
CPM		 Earnings Action
 Alabama Gulfshores 727  0  0.00% CPC $0.00 $0.35 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Countrywide Mortgage 3,857  0  0.00% CPC $0.00 $0.20 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Crucial Technology 1,675  1  0.060% CPM $1.95 $0.00 65% $1.27 $2.12 View
 Dovico Software 1,837  3  0.16% CPC $0.00 $0.35 65% $0.37 $0.68 View
 Getsmart Mortgage [new] 433  0  0.00% CPC $0.00 $0.35 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Global A 569  4  0.70% CPM $1.00 $0.00 65% $0.65 $0.37 View
 Global B 347  8  2.31% CPM $1.00 $0.00 65% $0.65 $0.23 View
 GMAC 0  0  0.00% CPC $0.00 $0.24 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Liquid Web 5,209  3  0.058% CPC $0.00 $0.20 65% $0.07 $0.39 View
 PowWeb 6,120  5  0.082% CPC $0.00 $0.18 65% $0.10 $0.58 View
 Rackhost 3,532  5  0.14% CPC $0.00 $0.24 65% $0.22 $0.78 View
 SpinRoom 0  0  0.00% CPC $0.00 $0.35 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Sprint PCS 3,931  1  0.025% CPC $0.00 $0.30 65% $0.05 $0.20 View
 Summit Group 1,121  0  0.00% CPC $0.00 $0.22 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Thawte 1,595  0  0.00% CPC $0.00 $0.22 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 CallWave A 787  6  0.76% CPM $0.50 $0.00 65% $0.33 $0.26 View
 Callwave B 1,019  14  1.37% CPM $0.50 $0.00 65% $0.33 $0.33 View
 Centennial 1,132  0  0.00% CPC $0.00 $0.15 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Click Here Now 916  0  0.00% CPM $0.35 $0.00 65% $0.23 $0.21 View
 DirectSynergy 0  0  0.00% CPM $0.30 $0.00 65% $0.00 $0.00 View
 FreeArcade 2,710  3  0.11% CPM $0.34 $0.00 65% $0.22 $0.60 View
 Internet Boost 34,091  607  1.78% CPM $0.40 $0.00 65% $0.26 $8.86 View
 Win Cash 1  0  0.00% CPM $0.34 $0.00 65% $0.22 $0.00 View
 First 345  2  0.58% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Second 0  0  0.00% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0 $0.00 View
 ValueClick #07 5,770  15  0.26% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View
 ValueClick #03 5,765  27  0.47% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View
 Easily Default Ad 103,724  458  0.44% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View
 ValueClick #04 5,884  18  0.31% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View
 ValueClick #01 5,825  14  0.24% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View
 ValueClick #05 5,844  10  0.17% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View
 ValueClick #06 5,848  18  0.31% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View
 ValueClick Default 24,175  117  0.48% DEF $0.00 $0.00 100% $0.00 $0.00 View