Click Forensics
Digital Element's Geolocation Information Helps Click Forensics Reduce Click Fraud and Ensure Quality Traffic
Scenario
Click Forensics is the industry leader in scoring, auditing and improving traffic quality for the online advertising community. For years, advertisers, publishers and ad networks have relied on the company to serve as the independent authority on traffic quality and click fraud because of the deep expertise the Click Forensics team has in online marketing, Internet security and click fraud detection techniques.
In 2006, Click Forensics became the first industry source for statistically significant information on industry click fraud rates when it created the Click Fraud Index where click fraud data is tracked and published on a quarterly basis for specific search providers, industries and trends. The service monitors online campaigns for click fraud by correlating data collected from search provider campaigns and advertiser websites – providing the industry an accurate view of click fraud to date. Click Forensics also offers services that allow online publishers, advertisers and search engines to automatically block sources of click fraud and poor quality traffic from hitting Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisements.
The brain of every Click Forensics product is the Traffic Quality Engine. The engine analyzes PPC traffic data with sophisticated patent pending heuristics to score the relative merits of online traffic. Data mining techniques are applied to click behavior to identify markers and determine the relative merit of every click, every visitor, and every site.
In order for Click Forensics heuristics to work, the company realized it needed accurate and up-to-date geolocation information on every site visitor, for every single customer. That’s when it turned to Digital Element.
Solution
Click Forensics recognized that an important part of auditing and scoring traffic quality for online advertisers involves the geolocation of site visitors. As such, it turned to the industry leader in accurate geolocation information: Digital Element. Digital Element’s NetAcuity IP Intelligence technology allows businesses to perfect audience segmentation and targeting capabilities based on a comprehensive set of parameters that include global country, region, state, and city geolocation information. This information helps Click Forensics to ensure quality traffic in a number of ways such as identifying Botnets and click fraud, which tend to originate from known geographies.
Another way that Click Forensics leverages Digital Element’s technology is to improve the algorithms that determine quality traffic. Says Click Forensics Vice President of Marketing Steve O’Brien, “We can now score Internet ad traffic based on its likelihood of conversion, meaning that advertisers no longer have to pay for invalid traffic. This is huge in terms of providing value to our clients as they work to increase the value they receive from their online marketing expenditures.”
Success
In its role as the go-to source for pay-per-click fraud detection and quality traffic management solutions, Click Forensics is continually looking for new ways to reduce click fraud and improve search advertising campaigns.
The decision to implement Digital Element’s IP Intelligence and geolocation technology is an example of the ways in which the company seeks out new technologies to optimize every step in the online advertising process and to maximize return on investment for advertisers, publishers and ad networks.
Adds O’Brien, “Click Forensics is able to help the online advertising community by scoring, auditing, and improving traffic quality. We see
Digital Element’s IP intelligence as a critical piece of the formula for determining high-quality traffic and helping in the fight against click fraud.”
