ValueClick's banners first began to show on my site on 3 May. After 2 full days & 20,000 page impressions ValueClick showed a payment of about 90 pennies. Payment from FastClick across the same period was about 5 times higher for equivalent page hits. FastClick's banners also got 3 times the clicks that ValueClick's banners got, and in addition ValueClick reported only 1/3 of the clicks (thus 1/3 of the payments) that FastClick reported - something was badly wrong, somewhere. (FastClick stats are shown on 11 May & ValueClick stats below.)

My attitude is always to help if I can - if someone else does not know, how can they change? - so I sent an email to ValueClick on 6 May (reproduced below). I did not receive a reply but, within a few days, default Ad-Council (non-paying) ads began to appear from ValueClick instead of the previous full quota of paying CPC + a handful of CPM ads. Then, on 14 May I received this email, with no reference whatsoever to my own:

Due to changed demographic targeting on the part of our advertisers,
ValueClick has determined that your website does not fit the new host
profile our network has established.
We will therefore be closing your account as of 21/05/02.

ValueClick from FastClick       ValueClick from ValueClick

FastClick Page     Click          Page Impressions   Click-Thru
Name      Impress  -Thru     Day     CPC CPM  Total CPC CPM Total
--------  -------  -----
#08:       5,497     25      03:   1,528   4  1,536   -   -     0
#02:       5,705     20      04:   9,941 167 10,108   2   5     7
#07:       6,157     15      05:   9,497 204  9,701   6   4    10
#03:      10,567     36      06:  11,116 133 11,249   4   1     5
#04:       6,268     18      07:  10,374  89 10,463   1   4     5
#01:       6,216     14      08:   9,621  49  9,670   1   -     1
#05:       6,268     10      09:   9,858  85  9,943   -   -     0
#06:       6,243     18      10:   9,424  75  9,499   4   1     5
Default:  24,521    117      11:   5,691  53  5,744   -   -     0
--------  -------  -----     12:   2,018  14  2,032   1   -     1
Totals:   77,442    273      13:   2,597  32  2,629   -   -     0
--------  -------  -----     14:   2,384  27  2,411   1   -     1
                             -------         ------           ---
                             Totals:         84,985            35
                             -------         ------           ---

My primary banner-provider is FastClick and you receive all the impressions
that they cannot handle - the majority of visits to my site. I am mighty
concerned at the laughably-poor performance of banners that you supply to my
site. 90 pence payment on over 20,000 page impressions is too sad to be
true.

In particular, I need you to answer the following questions:

1 Why does FastClick show a 0.53% CTR when you only show less than a third
of this?
2 (Using FastClick's figures) Why do your advertisers' banners have a CTR
which is only 1/3 that of FastClick's advertising banners?

The combination of these 2 is that you are paying me 1/10 what you should.
Now, please understand - even paying the full amount would be derisory, but
the amounts you show are embarrassingly poor.

Finally, your stats & Account Management System needs a rapid overhaul - the
information that it does show is difficult to comprehend quickly &
information that is wanted is unavailable. As one example - which are CPM
advertisers, and which are CPC advertisers? It is impossible to know. Which
have been shown on the site, and what contribution do they make to my
income? It is impossible to know.

These are the relative stats:

ValueClick
CPC
Date        Imp    Clicks
2002-05-05  8,069  6
2002-05-04  9,941  2

CPM
2002-05-05  0,179  4
2002-05-04  0,167  5

CPC+CPM
2002-05-05  8,248  10
2002-05-04 10,108   7

FastClick (total)
Date        Imp    Clicks
2002-05-05  9,191  34
2002-05-04  9,747  35

Click-Through-Rate:
Date        Imp    Clicks/% - FastClick
2002-05-05  5,020  62  1.24%
2002-05-04  5,015  87  1.73%

Date        Imp    Clicks/% - you
2002-05-05  9,747  35  0.36%
2002-05-04  9,191  34  0.37%