Adcenter Geotargeting inaccurate?

[cgtarga1]

Before the latest MSN 'maintenance' 2 weeks ago, I was averaging ~3% intl traffic (on a US only adcenter campaign).

NOW I'm seeing ~20%! At least thats what NB is saying (and they pay waaaaay less for the intl conversions of course).

Anyone experience this? NB says its Adcenter's fault, and naturally Adcenter says the are blameless.

I guess I'll have to run it through t202 and do my own IP geo analysis.

[cgtarga1]

After analyzing the tracking, I've got 28% intl traffic today! Mostly from Iran...

A bit surprised it's just my experience.

Illya

[thughes]

What is the Iran traffic going to convert to?

[SocialMediaOwls]

Just change your ad headliner to read:

For Nuclear Supremacy Click HERE!

Bet you get a 90%+ CTR

[Mike Hill]

thought you were only targeting the US in your campaign?

[cgtarga1]

Originally Posted by Mike Hill

thought you were only targeting the US in your campaign?

Exactly... thats my point. Adcenter is sending me clicks from outside the US even though they are charging me for US clicks.
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Well, I'm not feeling the love from adcenter's wonderful support team. I explained the whole process and basically got stonewalled by the mindless clerk on the other end... (I'm Karl in this conversation)

karl: I am running a US only campaign BUT i'm seeing `20% intl traffic

karl: since mar25 to date...

snip

karl: 184 of 924 clicks . karlkapp0007 x0452285
Marsha:.let me review the account.
Marsha: I just pulled a geo-targeting report from 3-1 thru 3-31, I exported it to a spread sheet and first removed all the clicks for United States. On our reports you were not targeting outside the US and you were only charged for clicks in the US.
karl: ok. let me pull one days worth. I am running offers to 3 networks that all show 15-20% intl traffic, and when I look at my personal tracking systeme, I can find IPs from many other countries very easily. I load the IPs into a geo targeting site and they show up as 'india' and 'mnay from IRAN.
karl: so Adcenter reports for the last week show there are NO intl clicks? let me find just one quickly and give you the date,etc.
karl: I fear there is an error in adcenter's ip resolution, but let me get an example and we can work from there. thx
karl: This is from today @13:20
karl: 94.182.64.205
Marsha: I pulled the report for month of March. Let me look at stats for just today...one moment.
karl: tehran, Iran and that was just the second IP i looked at for today
karl: thx
karl: just poking around yesterday, I found 6 out of 20. and 5 of the 6 where from Iran. thats why I wonder if there is a mistake in Adcenter's IP resolution for that country.
Marsha: For some reason, I can't pull the data for today. But when I did review for March (the entire month), I didn't see anything outside the US.
Marsha: You are targeting only the US, and the reports only indicate that.
karl: ok. then let me give you an example of an intl ip during March.
karl: can you see ips in your reports?
Marsha: Karl, we can't see IPS address's in our reports.
karl: so how can we verify that your reports are correct? In other words, your reports simply reflect the same thing as my billing. The reports dont prove that your IP resolution is correct. that is my problem. I contend that you are sending my intl traffic by mistake.
karl: Your system is incorrect and THINKS traffic from Iran is from US based IPs.
karl: How do we resolve this? I have reports that show this to be true.
karl: How does Adcenter back up their claims that this is all US based traffic?
karl: Does that make sense? For example, I pull on click and see the IP and it resolves to Iran. How does Adcenter prove that this is US click?
Marsha: Karl, I do understand your concerns. Our reporting is correct, we have not billed you for clicks outside the US. I can't answer why your tracking system has clicks from Iran, but I can assure you that you are not getting charged for these.

I had to run to a meeting at this point, but will pursue tomorrow...

[garben2011]

Originally Posted by cgtarga1

Our reporting is correct, we have not billed you for clicks outside the US. I can't answer why your tracking system has clicks from Iran, but I can assure you that you are not getting charged for these.

Might be a silly question but are you certain these non-USA visitors are coming from Adcenter? That is the first thing to check.

Second, she seems to be emphasizing they are not charging you for clicks coming from outside of the US. Which might mean you actually are receiving non-USA visitors from them (which they don't quite know why) but in the final billing statements only the visitors from the USA are being charged to you. Can you check and see if that is the case?

[cgtarga1]

Hey Garben,

I wondered the same actually... But my tracker tells me the referrer is bing, and for two days I paused the campaign and received NO clicks.

Adcenter is charging me for X number of clicks, and I can see that amount in my tracker, IF I count the intl ones. So they are counting/charging me for them.

[garben2011]

Originally Posted by cgtarga1

Hey Garben,

I wondered the same actually... But my tracker tells me the referrer is bing, and for two days I paused the campaign and received NO clicks.

Adcenter is charging me for X number of clicks, and I can see that amount in my tracker, IF I count the intl ones. So they are counting/charging me for them.

Wow. That's definitely messed up. Now, if only you could talk to someone there who actually can access some deeper analytics. I definitely can relate to your frustration. I've been on the phone with people in similar situations where we actually have more of a clue of what is going on than the company rep we are speaking with. They seem to almost follow a script of canned responses and the conversation ends up going in circles. Maybe you can get a manager on the phone next time.

[cgtarga1]

Originally Posted by garben2011

They seem to almost follow a script of canned responses and the conversation ends up going in circles. Maybe you can get a manager on the phone next time.

Almost follow?

F**king Machine...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qnd-hdmgfk



Yeah, today I escalate. I had to run to a meeting and couldn't follow through with the conversation yesterday.