Clicklab More Information Overall Rating: Not Rated Pay Per Click Universe Recommends: AdWatcher - 100% Click Fraud Protection. Concerned about click fraud? Protect your online advertising dollars with the world's most trusted & accurate click fraud solution on the market today. AdWatcher will put a stop to competitors and fraudsters who are looking to drain your hard earned advertising budget. Test-Drive AdWatcher For FREE For 30 Days! Clicklab is a Miami-based firm that markets itself as the “first customizable web analytics service with built-in ROI tracking, score-based click fraud protection, and usability testing tools.” Although one could argue who was first, Clicklab is definitely a tool anyone who is concerned about click fraud in their pay-per-click ad campaigns should consider investigating. The tool also tracks ad campaigns in other settings such as email ad campaigns, banners, affiliate links, search engine results, and even offline advertising. It is a robust tool, with many facets, that work together well as a package to give the user a reliable and accurate view of the seriousness of click fraud in PPC campaigns and many ways to detect and combat it. Clicklab software also includes an ROI tracking system and a number of other tools that the user can employ to determine if his or her ad campaign is reaching its goals. As many web analytics tools are now doing, Clicklab concentrates in its website on click fraud, but its wider usage is a full array of web analytics and tracking. What really sets Clicklab apart from the competition is a theory it developed called the ESA/T process, that is a slightly different method of increasing ROI, taking the older idea of Total Quality Management and morphing it into ESA/T (Enhance, Select, Analyze, Test/Tweak). This alternative approach to working with ROI appears well worth investigating, particularly if the tried-and-true methods don’t seem to be working particularly well for your specific products or services. Detailed information on the process is available free via a white paper for account holders and other “qualified” prospects. In addition, Clicklab offers a “7-Part ROI Marketing Mini Course” to help you understand web analytics more clearly that is available via email signup to be delivered over the course of 7 weeks. Finally, a free white paper, just released in November discusses a number of facets of click fraud, how to determine if your ad is suffering from the effects of click fraud, and how to counteract it – a very useful “freebie” that anyone interested in controlling click fraud should request from Clicklab. Clicklab provides a lot of useful information on their website, much of it written by their CEO, Dmitri Eroshenko, with great tips about detecting click fraud as well as methods to measure how much of a concern it is to your business and ways to combat it. In fact, the company has also chosen to go to the marketplace themselves, rather than waiting for the market to find them. Their collection of articles on the website, and others, are found throughout the Internet on a number of prominent PPC websites. There is no doubt that a lot of time, thought, analysis and scientific theory has gone into the development of the Clicklab tool. As far as web analytics and tracking are concerned, there are truly an impressive number of reports available in Clicklab, including traffic source, landing page, date, keywords, and actions, among others. In fact, almost any aspect of tracking your ad’s performance is covered by Clicklab in one form or another. One can track all the way down to the individual visitor to your website to see where they went and whether or not the path they took led to a conversion, view visitor segmentation, etc. The latest version 2.0 of Clicklab also has another tool listed, called the Click Inflation Index, described in the free white paper. User comments have been positive concerning the logic and theory behind the Click Inflation Index. The Cost Benefit Analysis and ROI Calculator tool is not very clearly explained at a novice level, but shows some promise for helping fine tune campaigns. Another interesting aspect of Clicklab is that it is a hosted program, rather than standalone software, which makes it an easier program for the novice to use, but removes the sense of control that some users like in a standalone web analytics solution. As far as cost is concerned, Clicklab is not necessarily a low-cost option and the prospective user would be wise to read all the material available on the website and throughout the Internet by Clicklab’s CEO to ascertain if the approach seems reasonable for their individual needs. A basic Clicklab account will cover 5 websites. Additional sites can be added at an additional cost. Monthly costs for the services begin at $50 for 50,000 page views, with a set-up fee of $100. If you require help in setting up your account, there is an option for 2 hours of assistance for $250. Unfortunately, although Clicklab is currently focusing strongly on identifying click fraud as one of its major advantages, in order to benefit from their proprietary “click fraud detection module”, the user is required to pay an extra $50 per month for each account. However, if you do sign up to track more than 5 websites, this module is apparently included in the cost (although the sign-up page shows it as free in all levels at the beta level). Custom programming and other consulting services are also available at additional cost. |
