I’m sure you’ve all heard of click fraud by now. In case you haven’t, here’s a quick primer: Click fraud occurs when someone clicks repeatedly on a pay per click advertisement (say, a Google Adwords ad) for the sole purpose of spending the advertiser’s money.

Click fraud has become a cottage industry. Folks worldwide get paid to do nothing but sit at their computers and click on paid ads. But is this the fall of pay per click advertising? I don’t think so.

I’ve been running pay per click campaigns for about seven years, give or take. I’ve never had a client seriously impacted by click fraud — by ‘seriously’ I mean they’ve lost more than about $10 to suspected click fraud in a single month.

The key is conducting smart campaigns. If you spend $10/click, then twenty fraudulent clicks costs you $200.00. You’re very, very vulnerable because every fraudulent click costs a fortune.

If, on the other hand, you spend $.20/click, then twenty fraudulent clicks costs only $4.00.
Remember, smart pay per click isn’t about the number one spot — it’s about bidding for keywords and positions that generate a return.

I’m not saying you should ignore click fraud — keep one eye on your web statistics. But if you really want to worry about something, focus on conversion rates — that, you can control. You can’t do much about someone in Lichtenstein getting paid $.01 per click to click on your ads.