Click Sentinel 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! Click Sentinel is an Australian-based click-fraud detection firm (run by a company called Zed Seven Pty Ltd) that has some interesting options available that are not usually found in other types of PPC tools. It has been in business since April 2005. Click Sentinel works much the same as other click-fraud detection services by using Click Sentinel generated code as the referring links for all your PPC ad campaigns, no matter which search engine you are using. Then they attempt to identify the typical hallmarks of click fraud, such as repeat visits from the same IP address in short time periods with no conversions, repeat visits with short time spent on the website, many visits from IP addresses in the same small geographic area, etc. Although an IP-based tracking system (as most click-fraud tools are), Click Sentinel claims to have introduced a behavioral aspect into the equation. There is no real information provided on exactly what this process entails; the website merely states: “In conjunction with a Behavioral Scientist, we have developed a constantly evolving methodology which distinguishes legitimate from fraudulent user activity. Behavior matching assures that your clicks are assessed as accurately as possible.” The tour included on the website is very insightful as to the functioning of the program and highlights the simplicity of its use, while still remaining a robust tool. Users have the option of joining in a database of known fraudulent IP addresses and thus benefiting from access to other clients’ proven click fraud perpetrators IP addresses. In fact, the company is so serious about this that in addition to an affiliate program, they are developing a means to market their “blacklist” IP address database to search engines and others. The Click Sentinel Click Fraud Calculator is a cool tool that allows you to input a few basic statistics and roughly estimate the percentage of click fraud that may be occurring in a given campaign. Another interesting aspect is a part of the report function that estimates the current level of click fraud of the leading search engines. The reports themselves are well organized and offer not just the basic facts, but the “why” of the reasoning behind the click(s) being fraudulent. Click Sentinel looks at all clicks on your ad campaign and assigns them a level of risk, ranging from “… a low, medium or high risk score by our Advanced Monitoring System and Behavioral Matching technology.” As expected, warning signs pop up on users screen if fraud is suspected and you are notified of fraudulent activity by email. In addition to looking at click fraud, Click Sentinel does provide information on ROI in relation to the amount of click fraud occurring on your website. Click Sentinel’s website is set up logically, intuitively and is easy to follow and understand. In addition to a tour of the program they also offer a section of screenshots of different aspects, so you can see pretty clearly if the tool is worth consideration. The pricing of Click Sentinel consists of five plans. All offer the full-featured program; the difference is in the number of clicks covered. Plan 1 covers up to 10,000 clicks per month; Plan 2 up to 15,000; Plan 3 up to 25,000; Plan 4 up to 50,000; and Plan 5 covers up to 80,000 clicks. Individual plans are available for higher numbers of clicks per month. There is no start-up fee for Click Sentinel and you can cancel any time you wish. A free trial would be a nice addition to the offering, as the competition amongst click-fraud detection tools is very high right now and most of their competitors are offering a free trial period to get an edge in the market. |
