LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??)

eneyer · 08-26-2010, 05:40 PM

I recently took advantage of a free credit with LinkedIn to try their DirectAds pay-per-click program. One of the first things you will notice when signing up is that the MINIMUM cost per click is $2, though the application suggests that you set it even higher for optimal results.

The LinkedIn PPC interface and tools are crude compared to AdWords or adCenter. Campaign targeting is limited to geography, organization size (of your target audience), job category (e.g., administrative, IT, operations, marketing, etc.), and a couple other criteria.

Reporting capabilities are pretty poor, and you must download a CSV file to view. You might think they have the resources to create a graphical interface to show some campaign/ad performance data. The data you receive is very simplistic, essentially little more than impressions, clicks, and CTR. There is no way to discover user data or any relevant traffic source information.

Billing is also not ideal for me. I had to input a credit card and deposit $5 into the account, even though I had already received my $100 credit. Not a big deal, AdWords does the same thing I think. My biggest problem is that you can not set a limit on money spent, or simply run a campaign until your balance runs out. You can set a date for the campaign to end, and set a daily budget, but otherwise you just have to keep checking on your balance or your credit card will be charged at arbitrary and unspecified intervals. That might get pretty expensive if you don't stay on top of it at $2+ per click.

Now, my biggest complaint about DirectAds: the potential for click fraud and LinkedIn's apparent negligence toward this issue. In the first 12 days of my campaign I received 30 clicks at $2 each. However, when I checked my analytics I found this suspicious. Rather than re-tell the anecdote I'll just paste the exchange I had with DirectAds customer support:

"Member Comment: xxxx xxxxx 08/23/2010 13:45 CDT
What protections do you have in place to combat click fraud? My DirectAds report (and account billing) claims that my campaign has generated 30 clicks this month. However, my site analytical data shows only 16 visitors coming from LinkedIn (total from profile AND ads--actually reports only 7 clicks from *ads* URL). This discrepancy seems too large to simply blame my analytics software. Any ideas? Thanks."

DirectAds Response:

"Hi xxxx,

Thank you for your quick response. [??]

We do not provide support for third party web tracking or analytics software. Because of this, we are unable to supply information regarding possible differences.

We are confident in the information provided by reporting tools that monitor the clicks redirected to your site as well as our other reporting tools across the entire LinkedIn platform. At this time, we would encourage you to contact the third party vendor directly for questions related to their software or potential discrepancies in reporting.

We have a program in place that watches for click fraud in ads. This watches to see if a member is clicking an ad multiple times.

If you have further questions, please feel free to reply to this message.

Regards,

xxxx
DirectAds Specialist"

As you can see, they did blame my analytics software. You have to appreciate the bureaucratese in their response, "We are confident in the information provided by reporting tools that monitor the clicks redirected to your site as well as our other reporting tools across the entire LinkedIn platform."

And WOW, that is a sophisticated approach to click fraud, "a program...watches to see if a member is clicking an ad multiple times." Nice!

Buyer Beware!!

Eric
ProGrammica.com

paulgl · 08-26-2010, 09:53 PM

I suppose you needed a rant on the WF to make you feel better.

In cases like this, you make like a tree and leave.

Paul

eneyer · 08-27-2010, 01:58 PM

Paul, sorry you do not find this information useful, which I assume when you characterize my post as a "rant." Yes, it does make me feel better to expose poor user experiences, with the hope that the offending company will eventually improve their product if enough users voice their complaints.

Did I not include any objective information that might help others considering whether to use DirectAds? I thought it was clear in the post where I was subjectively stating my opinion. Thanks for your helpful advice!

Eric

Colin Klinkert · 08-27-2010, 02:33 PM

Eric,

thanks for sharing your experiences. There are not enough hours in the day and plenty of great sources of traffic, so I haven't dealt with the linkedin network, and based on your post, I think I might not be in the near future either.

P-man · 12-16-2010, 02:08 PM

Like you, I received a coupon in my email. I signed up and was immediately charged $5 on my credit card.
I designed my add and put it up. A few days later I noticed a charge on my credit card for an additional $15.
I went to their website to see that I had 70 clicks. Immediately I became concerned because I had not received any response from that url.
So, I checked my clicks. Keep in mind that this is the 16th of the month and I have only had the linked in add running for 6 days.
I have only had 42 hits on that url in total, including other advertising efforts.
I contacted Linkedin. Their response was a canned email. Obviously I am not the first person to bring this to their attention. I responded asking for a refund again. This time I received a personal response saying that they are not responsible for my web site reporting and that they were not going to offer any resolution.
I will never do any more business with this company again.
Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is the rule of the day here.

mad.hat · 12-17-2010, 03:34 PM

Yeah I guess that is pretty shady. If you're pushing enough volume with any ppc network they'll usually take care of you but stuff like this is always the risk when you don't deal with the big buys, like adwords, directly. They've got a ton of tech place to prevent click fraud.

xptomarketing · 02-08-2011, 07:49 AM

Hello

I would like to report the same, actually, even nastier experience with LinkedIn DirectAds.

I also received a voucher from LinkedIn, and decided to open the LinkedIn DirectAds account.

I configured 2 ads, but then I decided to turn them off, because I still needed to review the ads copy.

To my surprise, today, I noted that my credit card had:
1 debit of 29 usd
1 debit of 29 usd
1 debit of 50 usd

I immediately logged in my LinkedIn DirectAds account, and noted that one of the 2 campaigns was active when I had specifically turned both campaigns off.

Of course I had to cancel my credit card, to avoid more charges, so, I had to spend another 40USD for bank costs.

So, this is the economic result of using the LinkedIn Direct Ads voucher:

148USD spent.

The sad thing about this, is that probably, LinkedIn is doing this for a lot of people around the globe, and making millions on charges to credit cards, and, let´s face it: what is every person going to do? What am I going to do because of 148USD?

So, to anyone out there considering using LinkedIn Ads, be very careful, with the vouchers, be very careful with the credit card on LinkedIn DirectAds.

I recommend you stick with google adwords vouchers. Those are real, effectively bring you business, and do not charge you unless you want to be charged after the voucher is used.
Ironically I only opened the LinkedIn Ads account because I am so used to Google "no evil" methods, that I fully trusted that LinkedIn DirectAds vouchers and policies would be something I could trust.
Oh boy.

femchie2 · 03-08-2011, 08:13 PM

I've never used Linked DirectAds before...
But it just strikes me that the people posting this and complaining only have 1 to 2 post count...now what's not shady about that?

Femi

TomScarn · 03-08-2011, 08:33 PM

Unfortunate this happened to you however this is what you get with a free offer. Often those working for the PPC company can just check your account and see that you used the $100 free offer. Why would they care when they're not getting paid?

Hope your future endeavors are more successful.

georgesazo · 03-22-2011, 02:57 AM

My experience with LinkedIn ads has been awful. I had been running a campaign for one of our sites. Because it's a gambling site Google Adwords was no option. After spending nearly $1K with practically no return I decided to stop advertising.

In the past I also had another incident with them when they incorrectly charged my card. I refused to pay and they locked my account. Overall, LinkedIn is a horrible company, at least to me.

08-26-2010, 05:40 PM	#1
eneyer Warrior Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) I recently took advantage of a free credit with LinkedIn to try their DirectAds pay-per-click program. One of the first things you will notice when signing up is that the MINIMUM cost per click is $2, though the application suggests that you set it even higher for optimal results. The LinkedIn PPC interface and tools are crude compared to AdWords or adCenter. Campaign targeting is limited to geography, organization size (of your target audience), job category (e.g., administrative, IT, operations, marketing, etc.), and a couple other criteria. Reporting capabilities are pretty poor, and you must download a CSV file to view. You might think they have the resources to create a graphical interface to show some campaign/ad performance data. The data you receive is very simplistic, essentially little more than impressions, clicks, and CTR. There is no way to discover user data or any relevant traffic source information. Billing is also not ideal for me. I had to input a credit card and deposit $5 into the account, even though I had already received my $100 credit. Not a big deal, AdWords does the same thing I think. My biggest problem is that you can not set a limit on money spent, or simply run a campaign until your balance runs out. You can set a date for the campaign to end, and set a daily budget, but otherwise you just have to keep checking on your balance or your credit card will be charged at arbitrary and unspecified intervals. That might get pretty expensive if you don't stay on top of it at $2+ per click. Now, my biggest complaint about DirectAds: the potential for click fraud and LinkedIn's apparent negligence toward this issue. In the first 12 days of my campaign I received 30 clicks at $2 each. However, when I checked my analytics I found this suspicious. Rather than re-tell the anecdote I'll just paste the exchange I had with DirectAds customer support: "Member Comment: xxxx xxxxx 08/23/2010 13:45 CDT What protections do you have in place to combat click fraud? My DirectAds report (and account billing) claims that my campaign has generated 30 clicks this month. However, my site analytical data shows only 16 visitors coming from LinkedIn (total from profile AND ads--actually reports only 7 clicks from ads URL). This discrepancy seems too large to simply blame my analytics software. Any ideas? Thanks." DirectAds Response: "Hi xxxx, Thank you for your quick response. [??] We do not provide support for third party web tracking or analytics software. Because of this, we are unable to supply information regarding possible differences. We are confident in the information provided by reporting tools that monitor the clicks redirected to your site as well as our other reporting tools across the entire LinkedIn platform. At this time, we would encourage you to contact the third party vendor directly for questions related to their software or potential discrepancies in reporting. We have a program in place that watches for click fraud in ads. This watches to see if a member is clicking an ad multiple times. If you have further questions, please feel free to reply to this message. Regards, xxxx DirectAds Specialist" As you can see, they did blame my analytics software. You have to appreciate the bureaucratese in their response, "We are confident in the information provided by reporting tools that monitor the clicks redirected to your site as well as our other reporting tools across the entire LinkedIn platform." And WOW, that is a sophisticated approach to click fraud, "a program...watches to see if a member is clicking an ad multiple times." Nice! Buyer Beware!! Eric ProGrammica.com

08-26-2010, 09:53 PM	#2
paulgl Plundering the Web War Room Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: , , . Posts: 4,849 Thanks: 804 Thanked 1,199 Times in 886 Posts	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) I suppose you needed a rant on the WF to make you feel better. In cases like this, you make like a tree and leave. Paul
	How to Make Money off Facebook: Login to your account. Deactivate your account. Get your butt to work.

08-27-2010, 01:58 PM	#3
eneyer Warrior Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) Paul, sorry you do not find this information useful, which I assume when you characterize my post as a "rant." Yes, it does make me feel better to expose poor user experiences, with the hope that the offending company will eventually improve their product if enough users voice their complaints. Did I not include any objective information that might help others considering whether to use DirectAds? I thought it was clear in the post where I was subjectively stating my opinion. Thanks for your helpful advice! Eric

08-27-2010, 02:33 PM	#4
Colin Klinkert The Interactive Marketer War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Australia & South France Posts: 884 Thanks: 43 Thanked 46 Times in 38 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) Eric, thanks for sharing your experiences. There are not enough hours in the day and plenty of great sources of traffic, so I haven't dealt with the linkedin network, and based on your post, I think I might not be in the near future either.
	I Blog about How To Make Money Online - It is my own experiences over the last 8 years, building some 7 figure businesses

12-16-2010, 02:08 PM	#5
P-man Warrior Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) Like you, I received a coupon in my email. I signed up and was immediately charged $5 on my credit card. I designed my add and put it up. A few days later I noticed a charge on my credit card for an additional $15. I went to their website to see that I had 70 clicks. Immediately I became concerned because I had not received any response from that url. So, I checked my clicks. Keep in mind that this is the 16th of the month and I have only had the linked in add running for 6 days. I have only had 42 hits on that url in total, including other advertising efforts. I contacted Linkedin. Their response was a canned email. Obviously I am not the first person to bring this to their attention. I responded asking for a refund again. This time I received a personal response saying that they are not responsible for my web site reporting and that they were not going to offer any resolution. I will never do any more business with this company again. Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is the rule of the day here.

12-17-2010, 03:34 PM	#6
mad.hat You're Welcome War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: On Top Of Your Head! Posts: 322 Blog Entries: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 25 Times in 23 Posts Contact Info	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) Yeah I guess that is pretty shady. If you're pushing enough volume with any ppc network they'll usually take care of you but stuff like this is always the risk when you don't deal with the big buys, like adwords, directly. They've got a ton of tech place to prevent click fraud.
	They All Told Me Making Money Online Was Just A Scam For The Gullible... Even Though I Was Already Pulling In $1k/Day. Now You Say My Resellers Can Not Make $1k/day But...

02-08-2011, 07:49 AM	#7
xptomarketing Warrior Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) Hello I would like to report the same, actually, even nastier experience with LinkedIn DirectAds. I also received a voucher from LinkedIn, and decided to open the LinkedIn DirectAds account. I configured 2 ads, but then I decided to turn them off, because I still needed to review the ads copy. To my surprise, today, I noted that my credit card had: 1 debit of 29 usd 1 debit of 29 usd 1 debit of 50 usd I immediately logged in my LinkedIn DirectAds account, and noted that one of the 2 campaigns was active when I had specifically turned both campaigns off. Of course I had to cancel my credit card, to avoid more charges, so, I had to spend another 40USD for bank costs. So, this is the economic result of using the LinkedIn Direct Ads voucher: 148USD spent. The sad thing about this, is that probably, LinkedIn is doing this for a lot of people around the globe, and making millions on charges to credit cards, and, let´s face it: what is every person going to do? What am I going to do because of 148USD? So, to anyone out there considering using LinkedIn Ads, be very careful, with the vouchers, be very careful with the credit card on LinkedIn DirectAds. I recommend you stick with google adwords vouchers. Those are real, effectively bring you business, and do not charge you unless you want to be charged after the voucher is used. Ironically I only opened the LinkedIn Ads account because I am so used to Google "no evil" methods, that I fully trusted that LinkedIn DirectAds vouchers and policies would be something I could trust. Oh boy.

03-08-2011, 08:13 PM	#8
femchie2 Ultimate IM Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Maryland, USA. Posts: 448 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 30 Thanked 87 Times in 79 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) I've never used Linked DirectAds before... But it just strikes me that the people posting this and complaining only have 1 to 2 post count...now what's not shady about that? Femi
	***FINALLY! You Can Give Clients What They REALLY Need - LEADS!!!

03-08-2011, 08:33 PM	#9
TomScarn Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 64 Thanks: 10 Thanked 6 Times in 6 Posts	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) Unfortunate this happened to you however this is what you get with a free offer. Often those working for the PPC company can just check your account and see that you used the $100 free offer. Why would they care when they're not getting paid? Hope your future endeavors are more successful.

03-22-2011, 02:57 AM	#10
georgesazo Warrior Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: LinkedIn DirectAds Review (Click Fraud Warning??) My experience with LinkedIn ads has been awful. I had been running a campaign for one of our sites. Because it's a gambling site Google Adwords was no option. After spending nearly $1K with practically no return I decided to stop advertising. In the past I also had another incident with them when they incorrectly charged my card. I refused to pay and they locked my account. Overall, LinkedIn is a horrible company, at least to me.