Chapter 6: Legally Speaking: PPC and the Law

In This Chapter

Sticking to editorial guidelines for ads and keywords

Following trademark and copyright regulations

Fighting click fraud

One of the most common pitfalls of pay-per-click (PPC) management to which new users fall victim is getting ads returned from search engines because of editorial guidelines. Sometimes, the problem is simply a matter of trying to use a shortcut such as an ampersand (&) instead of and or 2 instead of to. But in some cases, the problem is more serious, such as a copyright or trademark infringement.

This chapter walks you through the most common editorial issues you’re likely to run into and shows you how to avoid copyright or trademark errors. At the end of the chapter, you discover about click fraud.

Understanding Editorial Guidelines

Editorial guidelines are always set forth by the search engine or the distributor of PPC ads, so many variations exist. The major search engines have similar rules and regulations that are fairly easy to follow, but if you run into issues or have questions, consult the help center for that particular engine.

Ad editorial guidelines

Most search engines are similar in their requirements for the format, language, and grammar of an ad. If you’re using PPC honestly and writing ads that advertise what you’re selling, you shouldn’t have a problem.

Here are the most common rules to follow:

• Watch your language. Don’t use sexually explicit or offensive language, such as swearing.

• Don’t make false claims. One example of a false claim is offering a price or promotion in the ad but not making that same offer on the landing page. Another example is saying that you’re “No. 1” or “the cheapest” without being able to prove your claim.

Proving your claim requires verification by a third party. See your search engine’s help center for its specific policy on this issue. Google AdWords, for example, allows you to make such a statement as long as you can show — through a link to or a direct quote from an independent third party — that your claim is true. This information must be available within one or two clicks of the destination URL for the PPC ad.

• Keep the ad copy clean. Avoid using all capital letters for anything but acronyms (FREE, BUY NOW), excessive punctuation (Save Now!!!!), or repetition beyond two words (Buy, Buy, Buy!).

• Mind your grammar. Use proper grammar. Sentences and phrases must be logical and must make sense.

• Use standard typography. Things not to do include using inappropriate spacing (Buy S h o e s!) and using numbers or symbols as words (Deals 4 U here, Not 2 be 4gotten!).

• Don’t use generic click calls to action. Examples include text such as Click here and Click this ad.

If you simply craft your ad to sell what you’re selling without trying to be gimmicky or spammy, you’ll be just fine. See Figure 6-1 for an example ad with three editorial violations: 4 instead of for, all caps (ONLINE), and an extra exclamation point.

Most search engines will catch a big editorial issue; they display an error message telling you what the issue is and preventing you from saving the ad (see Figure 6-2). If the ad contains multiple or more subtle errors, the search engine allows you to save the ad but rejects it on further review. The engine stops running the ad and sends a notification e-mail to the address associated with the account.

If you receive an error message and feel that the ad doesn’t contain an error or that the search engine is mistaken, you can request an exception, which allows you to enter a short explanation of the situation and run your ad for the time being. Even though the search engine will review the ad again, it may still reject the ad if it doesn’t accept the reason you’re requesting the exception. If the Request an Exception dialog box does not appear, you may not request an exception online. You will need the assistance of a search engine representative to get your ad copy through.

Keyword list guidelines

Building your keyword list (refer to Chapter 3 of this minibook) can be a difficult task, especially because you have to be aware of editorial guidelines as well.

Most of the guidelines apply directly to the ads that you’re building with your keywords, so if you follow those guidelines (see the preceding section), you should have minimal issues with your keyword lists.

In keyword lists, you can bid on trademarked and copyrighted terms (see the section “Trademark and copyright guidelines,” later in this chapter) but with some caveats. If you’re selling or promoting drugs (prescription or otherwise), pornography, counterfeited items, gambling, fireworks, fake documents, weapons, or scams, you won’t be allowed to add those keywords to your keyword list. If you try, an error message should appear, pointing out the specific problem.

The best practice for keyword lists is to follow the general guidelines of the search engine. If you can’t sell a product online, you won’t be able to purchase keywords for it, either.

Display and destination URL guidelines

The display URL, which is listed inside the ad below your ad copy, usually is just long enough for the main URL of the website you’re advertising. (See Chapter 4 of this minibook for information on optimizing your display URLs.) Although it’s representative of your site’s address, it may not be the same as the destination URL — the address of the page you’re sending visitors to. The destination URL, which can be much longer than the display URL, leaves lots of room for you to send visitors deep within your site and even to append a tracking code, if necessary.

A tracking code is a piece of code that you can paste onto the end of the destination URL for a PPC ad. This code doesn’t hurt or influence anything in the ad, but it helps tell your analytics package (if you have one) where the visitor came from, on what keyword, and on which ad. Depending on the analytics package you selected, this code may not be necessary; consult the software’s help system or representative for information about tracking PPC ads in different search engines.

Display URLs

For your display URL to comply with search engine guidelines, it must have a domain extension (such as .com, .net, or .edu) and must be somewhere on the site you’re advertising. If you use the display URL www.shoesonline.com, for example, users must be taken to that site when they click your ad — not to any other site (such as www.fraudschemes.com).

Destination URLs

A destination URL must work. When users click the ad, they should be taken to the listed URL, not to an error or Page Not Found page.

The destination can’t be under construction; it must be a web page with content ready for people to view. It also must be a working website — not an image, a video, a document, or an additional URL that requires users to open another application or program to go any farther on your site.

Trademark and copyright guidelines

Before considering trademarks and copyrights, you should know the difference between the two:

• Trademarks: A trademark can be a word, logo, phrase, or image that people or companies own to represent themselves or their businesses. Trademarks are owned at country level, so if you want to use a trademarked term to advertise in several countries, you have to get permission for each country. You can get this permission with the help of the search engine you’re trying to advertise with. See each search engine’s help center section on trademarks, which should outline that search engine’s process for receiving permission to use trademarked terms.

• Copyrights: A copyright applies to material (such as a book, musical composition, or artwork) that belongs to its creator (such as the author, musician, or artist).

You need to know how to work with trademark and copyright issues if you’re a reseller of items (shoes, makeup, books, or CDs, for example), a parts or replacement parts seller, or an informative site (such as for product reviews). If you fall under any of those three categories, you may use trademarked terms in your ad copy, provided that you use keywords in a descriptive or generic way (this means that you cannot claim to be the original site or trademark owner) in your ad copy and the landing page that searchers are brought to clearly sells the goods or services corresponding to those keywords.

For replacements parts, you must also have a landing page that clearly sells (or facilitates) the goods or services for that trademark. Informational sites must have informative details about the specific goods or services on the landing page for the corresponding keywords.

If none of those situations applies to you, you can’t use the names of the specific trademarks in your ads without permission. You can still bid on the trademarked terms as keywords, but the keyword can’t appear in your ads. If it does, the search engine could disapprove your ad or someone could even file a complaint against you.

This restriction works both ways, however. If you find an advertiser using your trademark in an ad improperly, you can file a complaint with the search engine. Often, the search engine will tell you to contact the advertiser directly first; the search engine may not mediate or participate in disputes such as this without the filed complaint. If contacting the person or company that’s using your trademark isn’t successful, you should file the complaint online through the search engine’s help center. Filing a complaint forces the search engine to look into the issue further and shut down the offending advertiser’s ads.

If you have a copyright issue, the same procedure applies. Contact the advertiser directly and ask him or her to cease. Check the search engine’s help center for specific details on filing a copyright or trademark complaint. When the complaint is on file with the search engine, someone there will look into the issue further and possibly stop the offending advertiser from using your copyright. The search engine will also add you to its ever-growing database of copyrights, and if any future violations occur, you’ll already have a history on file.

If you do have permission to use a trademark as a reseller from the trademark owner, have the owner “white-list” you when possible. This means that you are on file with the search engine as someone who has permission to use that trademark. That is something that you will need to work out with the trademark owner independently of the search engine.

Dealing with Click Fraud

All PPC search engines have some level of click fraud, which occurs when a person, computer, or automated program clicks an ad for malicious purposes. The actual amount that occurs on a day-to-day basis is an ongoing debate in the PPC industry. For the purposes of your campaigns, simply keep an eye out for potential fraud, and call or e-mail the search engine if you suspect that click fraud has occurred so that representatives can look into the situation further.

Recognizing click fraud

Some programs go out on the Internet and click ads repeatedly, eating up advertisers’ budgets and driving up their clicks with no intention of being honest users who are searching for or researching something specific. Each search engine has ways of dealing with obvious and/or massive click-fraud issues. A search engine will credit your account for whatever funds it feels were spent on fraudulent clicks.

Detecting click fraud

The best way to detect click fraud is to check your server logs and study IP addresses and patterns in the clicks to your site. If you see several hundred visits coming from the same IP address within a few hours or minutes, you could be experiencing click fraud.

Another way to detect click fraud is to examine where in the world your clicks are coming from. If they’re coming from a non-English–speaking country or from a country you don’t advertise or sell to, and a lot of activity is going on, click fraud may be going on. If your campaigns are correctly geotargeted (set to display only in specific countries; see Chapter 7 of this minibook), this situation shouldn’t be much of a problem. You can combat it further by implementing ad scheduling — not showing ads outside the time zones in which you want to advertise. For details on ad scheduling, refer to Chapter 5 of this minibook.

All sorts of programs have been developed to detect and prevent click fraud. If you decide to invest in one of these programs, be sure to do a lot of research and participate in live demonstrations before signing up. Click fraud–detection programs can be pricey, but they might be worth the investment if you’re working with a large number of keywords and ads. If you’re just starting out or dabbling in PPC, you’re not likely to need these programs.

Each search engine that serves PPC ads also has some sort of click fraud–detection program in place. Check for lines in your billing details titled something like “Service Adjustment,” “Free Clicks,” or “Click Quality Adjustment.” If you see a credit to your account for a couple of dollars or a few cents, the search engine determined that some of the clicks your ads received were not legitimate clicks and credited you the amount of clicks it found to be fraudulent.

Search engines are continually tightening and improving their methods for detecting these activities, even though they report a much lower percentage of fraudulent clicks than the companies that create click fraud–detecting programs do. Each side has a deeply vested interest, and any release of specific detection information would provide assistance to the perpetrators of click fraud.

Reporting click fraud

Don’t hesitate to call the customer service department of the search engine in which you’re experiencing the issue. Be prepared to show your server logs highlighting the activity if you can. If the activity is obviously suspicious, the search engine may simply credit your account the amount it charged you for the clicks.

Suppose that one of your campaigns sees an average of 2,000 impressions per month and gets about 200 clicks. But one day, you log in and find that your campaign generated 2,000 impressions and 85 clicks during a single day. If you haven’t made any changes to your account that could generate more clicks, you could be experiencing click fraud. Bring those stats to the attention of your customer service representative. Make sure that the representative takes a close look, and be persistent.