Tag Archives: phone
Google AdWords Click To Call Phone Fraud?
A WebmasterWorld thread has an advertiser of Google AdWords claiming his click to call campaign is receiving invalid or fraudulent calls.
He said all of a sudden he is receiving an unusual spike in call activities all with no chance on converting those calls. He is wondering if this is a form of invalid clicks or click fraud.
The advertiser wrote:
I’ve been happy with bid-to-call. It’s super cheap and some of the calls are good. Most are not potential customers, but that is true for clicks, too. That’s part of doing business. Overall bid-to-call has been a good thing.
However….a couple of the AdGroups I had it on started getting a bunch of calls. These were low activity AdGroups, and there were most calls than clicks (normally the ratio is about a hundred clicks for every call). The calls were under 30 seconds, so Google does not charge us for them. I am not worried about the cost from Google. I am worried about the labor cost for my client who has to answer the phone. Too many of these low quality calls becomes a nuisance.
To remedy this, I paused the AdGroups that were generating these calls (at least, according to Google these AdGroups were generating a lot of calls.) After pausing, there were zero clicks. But the calls continued to come in! Google still reports under 30-second calls from these two AdGroups!
Is this a new form of spam or fraud? After worrying about fraudulent clicks for years am I now going to have to worry about fraudulent calls.
Have you seen this before? Is it fraud? It is a bug in Google reporting? Is it a bug where your phone number is being listed ion the wrong ad?
Google AdSense Phone Support Pilot
google adsense phone
A WebmasterWorld thread has one AdSense publisher claiming he received a message from Google asking if he wants to participate in an AdSense phone support pilot program where he/she would have a phone session with a Google AdSense representative for free.
The AdSense phone support pilot program seems to happen through Google AdSense’s message center. You receive the message from Google and if you confirm you want to participate, Google will have a representative call you within 72 hours of your acceptance.
This is not the first time we have seen publishers being invited to a phone consultation. We had reports of it back in 2010 when the messages were titled “You’re invited to an AdSense Phone Consultation.”
Then in 2011, Google said they may offer AdSense phone support like they do with AdWords phone support.
So maybe this is the first step in that direction?
Verizon unveils LG Lucid midrange LTE Android phone
Hot on the heels of the handset’s leaked details, Verizon just made the LG Lucid official. The modestly specked device will cost $79.99 (with a 2-year contract), run Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and be powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM.
The LG Lucid’s screen is a roomy 4-inch display coated by tough Gorilla Glass treatment. For one-handed text entry there’s Swype’s virtual keyboard software along with Android’s stock virtual keys. Shutterbugs probably won’t find the Lucid’s 5-megapixel camera very impressive but LG does claim it will shoot video at a full 1080p HD.
The real draw for consumers will likely be the LG Lucid’s 4G LTE data connection. While much faster than ordinary 3G wireless access, it doesn’t come cheap. Plans start at $30 per month (2GB) on top of traditional voice service. Verizon says the Lucid will arrive in stores shortly, on March 29.
