Few months ago i have been a part of a custom script development team that was working on managing PPC advertising on the clients website. I was not actually involved in the direct development of the program but i was made to work with the testing team due to temporary resource crunch.
I took my chance to inquire about all the process just for my information and knowledge and learned a lot of new things from them.
Lately i have been coming across topics started by website owners on why the ad network they are working with are not tracking all the clicks?
Suddenly out of nowhere i realized about my little experience from the past which showed the same problem.
That time i had also worked with the XML feeds that were provided by some of the wide advertising networks (Cannot mention their names) for the custom script that was being made. I had also reverse engineered few PPC scripts that are available on internet to check how it works.
Reverse engineering is not good and at a times it can be illegal but please note that i did that just for my information and to see how it functions, i had no intentions on creating similar script or to use it without license.
Then i also tried using pay per click XML feeds on the fully created PPC script where i saw so many clicks were not tracked and not paid for. So that is all about me and my experience to let you know that this report is quite valid.
I will explain you how it all went and the chances are it is the same thing that is happening with you as a Publisher.
Advertising Network is using Network Exchange
Many advertising network that might lack enough number of direct advertisers on their network tend to use Network Exchange programs to get XML PPC feeds to display advertisements to their Publishers.
It can also be banner advertisements using other custom made script since XML feeds does not come for banner ads.
But since the ad network are taking ads from other established network, they have to abide to their requirements.
Things that can affect PPC performance are
- Geo location of the click generated – Advertiser might not be interested in a visitor from untargeted geo location
- Website and Keyword relevancy
So if you happen to work with an Ad Network that uses feeds or banner ads from other ad network then you are indirectly working with that ad network.
Click Detection and Tracking
Each Ad Network has their own tracking mechanism no matter from how many ad networks they are getting their feeds from.
So whenever you generate any clicks on your ads, your primary ad network will detect it, record it and display it in your reports.
But the secondary ad network that is providing those ads might not pay them for that click may be because it was untargeted.
That is how sometimes you can find some number of clicks and yet no revenues for those in your reports. If those were direct advertisers to the network you are using, then it would have showed the revenues earned for that click right at the first place no matter how small that is.
Second reason is that the data reporting is not directly connected with both the networks and cannot be real time. Even if it was real time, the report update timings would need to be same for both the networks.
How does XML Feeds Payment Work?
The network that is providing the feeds to the network that you are using cannot directly pay you for clicks. Your primary ad network will have to withdraw the amount before paying you the total earned amount. That can depend on the minimum withdrawal amount limit of the exchange network and other criterias.
The only connection between the two ad networks is the API that is being used to display XML feeds or other banner ads. Each network has their own click detection, data collection and report update mechanism.
That is why sometimes you can see upaid number of clicks or no clicks at all.
Hence, some networks can implement a mechanism that will never display any clicks on your reports unless they get paid from their feeds provider network. That is why you might not find any number of clicks on your ad network report at first place.
Thanks for the very informative article. It is true, all the clicks of the adds are not counted. And I hope only one click from a system will be considered for those adds.
great article!thanks for sharing!
I have several CPC XML feeds and want to use it in my own domains. However, I’m unable to make it work as I have less skills in parsing xml feed into html. If you were having the PHP code to display any PPC XML feed, kindly share with me through my email address.
Thanks
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