PPCTrax 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! PPCtrax is an offering from Oliver Tucker Partners, an Arizona-based Internet and software corporation offering SEO, pay per click, database and software solutions. This particular product is designed to help website owners who use pay-per-click advertising fight the increasing and difficult problem of click fraud. PPCtrax has been available for just over four years, using IP address parameters (number and geographic location), browser or robot clicks, together with identifying information such as date and time and the URL from which the click originated as the parameters for click fraud identification. The reports generated by the product will also delineate the keywords that are generating clicks from those that are not. Three packages are currently offered – the Basic, Advanced and Premium. The main criteria to consider between the packages is the size of your campaign or if you are running more than one PPC campaign at one time, more so than the size of your company, since all three offer the same basic monitoring system. If your needs stretch further than the Premium package, the company offers custom packages as well. The Basic package covers 1 URL and up to 10,000 clicks per month for a cost of $29.95 per month. The Advanced package not only increases the number of URLs that can be covered to 5, but also changes the monthly maximum to up to 50,000 total transactions (which appear to be merely another name for clicks) for $59.95 per month. The Premium package covers up to 10 URLs and 100,000 total clicks per month at $79.95 month. Keep in mind, however, that even though more URLs are offered, you are still limited to 10,000 clicks per month per URL. PPCtrax offers a couple of interesting features not usually seen in click fraud protection software, including the ability to access IP address history (stating “we’ll alert you to prior offenders”). Of greater potential utility are their email alerts when your PPC account drops to 20% of funds remaining and again when it reaches 0%, so that you can investigate and ensure all is well. Another positive emphasized on the website is the offer of help with securing a refund from your search engine should click fraud be detected by PPCtrax – however, no details other than the supplying of detailed reports that track different aspects of clicks are provided to suggest that PPCtrax will take further action on your behalf with a PPC search engine. In addition, PPCtrax has built a database of IP addresses that have previously been associated with click fraud with other clients, which is crosschecked with your statistics, and suspicious activity flagged. Whether or not the same click fraud perpetrators are targeting your website as would have targeted other clients in other industries who have used PPCtrax, however, has yet to be proven. Spikes in activity from a specific IP address are instantly detected. The packages are offered on a month-to-month basis, with telephone and email support and a “no excuses – money-back guarantee” advertised. As well, a 30-day free trial is offered for any of the packages and installation support is available at no extra charge. Technical support is offered either via email or through phone, or if you are already a client, there is a support link in the control panel of your account. A four hour or less turnaround time for support is featured. If you suspect a click fraud problem is currently plaguing your campaign(s), with no long-term commitment necessary, PPCtrax may be a good choice to investigate, particularly for smaller businesses who may be hesitant to take on a major search engine on their own for this problem. PPCtrax’s reports are typically organized by date/time, IP address, landing page on your site, and the source of the click, but can be customized further if needed to present to your PPC search engine. PPCtrax’s longevity in a marketplace filled with numerous click fraud solutions suggests it is of value. Its sole concentration on click fraud detection within the larger field of web analysis of PPC ad campaigns is both its major strength and weakness – if a company is only interested in exploring click fraud on their website at the time and is happy with their other means of analyzing data, PPCtrax may be a good choice; however, companies looking for a more robust, less niche-oriented product are unlikely to go beyond the free trial for this fairly standard offering. |
