Is Seth Godin encouraging click fraud?

by Patrick Altoft on August 22, 2008

Seth Godin has come up with an post today encouraging internet users to reward great content by clicking on Adsense ads to say thanks.

In the article Ads are the new online tip jar Seth says that the economics of the web would change, presumably meaning publishers get more money from advertisers.

I’m sorry but as an advertiser I don’t like the idea of people who have no intention of buying a product clicking on my ads (or my clients ads). We set our prices according to ROI and we reduce prices when we stop making as much money – simple economics.

If every time you read a blog post or bit of online content you enjoyed you clicked on an ad to say thanks, the economics of the web would change immediately. You don’t have to buy anything (though it’s fine if you do). You just have to honor the writer by giving them a click.

We also ban ads from showing on websites that get lots of clicks but not a lot of sales……….

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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }

Christopher 22 Aug 2008 at 2:25 pm: I saw this as well, and I was not very impressed with him about it. I don’t know if he was actually encouraging it, but it is certainly bad for business for everyone.

Advertising is difficult enough without encouraging even more fraud than the 17% or so there already is on average.

If you spend $10,000 a month with Google, you can pretty much expect around $1,700 of that is fraudulent clicks, add that to the $8,000 for the window shoppers.
The Floating frog 22 Aug 2008 at 2:40 pm: Does this guy work for Google? I say this because they’re the real winners here.
Hugo 22 Aug 2008 at 2:55 pm: I’ve seen sites/administrators specifically asking their readers to click on both adsense ads and non-Google banners.

FAIL!
António 22 Aug 2008 at 3:50 pm: No, he’s not. He is simply suggesting readers “pay with attention”. Attention to the sponsors, that is.

Seth’s writing is perhaps a bit loose but I take it to mean that instead of skimming through the page for the meat you look at the ads and every once in a while click on the ones that grabs your attention. There’s plenty of advertisement that goes “unpaid” because brands recognize that often, web users might be impressed with an ad and change their perceptions of brands or products abut don’t click to buy immediately.
Perhaps, if visitors acted that way there would be more banners around.

“As an advertiser I don’t like the idea of people who have no intention of buying a product clicking on my ads”

Many do and will, regardless of that. And a % of them don’t even pay attention to what you have to offer.
David Bradley 22 Aug 2008 at 4:02 pm: Interesting thought Patrick…I’ve Sphinned the item, hopefully the wider online marketing world will take a look.
Luke 22 Aug 2008 at 4:35 pm: Initially I read it the same way you did, but then I realised that I was maybe missing the point.

If he’s encouraging people to click on ads, surely thats more potential customers coming to your site and assuming the ads are relevant to the target market – if you’ve got compelling content and a good landing page – surely this is exactly what we, as advertisers want…
António 22 Aug 2008 at 4:36 pm: Btw Patrick,
Seth makes a similar point to mine. I swear I did not take inspiration from Seth’s “reply”, in fact, only now I read it.

Beating the status quo (Seth’s blog)
Christopher 22 Aug 2008 at 5:55 pm: Antonio, I don’t think he was encouraging click fraud per say, but it certainly looks like he would prefer it. Trying to come up with a new model that people take care of the blogger by clicking on ads. I think that is one of the worst ideas I have heard. That’s no different than a bank manager rewarding employees by draining a little bit from customers accounts to give them a bonus.

He paints a world where there is no interruption media at all, but the simple fact is, not everyone can be #1 and be the expert that attracts all clients. And every product cannot be a purple cow there would be no purple cows to look at, or as Seth puts it, it would become boring.

Sure I would love a world where everyone just comes walking to your front door because you have a good product, but the world does not exist and it never will.
Christopher 22 Aug 2008 at 5:59 pm: Luke, I disagree with that.

First off you cannot suggest people to pay more attention to ads and expect that they will. Second off, by implying if you like my post click my ads is NOT the same as saying “If you like my post, and you want to buy or are very interested in children shoes, click my ad about the best children’s shoes you can buy.”

If people followed his suggestion, they would click the ad and then close the page, 90% of them wouldn’t even look. No one is going to volunteer be sold to just because they liked someones post. Seth has said it himself many times, people have been train to avoid looking at ads, and they are getting better at it every day, when they click the link they are not going to look at the ad.

I honestly think Seth jumped the shark with this concept, implied or otherwise.
QualityGal 22 Aug 2008 at 7:15 pm: I replied to this with a comment on Digg, but then I realized I might need to clarify when I saw the “click fraud” responses cropping up.

I have clicked on ads to “tip” bloggers in the past when I’ve really enjoyed reading something. I don’t randomly click on ads – because that would be fraudulent – but instead of tuning the ads out and ignoring them completely, I actually look at them and click on one that interests me.

I can’t say that I’ve turned around and made a purchase from one of these ad clicks – but that’s not fraud, that’s life. We all click on lots of things before finding what we were really looking for. And there will always be more people browsing than buying.
Adam Snider 22 Aug 2008 at 8:09 pm: I agree that Seth has suggested a very poor idea here, or at least that he’s worded it very poorly. If you really want to “tip” a blogger, suggest to the blogger that he/she install one of the many tip jar plugins that are available. DON’T commit click fraud.
Marita 22 Aug 2008 at 8:39 pm: I think Seth’s comment is bad advice: he encourages ripping off the advertiser and in the long run that will hurt the publisher as well.
Gaurav Mishra 22 Aug 2008 at 8:55 pm: Even though I love the delicious subversiveness of the idea, I agree with the SEM folks. I have done CPC advertising both as a blogger and a brand manager and I have always had zero tolerance for websites (or keywords) with high clicks and low conversions. If clickthrough rates go up and conversion rates drop, marketers would shift ad dollars to search, away from content/ placement, and ad budgets available to bloggers would drop, instead of going up.

Seth Godin’s “more clicks -> lower conversions -> better landing pages -> higher conversions -> higher budgets” hypothesis assumes that marketers can learn to design significantly better landing pages to convert disinterested (or mildly interested) leads. I’m not sure if I share his confidence.
Christopher 22 Aug 2008 at 9:10 pm: Adam Snider, I think Seth’s point is this doesn’t cost the visitors any money. So they get free content (the blog) and they get to tip the blogger for free by taking it out of someone else pocket that has nothing to do with any of it. In a market that is already loaded with fraud and increasing diminishing roi.

Gaurav, mildly interested would be a stretch if his theory became a reality. I highly doubt you would get more than 20% of the people who click to “TIP” the blogger would actually even look at the page they went to. I suspect 80% will immediately hit the X and not even read the headline. It’s not advertising, it is fraud.
mbhunter 23 Aug 2008 at 6:25 am: Godin is calling attention to what people do already, and all of the buzz about his statements are music to his ears, I’m sure. He’s in more of a position to talk about it because, as he stated, he doesn’t have those types of ads.

If you don’t like the idea of people clicking but not buying, why keep buying ads on a PPC basis? PPC isn’t the only advertising method available.

The goal, of course, is to have every person exposed to your ad buy all of your products, and before the mouse button is cold they’re to e-mail all of their friends telling them how great you are. We aren’t there yet, not even PPC. And would just anyone be able to buy those kinds of ads, anyway?
Matt Wardman 23 Aug 2008 at 7:28 pm: Seth Godin. Recycled old scam. Ethics. Toilet. Flush.

Matt Wardman
Cindy 23 Aug 2008 at 9:01 pm: He could have said “don’t be ad-blind – read the ads sometimes they’re interesting” instead he said “click on them and leave a tip for the blogger” – but – generally you leave a tip with your own money, you don’t reach into someone else’s pocket, take out five dollars and give it to the waitress.
Jon 23 Aug 2008 at 9:05 pm: Interesting debate. I don’t think Seth’s original post was encouraging click-fraud, I just don’t think he thought it through very clearly.

And his next post, in reply to the criticisms, seems even more woolly-headed. A mentor of mine used to tell me that what people do under pressure (when they don’t have time to think things through) reveals their real beliefs/attitudes. Seems to me that he’s a lot more rooted in the “old media” (print, TV) way of thinking than he likes to pretend.

Cheers, Jon
Steven Snell 23 Aug 2008 at 11:37 pm: I don’t like Seth’s suggestion. The comments here are interesting and there are some valid points on all sides of the issue, but in my opinion online advertising will fail and prices will drop dramatically if people start doing this consistently.
WordVixen 25 Aug 2008 at 12:52 am: I didn’t see the post mentioned, but as both a publisher and a small time marketer (no money to waste!) I’ve been looking at both sides of the issue for a while.

My solution is simply to keep your eye out for ads, rather than allowing myself to become blinded to them. I do make an effort to click ads on helpful pages BUT I look for ads that would have interested me anyway (had I been paying attention).

Some ads do not point to anything worthwhile, but I’ve found some awesome products that way. If it’s something that i don’t end up purchasing (subscribing, what have you), I give a little back by posting or tweeting about the page/product/service.
Quitting The Day Job 25 Aug 2008 at 8:53 pm: It is the equivalent of clicking on a Paypal Donate button, but then paying with someone else’s account.

It is stealing.
Ranked Hard 26 Aug 2008 at 4:23 am: I’m convinced that Seth wrote what he wrote for linkbait. It’s too inane to be something he actually advocates. But I don’t know, maybe his goal is to get Squidoo smart-priced.

Or maybe his goal is to hurt Google’s stock price enough that they have to cut lunch and breakfast out of their budget. Why stop with dinner, ay Seth?

http://valleywag.com/5040986/googles-food-perks-on-the-chopping-block
Shailesh Ghimire 29 Aug 2008 at 9:45 pm: I thought you rewarded great content by Digging it or by other such social boomark sites. Clicking on AdSense is taking money from someone else. You can’t do that. Seth is wrong on this one.
SaMy 08 Apr 2009 at 10:24 pm: Encouraging users to click on the ads, Counting Time?
Hello Everybody,
My Question concerned encouraging users to click on the ads,
if i do not encourage people to click in advertising and they coincidentally open the page who does my website and clicking in the ads, how we can call this and how we can be regular to count time to not fall in this condition of encouraging users to click, i want to know the time counted before this click will considered as an encouraging, please help me,