# Amazon KDP SP Ads are targeted by Fake Clicks! Amazon Click Fraud



## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

*Not a Secret Anymore: Amazon KDP Sponsored Product Ad Campaigns are targeted by Invalid Clicks or "Fake Clicks" coming from Automated Click Farms and/or Human Scammers... and no one stops them! *

It's a big shame that amazon is doing nothing about this big scam, and naive writers are paying the price... big time...

Here's how it works for most of us, indie writers with limited budgets, honest advertisers trying to promote their books using Amazon KDP Sponsored Product Ads (via Amazon Advertising or Amazon AMS) with manual keyword setting and broad/ exact keyword range:

1. We set a daily budget for the ad, for example 5 bucks.
2. We set bids per keywords we choose related to our books, say $0.25 per keyword.
3. Then suddenly, in the middle of the day/ night... we get a note from the lords that our "Sponsored Product Ad Campaigns have reached the daily budget." Which basically means, that our ad has been clicked by "interested readers" for the max times limited by our budget... Right?

*Not quite so... and here is why:*

We got that note two hours after creating a new sponsored product ad campaign, with a reasonable daily budget, as well as with reasonable bids for keywords... which might suggest that:

1. *A human scammer* was nervously hitting our ad, in order to disable the ad from being served on the system-- while we were paying for it (or not, who knows) until the ad hit the budget and was disabled. (Which is what the scammer wanted).

2. *An automated clicker *was nervously hitting our ad, in order to disable the ad from being served-- while we were paying for it (or not, who knows) until the ad hit the daily budget and was disabled... (Which is what the scammer wanted).

3. *The lords themselves* have "clickers" who do this helpful job of disabling ads, in order to: collect more money from the ads themselves without printing books at all... or in order to sort out ads, and give millions other ads a chance to be displayed on the limited system... who freaking knows?

*Trying to raise these concerns with "the learned" amazon KDP reps team (normally from India,) before the "all is normal" regular brushoff-- THEY ACTUALLY CONFIRMED THAT OUR CAMPAIGNS WERE TARGETED BY FAKE CLICKERS/ SCAMMERS.*

HOWEVER: 
1. They refused to say whether they were human fake clickers or machine driven automated clicks...

2. They refused to let us know how many fake clicks out of the bunch of total clicks were actually fake ones...

3. They did not let us know for which keywords there had been fake clicks.

4. They do not give us, or any other advertiser any report-- as to how many fake clicks each ad has had... nor percentage of fake hits or fake clicks ratios... no info about adjustments or refunds as well!!

5. All that they kept saying was that we were not charged for the fake clicks... 
(Thank you Mr Pecker... We are richer and ready to fly to cosmos!)

*They were saying that we were not charged for the fake clicks (and I tend to believe them, OK) but how can we really know... if they keep the number of fake clicks a secret... Any report they should have shared to prove we had not been charged? *
*
Now say we have not been charged for the fake clicks, as they suggest, and after 3 days or so, the system "refunds" for the fake clicks-- how exactly it can make up for the sales that were potentially lost hadn't our ads been disabled by the same fake clickers hitting our ads and disabling it from being served after a short time after takeoff...
*

This is a huge issue, which the company does not reveal, and we, naive authors, keep increasing the budgets and witness our ads being clicked to death without sales.

We tried this once: After increasing the daily budget and the bids for some keywords, we got a similar email from amazon KDP AMS (Amazon Advertising as they are called now,) announcing that "our daily budget has been reached." It came exactly the same hour as the same note a day back, except... now our budget were increased by 50%...

*It's a wild west out there! *Indeed a fantastic enrichment tool for amazon Advertising, whose internal mechanisms remain a big mystery. No one really knows how the algorithm and the system work, no one checks their due diligence, and no one really knows what is being served and when, what is clicked, what is fake clicked, what is actually sold, and how many fake details are there in their ever changing reports...

But one thing is for sure, 100 % certain-- our credit card's billing reports never lie... We are paying big bucks for those frantic ads and we continue to be scammed.

Any thoughts on this painful matter will be highly appreciated!


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Click fraud is real. Amazon should be more transparent about the fact that they combat it.

Other than that, it's just another fairly minor issue in a long string of issues that indie authors need to deal with.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)




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## 98475 (Sep 11, 2017)

Yeah, this is frightening. It does make you think on whether or not, you should trust them. Definitely an-eye opening post.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

I brought this up about two years ago here. Most people thought it wasn't an issue.

Guess what.


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## Book Fan (Mar 19, 2017)

I don't think Amazon is responsible for fake clicks. It's more likely that competitors are clicking on your ad to drive up the expense, making it harder for you to compete.


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## Jeff Hughes (May 4, 2012)

Other than Amazon themselves - who obviously benefit from ad clicks - what would be the motivation for "click spammers?"  And Amazon has far more to lose than the modest ad revenue bump - as what you're describing is outright fraud - if it were discovered they were gaming their own ad system.  There would inevitably be quite a few employees who knew about the fraud and keeping it under wraps would be difficult.

Surely your click-through and average-cost-of-sales numbers give you some notion as to the effectiveness of your ads and whether anything has changed?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I tend not to worry about what I can't control.

I check ad sales in terms of money spent (averaged over a week or more is better than per day) and offset that against the sales increase in that period. If it's a freebie, I've determined in advance how much I'm willing to pay per download. 

If my ads give results I'm happy with or can live with, I keep them. Otherwise I turn them off and try something else.

I'm sure clickfraud happens, but if my ads give me results I can live with, IDGAF on a personal level (on a whole-company level, yes, of course Amazon should do something about it and I will support those people who poke Amazon with a sharp stick in that direction).

If the ads don't work, I pick them all up and decamp to Facebook, or Bookbub, or I hit the rented list circuit.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Jeff Hughes said:


> Other than Amazon themselves - who obviously benefit from ad clicks - what would be the motivation for "click spammers?" And Amazon has far more to lose than the modest ad revenue bump - as what you're describing is outright fraud - if it were discovered they were gaming their own ad system. There would inevitably be quite a few employees who knew about the fraud and keeping it under wraps would be difficult.


1. You mean "Other than Amazon themselves gaming their own Ad system"... to get much more money from clicks (because in the current constellation click money (and no matter if it's a genuine click or fake one)) is a great money!! might even be greater than money coming from book orders, which incur additional costs on their side...

And who knows (they are not giving us any report about fake clicks)-- there might be high ranking tech people in the know, who are very well paid... after all *Amazon ad revenue was up to $2.2 billion last year reaching 5.6 billion, * which makes the CEO tap dance to his office every day despite the scandals, and get ready for the commercial cosmos trips. My point is the clicks (no matter, legit or fake) pay very very well...

2. There are also click farms hired by competitors/ other publishers interested to stop competing ads from being served, thus opening more chance for their own ads for being displayed on the system. There are click farms in China and other countries outside US, and Amazon knows about it, but evidently does little, if at all, to combat them...

And thinking of it, why should they... if clicks (any type of them, genuine or fake) do the job. How can we know really?? How can we trust that we are not paying for them, if they are not transparent about it!!! how many fake clicks out of the bunch are we getting?? what is their percentage?? for what keywords?? how do they make the count and refund, if at all , and * where are the Adjustments for fake clicks on their reports??* We are totally in the dark, friends... *The billing department has all the fake click information, which they opt to hide from our view, as a firm policy !!!*


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

DrLiz52 said:


> *Not a Secret Anymore: Amazon KDP Sponsored Product Ad Campaigns are targeted by Invalid Clicks or "Fake Clicks" coming from Automated Click Farms and/or Human Scammers... and no one stops them! *
> 
> It's a big shame that amazon is doing nothing about this big scam, and naive writers are paying the price... big time...
> 
> ...


This has been known for some time.

Its a money making scheme for Amazon.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

I expect Amazon will soon become the largest ad platform in the world. 

When you plan to dominate a massive market, and there's hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, you don't f*ck around for peasant money.


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## Book Fan (Mar 19, 2017)

DrLiz52 said:


> 2. There are also click farms hired by competitors/ other publishers interested to stop competing ads from being served, thus opening more chance for their own ads for being displayed on the system.


I think this is the biggest issue at hand.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

lifeasweknowit said:


> This has been known for some time.
> 
> *Its a money making scheme for Amazon*.


Then perhaps the Lord himself should consult... Bernie (Madoff, not Sanders!!)??


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Anarchist said:


> I expect Amazon will soon become the largest ad platform in the world.
> 
> When you plan to dominate a massive market, and there's hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, you don't f*ck around for peasant money.


Talking peasant money: interesting to see how much money out of the 5.5 billion Amazon AMS/ Advertising revenue is actually gained from clicks on ads, and then ... from fake clicks on the ads... My bet, a few hundreds of millions, so please don't underestimate. Amazon owes all of us money for the lost sales due to the fake clicks scam.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Jeff Hughes said:


> Other than Amazon themselves - who obviously benefit from ad clicks - what would be the motivation for "click spammers?"


I don't understand AMS all that well but if you have reached your limit, does your ad get replaced by someone else's?

If so, could maxing out other people's adds by using a click farm increase visibility for other ads (i.e., the click farmer's)?


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## Book Fan (Mar 19, 2017)

jb1111 said:


> I don't understand AMS all that well but if you have reached your limit, does your ad get replaced by someone else's?
> 
> If so, could maxing out other people's adds by using a click farm increase visibility for other ads (i.e., the click farmer's)?


Essentially. If a competitor wanted to make things hard for you, they could continuously click on your ad, forcing you to pay for every fake click (with no sales), making it prohibitively expensive for you to keep the ad running (unless you have deep pockets, which many self-pub authors, including myself, do not).


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

DrLiz52 said:


> My bet, a few hundreds of millions, so please don't underestimate.


As I said, peasant money compared to what's at stake:



> While Google's ad business is still healthy and continues to drive Alphabet's revenue, the 20% growth rate was outpaced in Q4 by both Facebook at 30% and Amazon at 95%. Google's declining cost-per-click rate may be a sign of growing competition from Amazon, which many internet users visit first to begin searches for products they want to buy, bypassing Google's search platform. Amazon is making a significant push into digital advertising to help marketers reach consumers when they're most ready to buy a product or service. Amazon's ad business surpassed $10 billion last year, making it the third-biggest digital ad platform in the United States.
> 
> Otherwise, Google's results are mostly in line with broader trends. The worldwide digital ad market was forecast to grow about 18% to $273.3 billion last year, per eMarketer. Looking ahead, the researcher forecasts that digital ad spending will rise 17% to *$327.3 billion in 2019* with Google, Facebook and Alibaba as the leading ad platforms.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Book Fan said:


> Essentially. If a competitor wanted to make things hard for you, they could continuously click on your ad, forcing you to pay for every fake click (with no sales), making it prohibitively expensive for you to keep the ad running (unless you have deep pockets, which many self-pub authors, including myself, do not).


Well, it makes sense, being that scammers apparently use click farms to jack up the page reads (or they used to do that). Why wouldn't they use click farms for other self-serving purposes? [sarcasm button on] No point in leaving the click farms idle when they can be put to further uses. [sarcasm button off]


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Anarchist said:


> As I said, peasant money compared to what's at stake:


Wow, so it was $10 billion last year, making it the third-biggest digital ad platform in the United States...

*So I am raising my bid now... of the $10 billion last year, how much money was gained from fake clicks?? 3 billion?? 5 billion??* who knows?

Problem they don't provide us with any info on the fake clicks on our Sponsored Product Ads. Since we pay a lot for those ads, and they are not transparent about the details... it is can be considered a dishonest scheme, if not fraud !!!

We can't know, if they don't share the data which they hold close to the chest.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

jb1111 said:


> Well, it makes sense, being that scammers apparently use click farms to jack up the page reads (or they used to do that). Why wouldn't they use click farms for other self-serving purposes? [sarcasm button on] No point in leaving the click farms idle when they can be put to further uses. [sarcasm button off]


Scammers are using click farms big time. It's a huge fraudulent business, and Amazon knows about it and does little, if at all.

*If they did something about it, they would give us the data in the form of report-- including how many fake clicks there had been on the Sponsored Product Ads; how much we were charged; how much we were refunded...

Other CPC Ads providers such as Google share this info with the advertisers. It must be transparent !!!

Amazon KDP, AMS, or Amazon Advertising (the new name) opt to leave us in the dark, because they profit from clicks in general (legit and fake) !!!

Here's something we learned from Amazon PPC Ads: when it comes to business, zillions come first, then come the issues of legality ethics and morality. They feel invincible because no one is knocking at their door!!*


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## Joseph M. Erhardt (Oct 31, 2016)

DrLiz52 said:


> Scammers are using click farms big time. It's a huge fraudulent business, and Amazon knows about it and does little, if at all.
> 
> *If they did something about it, they would give us the data in the form of report-- including how many fake clicks there had been on the Sponsored Product Ads; how much we were charged; how much we were refunded...
> 
> ...


*

Jeff Bezos needs to be visited by three spirits. The first says, "I am the Ghost of Sears Past ..."*


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Wow. Reading through this thread again, and the other one like it, I'm just bemused by the hysteria. And the vein of Amazon hatred that infuses everything.

Kboards used to be the premier site for indie authors. A wide range of highly successful indies used to post here. _And their posts were good_.

This is no longer the premier site. Those same authors now prefer to post in Facebook groups.

At the rate things are going, I don't think this place will exist in another three years. Which is a pity.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Joseph M. Erhardt said:


> Jeff Bezos needs to be visited by three spirits. The first says, "I am the Ghost of Sears Past ..."


The second, *Macy's*, soon to be ghost, said to the *Barnes && Nobles* soon to be one: do you know the "Starfleet Official" who got us here??


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Jack Krenneck said:


> Kboards used to be the premier site for indie authors. A wide range of highly successful indies used to post here. _And their posts were good_.
> 
> This is no longer the premier site. Those same authors now prefer to post in Facebook groups.
> 
> At the rate things are going, I don't think this place will exist in another three years. Which is a pity.


First off, no matter if you work for the Lords or not, you are welcome to post your support for the Lords *on Facebook, another platform that BTW sells Fake Likes by the millions*, and leave this place, if you're not happy. For what I can tell, and I am quite new here, this Forum is great !!!

Second, the fact that we voice our concerns and criticism of the Fake Clicks scheme, does not make us less successful (at least not less successful than you are).

*Third, there is nothing wrong in wanting to know where our money goes. Some of us pay hundreds, even thousands bucks every month for the PPC Amazon Sponsored Product Ads that literally, rip us off, largely due the Fake Click scheme.*

*There is no doubt that Amazon Advertising is hiding facts from us, in light of their claim that we don't pay for the Fake Clicks. For instance, Amazon must be transparent about:*

*1. The number of the Fake Clicks each of our Ads had on a daily basis*-- e.g, in the form a Report column. 
(We should be able to download this data to our Excel sheets along with click data and other data on the supplied report.)

*2. The number of Fake Clicks each of our Keywords accrued on Ad*-- we must be able to shut down those Keywords that trigger most Fake Clicks and not pay for them like idiots.

*3. The refund sum for the Fake Clicks*-- at least on a monthly basis.

*When the Lords claim we are not charged for the fake clicks, they must be able to prove their claim, otherwise it is dishonest and smells really bad !!!*

It's not something farfetched to ask for, on the contrary. Other PPC providers, such as Google Ad Words provide a detailed report, where one can see exactly how many invalid clicks there had been. They also show you where in terms of location they come from.

*4. Last point, there must also be a column called Adjustments*, where all money paid by us and spent on invalid/ Fake clicks activity must be returned. They should calculate the ratio of Fake Clicks on the ad, and adjust the ad for two things:

a. for money in terms of a refund.
b. allow the ad to run extra time (beyond the daily budget limit) if the ad was shut down due to Fake Clicks (at least on a 72 hr. basis).

Currently, all this is not done, we are not informed about the Fake Clicks on our ads, and left in the dark about how they are calculated and charged, and whether it's politically correct or not, it makes us wonder if this scheme is legal.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

I don't work for the "lords". I work for myself.

Perhaps, you could make your point better without all the bold text and exclamation points. Just a thought. It reads as shouting.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Is there even one iota of evidence -- as in actual evidence -- of click farms being used to run up competitor's ad spend?

Could someone please provide links to this evidence so I can check it out? 

I can see unethical people paying click farms for page reads in KU or downloads, etc. I just can't see people spending money paying click farms to click on competitor's ads to make them use up their budgets fraudulently. Unless you know that your ad will be served instead, how could you know for certain it had any effect? 

Please provide some links to actual evidence so I can be disabused of my skepticism. I mean, if this is a real issue, I don't want to bother with CPC ads. I go by whether my ads have ROI. If they don't, I stop running them.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

thanksforallthefish said:


> Is there even one iota of evidence -- as in actual evidence -- of click farms being used to run up competitor's ad spend?
> 
> Could someone please provide links to this evidence so I can check it out?
> 
> ...


if you re-read the original post, the OP claimed that they were told by Zon customer service reps.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Jack Krenneck said:


> Wow. Reading through this thread again, and the other one like it, I'm just bemused by the hysteria. And the vein of Amazon hatred that infuses everything.
> 
> Kboards used to be the premier site for indie authors. A wide range of highly successful indies used to post here. _And their posts were good_.
> 
> ...


I only have been coming here for just shy of two years. Even at that, I recall the hysteria over the black hat tactics people, book stuffers, and the scammers. There was plenty of negativity about the Zon then -- mostly about how the black hat tactics people were dealt with. There also was plenty of speculation about KU, and not all of it was positive.

Many who left this place left because of changes here in the TOS, not because of the tone of talk about Amazon.

I will agree with you that a lot of authors perhaps don't understand the gift that Amazon is to the small time author -- Amazon's introduction of the eBook, and Amazon's allowance for anyone to be a publisher opened up a whole arena for a lot of creative people to be published. No longer were there any gatekeepers.

If, as the OP states, click farms are truly being used to jack around with competitors' ads, then I guess it's another issue that will eventually be dealt with. I think that Amazon is so massive that many issues take time for them to handle just because of the sheer complexity of the systems in place.

The fact is, no click farm is really needed for a competing author to make their competitor pay for clicks. If one had the time to do it, I suppose you could sit and click away.


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

As TwistedTales said, there are clicks that Amazon adjusts for. On some of my ads in hotter genres they adjust the charge by as much as 10% when they bill me for those clicks. If you're someone who has hit the $500 billing threshold, look at what you actually pay each time you're billed. For me it's never $500 because of those adjustments.

Even though they do make some adjustments, looking at the change in click to sales ratios on some of my books over the last year and knowing who has entered those spaces I'd say they're still missing a pretty decent percentage of fake clicks, but at the end of the day it's like running a retailer where you know some people are going to shoplift or make fraudulent returns. You factor it in. If you're still profitable, you continue moving forward with that incorporated into your sales forecasts. If you're not, you stop doing that business or find a different way to do it. (That's also how I approach thinking about books in KU as well.)


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

FYI, bolding large parts of a post is just like all caps shouting. 

I personally skip those posts, and I bet a lot of other people do too. 

So if you want your posts to be read, bold less.

To paraphrase Sun Tzu, s/he who bolds everywhere, bolds nowhere.


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

Yeah, I skimmed two sentences and scrolled through to read only what the less agitated people had to say.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

TwistedTales said:


> When it came to AMS/AA, *two years ago* Amazon were claiming to do a number of things to manage the "fake" clicks (as you say, it doesn't matter if it's bots or over aggressive competitors). Back then, we did get an end of month adjustment due to over charging (no doubt for many reasons), and only the first click counted and it stayed active for a period.


We are quite heavy users of Amazon AMS/ Amazon Advertising PPC Ads ourselves, and we can tell that there appear to be no Adjustments for Fake Clicks whatsoever!

Not only can't we see the Adjustments, but also, as I mentioned, Amazon KDP does not give us any indication on the Fake Clicks on their reports. This data should be fully transparent, and be presented to us in the form report columns. As of now, nothing of the kind is present.

*Currently, we don't know how many Fake Click happened, when they happened, for what keywords, and their ratios-- that info should account for the refund on the side of Amazon Advertising.

The required refund should be in terms of money back and/ or additional run-time for the ad, after the budget has been fraudulently reached by the bots.*



TwistedTales said:


> As a heavy user of AMS for several years, I do believe there were fake clicks, so much so that I would turn off the ads at certain times during the day when I knew the kids would act up. It got better for a while, then around end 2017 it got really bad. The click to impression ratio was so poor I've never bothered again. We have access to lots of different click ads now (FB, Bookbub, Google, Twitter, etc) to compare AMS/AA rates, impressions, clicks, ROI, etc. For the last year or so, AMS/AA performed so badly compared to FB/Bookbub that I have no motivation to give them another dime even for a test run.


As of now, there are two sides to the Amazon Click Fraud problem:

1. The Fake Clickers human/ automated scammers are not being stopped by Amazon-- allowing the Fake Clicks to go on, and we continue to be overcharged as a result-- which is dishonest/ illegal.

2. Amazon is not being transparent, not accounting for the fake clicks, i.e., not reporting to us the statistics of the Fake Clicks, and accordingly, the derived refund. We must be able to see the numbers, in order to be convinced we were not charged. Not allowing us access to such data is dishonest/ illegal.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

*OMG! THE SKY IS FALLING!! OMG! FAKE CLICKS!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!! DISHONESTY! FRAUD!!!! THE MARTIANS HAVE LANDED!!! EEEEK!!! OMG! I'M STUCK IN CAPS LOCK AND BOLD!!!!*

Meanwhile, no _evidence _has been presented that when/if click fraud occurs, Amazon doesn't catch it. Perhaps no refunds are offered because their system identifies the problem and the advertiser is never charged...


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

@TwistedTales thanks for your insights. There are certainly PPC alternatives.



TwistedTales said:


> There are multiple types of "fake" clicks:
> * Automated (bot) clicks
> * Humans acting like bots
> * Incorrectly assigned clicks (poor system design)
> * Intentional click inflation (ad supplier lying about clicks)


I absolutely agree, all of those exist, not tackled, and amazon is not transparent about combating them, and reporting to us about them, as a result we are overcharged.


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## W.L. Wright (Jan 21, 2019)

The BS can happen but what I think is that clicks are click and there aren't a bunch of yahoos clicking away to screw other authors. A good ad will result in traffic to it and blow through low budges that indie authors can afford. Buys take time for indie authors because no one knows us yet. Time is the factor where people can get to know you, but it takes time, even face to face takes time and in an online environment it take even longer.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

TwistedTales said:


> I don't have much faith in Amazon, and I'm quite vocal about how badly they've skewed their recommendation engine toward KU, but the very nature of "fake" clicks is gray and therefore hard to prove.
> 
> When it comes to fake clicks, no doubt Amazon err in their favor, but every click ad provider is doing that to some extent. Should Amazon provide better reports? Absolutely, but there's a lot of data they should give us and don't. Fake clicks isn't where I'd start the transparency argument with Amazon.


Fake Clicks might be a great start for the transparency argument against Amazon.
This notorious authors' (and sellers' in general) rip-off scheme is via the Fake Click on the PPC Sponsored Product Ads is well known now. You can read some more over here:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/the-ppc-click-fraud-is-rampant-on-amazons-sponsored-products/306666

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/sponsored-ads-click-fraud/114783/8

Those ads are very expensive to maintain, and indeed, they are the main source of Amazon's skyrocketing revenues and enrichment!

The PPC Click fraud is rampant on Amazon servers, they are doing little, if anything at all, to fight this serious issue, and for a good reason... Clicks (legit or fake ones) yield tons of zillions for them !!! They don't really care, and so much so, that they don't report the Authors about the amount of the Fake Clicks on the Sponsored Product PPC ads!

Authors have no idea how many invalid clicks have burnt out their daily budgets. And although they're saying authors are not charged for the Fake Clicks, they give us no proof that can attest to that claim.

Even if there are Adjustments, and the Fake Clicks are being tackled, writers/ sellers have no idea, because they keep the Fake Clicks' reports and Invalid Clicks' statistic under wraps!! This is totally dishonest, perhaps illegal.

Authors and sellers who keep raising their Ad PPC bids can be overcharged 100-400% if they don't pay attention and follow. ACOS rates can go really crazy, everyone should be alert and shut down those monstrous ads as soon as attacked. These attacks can come suddenly, even after a few weeks of "smooth" functioning. We did not follow for one month and were shocked by the sums charged. CRAZY!!!


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

W.L. Wright said:


> The BS can happen but what I think is that clicks are click and there aren't a bunch of yahoos clicking away to screw other authors. A good ad will result in traffic to it and blow through low budges that indie authors can afford. Buys take time for indie authors because no one knows us yet. Time is the factor where people can get to know you, but it takes time, even face to face takes time and in an online environment it take even longer.


Here's something for you to dream on:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today (ah ah ah)
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can

And when you wake up:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/ppc-fake-clicks-being-charged-sponsored-ads/313790


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

A few posts in some thread don't amount to evidence that PPC fraud is an issue of any significance. Much more interesting would be comments from a major authority. 

PPC fraud is real. Amazon counters it. How successfully is the only real question. But given that many people run up-scaled Amazon ads, at profit, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue. 

Speaking of profit, "Imagine" is a representation of the communist manifesto. Possibly where a lot of Amazon hatred comes from these days.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Jack Krenneck said:


> PPC fraud is real. Amazon counters it. How successfully is the only real question. But given that many people run up-scaled Amazon ads, at profit, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue.


This.

I know click fraud exists. There's not much I can do about it, so I don't spend time thinking about it.

I'm confident Amazon is addressing it because it's in their interest to do so. That's good enough for me. I'd rather spend my time creating/optimizing campaigns.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Exactly.


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

I don't know what other authors do, but occasionally I want to see how my ads are ranking - whether they're on the first page of sponsored products, the fifth page, what have you. In order to find this out, I typically look up the books of other authors in my genres and then check the sponsored products pages. What I *do not* do, however, is click on their ads. I'm very cognizant of the fact that other authors are paying for ads just like I am, so I look up their books on Amazon by author or title and investigate that way.

In short, I've always been of the opinion that some percent of fake clicks is other authors simply checking their ad ranking. However, since the sponsored ad is right in front of them, I think they might just click on it to get to the relevant page as fast as possible. The end result is that you have clicks on ads that never result in sales because there was never an interest in purchasing. (The click was for other reasons.) I don't believe those who do this are intentionally trying to hurt their fellow authors; I simply believe they may not be considering the full ramifications of their actions - that they're driving up costs for everyone (including themselves).

Anyway, just my two cents. (Needless to say, this does not explain *all* fake clicks.)


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Anarchist said:


> This.
> 
> I know click fraud exists. There's not much I can do about it, so I don't spend time thinking about it.
> 
> I'm confident Amazon is addressing it because it's in their interest to do so. That's good enough for me. I'd rather spend my time creating/optimizing campaigns.


I really don't think that Amazon is doing much to counter Fake Clicks, as Invalid Clicks, especially those that come from automated scripts/ bots on their servers are in their favor...

Income from clicks (no matter fake ones or legit) is a huge cash cow for the Zones !! Why bother to fight stupid clickers in Turkey/ China/ Ukraine... if those scammers inflate the Zone revenue? And I am not talking about ordering such services from the scammers, or using similar black hat tactics by the Zones themselves...

Printing books incurs costs on the Zone side, whereas fake clicks are fresh meat the zones machine swallows without chewing. Bottom lines: might be more income from the clicks themselves than from the slow selling books... Just food for thought.


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## lea_owens (Dec 5, 2011)

KevinH said:


> I don't know what other authors do, but occasionally I want to see how my ads are ranking - whether they're on the first page of sponsored products, the fifth page, what have you. In order to find this out, I typically look up the books of other authors in my genres and then check the sponsored products pages. What I *do not* do, however, is click on their ads. I'm very cognizant of the fact that other authors are paying for ads just like I am, so I look up their books on Amazon by author or title and investigate that way.
> 
> In short, I've always been of the opinion that some percent of fake clicks is other authors simply checking their ad ranking. However, since the sponsored ad is right in front of them, I think they might just click on it to get to the relevant page as fast as possible. The end result is that you have clicks on ads that never result in sales because there was never an interest in purchasing. (The click was for other reasons.) I don't believe those who do this are intentionally trying to hurt their fellow authors; I simply believe they may not be considering the full ramifications of their actions - that they're driving up costs for everyone (including themselves).
> 
> Anyway, just my two cents. (Needless to say, this does not explain *all* fake clicks.)


I agree with this. I do exactly the same, and I always avoid clicking the sponsored ads as I don't want to have those authors charged for my click when I have no interest in buying, I just want to see their 'also boughts' and rankings. Each time I go to the effort of avoiding costing them money, I wonder if they avoid costing me money by applying the same effort, or are they happily clicking my sponsored ad to get through my daily budget? Even if there was a system whereby each Amazon user only cost an author one click, no matter how many times they click on a particular book, it would make me happier. Sometimes, my daily budget seems to get used up very quickly, and I do wonder if the books that keep getting #1, #2, and #3, spots in my genres have authors who are actively clicking on those further along in the top 20 to keep their ads disappearing.

I know many who would do that, and I'd love to see the Zon send them a message informing them that their first click was charged to the author, but further clicks on any day have not been charged, so any attempt to manipulate sales by using up an author's daily budget will not be successful. Such a simple program to write into the process - any user repeatedly clicking ads only has their first click charged to the author - but unlikely to happen as, at present, their clicks are serving Amazon's purpose: make profits for Amazon. Why would they change that?


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

DrLiz52 said:


> I really don't think that Amazon is doing much to counter Fake Clicks, as Invalid Clicks, especially those that come from automated scripts/ bots on their servers are in their favor...
> 
> Income from clicks (no matter fake ones or legit) is a huge cash cow for the Zones !! Why bother to fight stupid clickers in Turkey/ China/ Ukraine... if those scammers inflate the Zone revenue? And I am not taking about ordering such services from the scammers, or using similar black hat tactics by the Zones themselves...
> 
> Printing books incurs costs on the Zone side, whereas fake clicks are fresh meat the zones machine swallows without chewing. Bottom lines: might be more income from the clicks themselves than from the slow selling books... Just food for thought.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Jack Krenneck said:


> A few posts in some thread don't amount to evidence that PPC fraud is an issue of any significance. Much more interesting would be comments from a major authority.
> 
> PPC fraud is real. Amazon counters it. How successfully is the only real question. But given that many people run up-scaled Amazon ads, at profit, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue.
> 
> Speaking of profit, "Imagine" is a representation of the communist manifesto. Possibly where a lot of Amazon hatred comes from these days.


First off, the more you write that "PPC fraud is not an issue..." after tons of threads and complains from writers and other sellers have been brought in this forum and other ones as major evidence-- the more comes to mind that you virtually work for the Zones. And it's not something strange at all, they do send some "spies" to key forums, such as this one, to defend their interest. Funny  I don't think so.

Second, the more you pay attention to minutia, such as bold text (used for emphasis, ) caps etc., rather than to the serious issue at stake-- the more comes to mind that indeed you are Zon! 

But even if you're not, you seem to ignore the fact that the Zones silence the fact and never report to us writers/ publishers/ ad buyers-- that our ads were targeted by Fake Clicks! Have you ever received an email informing you about the issue? Of course not! But after hours of conversations with the KDP reps, they finally confirmed that our KDP PPC Sponsored Product Ad campaigns were targeted by Fake Clicks. We had to milk this info from them... But when asking them for full report (statistics about the number of the Fake Clicks, the keywords affected, the percentage etc., and the corresponding Adjustments/ Refund-- they refused to reveal this data, which is dishonest/ illegal).

Perhaps, as you suggest, they do tackle Fake Clicks to an extent... but this too, does not take from them the responsibility of being transparent about the Fake Clicks, giving us writers/ publishes/ advertisers the full reports about how many, when, which keywords, what refund etc.).

*To the extent that this problem affects all of us and rips us off-- there is a major lack of reporting issue committed by the Zones. Basically, they do not report us at all about the statistic of the Fake Clicks hitting our ads, and we keep loosing money, increasing our budgets after our daily limits were hit. 
*
*And this one is even a graver issue than the Fake Clicks scheme itself, because we are left in the dark and mislead about the efficacy of our extremely costly PPC ads and have zero control! *

Bottom line: we must receive, at least on a monthly basis, a detailed report about the Fake Clicks, how many, for what keywords, what was captured, and what is the refund-- better, in the form of a column within an existing report. Wouldn't that be great?

But since that does not happen and probably won't ever happen-- we have the right not to trust the current data presented to us in the reports!


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Your definition of "major evidence" is different from mine. All I've seen is a few people whinging in a few threads. 

No, I don't work for Amazon. 

Have you considered that Amazon don't release data because anything they say will be scrutinized by scammers for clues as to how to better scam?

All I can say is that I'm a fan of Amazon ads. With the right knowledge, they can be run to good profit.

Same with BookBub. I use them a fair bit too. They would be targets for click fraud as well, but so far as I know they release none of the data you want from Amazon either. Probably for the same reasons.

Unless they're also part of the same grand conspiracy that you see...


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

DrLiz52 said:


> after tons of threads and complains from writers and other sellers have been brought in this forum and other ones as major evidence-- the more comes to mind that you virtually work for the Zones. And it's not something strange at all, they do send some "spies" to key forums, such as this one, to defend their interest. Funny  I don't think so.


Ahh, well if it's _major_ evidence, then Jack _must_ be a spy.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Jack Krenneck said:


> Your definition of "major evidence" is different from mine. All I've seen is a few people whinging in a few threads.
> 
> No, I don't work for Amazon.
> 
> ...


Your underestimation of the Amazon Fake Clicks scheme is bizarre as an understatement, which makes one think, who Mr Jack Krenneck really is... 

1. *As I said, there is a substantial, major, massive evidence, about the Amazon PPC Fake Clicks fraud! *

You can google, typing in: Amazon Fake Clicks, Amazon PPC Clicks Fraud, Amazon KDP Invalid Clicks, Amazon KDP Fake Clicks, Amazon PPC Fraud, Amazon Ads Fake Clicks, Amazon Sponsored Product Ads and Fake or Invalid Clicks, and so on and so forth... They all pop up, along with expert articles elaborating on this major scheme!

As a matter of fact, the scheme is so large that the Internet is bombarded with dozens threads, forums, discussion, sites, articles, you name it, about the issue. Many of them attest to the fact that Amazon is doing little, if at all, to fight the phenomena.

The reason being, any clicks (legit and fake) yield them billions dollars profits each year! We can never know how much is ripped off, because they don't report us about their fraudulent statistics. They sweep it under the rug, leaving as in the dark, with no control of our expenses.

2. *Now to the lack of reporting on the Fake Clicks scheme*-- your suggestion that _"Amazon don't release data because anything they say will be scrutinized by scammers for clues as to how to better scam" _-- does not make any sense at all, since the requested data should be release to us writers/ publishers rather than to scammers who fake click on the ads, and that is true also when the Fake Clicks come from scammers on the Amazon servers, as one of the threads suggested...

There is really nothing "risky" on the side of Amazon in being transparent with us writers/ publishers who pay thousands for those extremely costly ads (that generate billions to Amazon...) because we're overcharged on a daily basis when our ads are killed by fake hits.

We must receive, at least on a monthly basis, a detailed report about the Fake Clicks, how many (count of Invalid Clicks), for what keywords (for us to be able to stop/ pause the fraudulent keywords), and what sum is refunded-- better, in the form of a column within an existing report.

*Until it happens, we have the right to distrust the current data presented to us in the reports! *

3. I don't know about Bookbub, but I can tell, that is not too much to ask, other PPC providers such Google Adwords provide such details!!


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

This article looks interesting. I couldn't read the whole thing, not being a WSJ subscriber, but they think a form of click fraud exists -- used by sellers to boost their own visibility at the expense of others. Whether this applies in the book universe, who knows.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-sellers-trick-amazon-to-boost-sales-1532750493


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## bossk (Dec 3, 2018)

jb1111 said:


> This article looks interesting. I couldn't read the whole thing, not being a WSJ subscriber, but they think a form of click fraud exists -- used by sellers to boost their own visibility at the expense of others. Whether this applies in the book universe, who knows.
> 
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-sellers-trick-amazon-to-boost-sales-1532750493


Here's the full text of the article:

_[Article text removed as possible copyright infringement. - Becca]_

_Edited. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Lots of places on the internet discuss how the moon landing was a fraud. Doesn't mean much though, does it? 

No credible evidence has been presented that click fraud of Amazon ads is a significant issue. If an industry figure like Mark Dawson, Russell Blake or Hugh Howey has said that it is and they're greatly worried by it, I'd love to have their comments pointed out to me. 

Does it occur? Sure. Does Amazon have countermeasures in place? Sure. Is everything perfect? No.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

DrLiz52 said:


> First off, the more you write that "PPC fraud is not an issue..." after tons of threads and complains from writers and other sellers have been brought in this forum and other ones as major evidence-- *the more comes to mind that you virtually work for the Zones. And it's not something strange at all, they do send some "spies" to key forums, such as this one, to defend their interest.* Funny  I don't think so.


I was following the thread until you trotted out this.

Someone disagrees with you so they're a shill for the organization?

That crap is getting so old.

It ranks right up there with 'you're just jealous' and 'if you disagree or defend, you're on their side' and the ever popular 'either you're for us or against us.'


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Jack Krenneck said:


> Lots of places on the internet discuss how the moon landing was a fraud. Doesn't mean much though, does it?
> 
> No credible evidence has been presented that click fraud of Amazon ads is a significant issue. If an industry figure like Mark Dawson, Russell Blake or Hugh Howey has said that it is and they're greatly worried by it, I'd love to have their comments pointed out to me.
> 
> Does it occur? Sure. Does Amazon have countermeasures in place? Sure. Is everything perfect? No.


The WSJ isn't exactly just another place on the internet.

I looked over some of the links the OP posted. Obviously, a lot of sellers on the Zon have, and have had concerns over click fraud.

Being that publishing is highly competitive and there have been instances mentioned here on KB by some reputable posters where they experienced such shady actions like drive-by negative reviews by competitors and the like, I wouldn't doubt a certain amount of other fraudulent activity exists -- click fraud included.

It probably goes with the territory, unfortunately. Like piracy, mentioned in another thread earlier this month, it's just something that happens and one of the side-effects of the industry.


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## Chris Fritschi (Jan 28, 2019)

I'm amazed by all the shrugging of shoulders and the 'eh, it's just the way things are' attitude. 
There are literally thousands of members on this board. Sure, if a few authors complain to Amazon it's easy for them to blow them off. If *everyone complained at once*, that would be an entirely different story.

The fact is Amazon created a software program, marketed it, take peoples money to use it, and profit from it without any transparency of their fraud protection. The reason behind that is obvious. Amazon knows they're safeguards are full of holes, so bad in fact that they know if we knew the facts, many people would stop using AMS.

Lets get something organized. A petition, a declaration; I'm sure someone here more clever than I am can think up an effective way to send a message to Amazon that they need to do a better job at protecting their customers, us, from being ripped off by others exploiting holes in Amazon's system.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

DrLiz52 said:


> First off, the more you write that "PPC fraud is not an issue..." after tons of threads and complains from writers and other sellers have been brought in this forum and other ones as major evidence-- the more comes to mind that you virtually work for the Zones. And it's not something strange at all, they do send some "spies" to key forums, such as this one, to defend their interest. Funny  I don't think so.
> 
> Second, the more you pay attention to minutia, such as bold text (used for emphasis, ) caps etc., rather than to the serious issue at stake-- the more comes to mind that indeed you are Zon!





DrLiz52 said:


> Your underestimation of the Amazon Fake Clicks scheme is bizarre as an understatement, which makes one think, who Mr Jack Krenneck really is...


DrLiz52, the smilie faces suggest you're half-joking with these accusations. Regardless, this sort of thing is not allowed here. KB members are assumed to be posting in good faith. If you think someone is not posting in good faith, the appropriate action is to report your concerns to the moderators, so we can investigate.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Chris Fritschi said:


> I'm amazed by all the shrugging of shoulders and the 'eh, it's just the way things are' attitude.


I'm floored that people are so agitated about this subject.

The rage over click fraud, particularly when no one can assign a number to it, is bizarre. Entertaining, but bizarre.


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## Chris Fritschi (Jan 28, 2019)

Anarchist said:


> I'm floored that people are so agitated about this subject.
> 
> The rage over click fraud, particularly when no one can assign a number to it, is bizarre. Entertaining, but bizarre.


I understand your point, but if you walked into your house and saw the place was ransacked, would you need an itemized list of what was stolen before feeling upset? 
We're all individuals, all different, so it makes sense that how people react will vary.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Chris Fritschi said:


> I understand your point, but if you walked into your house and saw the place was ransacked, would you need an itemized list of what was stolen before feeling upset?
> We're all individuals, all different, so it makes sense that how people react will vary.


It's a bad analogy. I have no ownership of AMS. Nor is there any hard evidence of "ransacking."

And sure, we're all individuals. But with regards to reactions, people ultimately fall into one of two groups: rational and irrational.

In terms of monthly spend and volume of campaigns/keywords on AMS, I'm probably in the top 1% on KB. If anyone should be concerned about click fraud, it's me. But I'm not.

My lack of concern isn't because I'm stupid, ignorant, or negligent. I'm just a rational man. And people who are going nuclear over this issue seem irrational to me.

But hey, more power to 'em. I'm happy to sit back and watch the rage.


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## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

According to the WSJ article, they estimate click fraud at about 28%.  People who are making a lot of money in KU are the ones actually being hit hardest by this.  If you're making around $5,000 a month, 28% extra income would be $1,400.  

That's quite a loss of income.  $1,400 extra dollars a month would buy a lot of advertising, among other things.  I must say that those who are losing sums like that without complaint are showing a superhuman amount of forbearance.  Most people would pop a cork.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

The article talks mostly about reviews and counterfeit products. I don't think it even mentions Amazon ads once? 

I spend a lot on Amazon ads. I'm sure not losing 28% on them.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Avis Black said:


> According to the WSJ article, they estimate click fraud at about 28%. People who are making a lot of money in KU are the ones actually being hit hardest by this. If you're making around $5,000 a month, 28% extra income would be $1,400.
> 
> That's quite a loss of income. $1,400 extra dollars a month would buy a lot of advertising, among other things. I must say that those who are losing sums like that without complaint are showing a superhuman amount of forbearance. Most people would pop a cork.


Here's what the article actually said:



> Alphabet Inc.'s Google and other advertising platforms have also faced an increase in potentially fraudulent traffic. In a recent study, Adobe found that about 28% of traffic across thousands of its clients' websites showed strong "non-human signals," leading the software company to believe that the traffic came from bots or click farms.


Let's unpack that.

First, the 28% figure from which you're inferring insight doesn't represent the percentage of fraudulent clicks on Amazon. That's self-evident.

Second, saying that data show "strong non-human signals" isn't the same as saying data show fraudulent clicks. That's akin to saying people on your mailing list who aren't registering as opens aren't reading your emails. There's a lot that goes on in identifying click fraud that would astound (and baffle) the layperson.

Third, the 28% figure represents the percentage of traffic examined across Adobe's clients' sites. This traffic originated somewhere, but it's not from Amazon. Amazon ads don't direct clickers off-site. The traffic could be from Google. It could be from Bing. Or it could be from hundreds of thousands of peasant sites where you can do media buys for under $100.

Despite the above, you're inferring that the quoted excerpt means that 28% of clicks on Amazon's advertising platform are fraudulent.

That's not rational.

FWIW, I invite anyone who wants to keep banging the drum about this topic to continue doing so. But I'm bailing. This is a big waste of time. And those episodes of Season 7 of _Star Trek: TNG_ aren't going to watch themselves.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Avis Black said:


> According to the WSJ article, they estimate click fraud at about 28%. People who are making a lot of money in KU are the ones actually being hit hardest by this. If you're making around $5,000 a month, 28% extra income would be $1,400.
> 
> That's quite a loss of income. $1,400 extra dollars a month would buy a lot of advertising, among other things. I must say that those who are losing sums like that without complaint are showing a superhuman amount of forbearance. Most people would pop a cork.


Only if you assume every single sale came as a result of AA.

My AA ad budget runs about 10% of my Zon income. So, that means I lose (waste) about 2.8% of my Zon income to fake clicks. Not good, but not unacceptable.

Would I like it to be lower? Of course, but just like with shoplifting in a retail operation, I can't let it stop me from doing business.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Jack Krenneck said:


> The article talks mostly about reviews and counterfeit products. I don't think it even mentions Amazon ads once?
> 
> I spend a lot on Amazon ads. I'm sure not losing 28% on them.


True. But isn't a click a click? And some sellers on the Zon complained about click fraud dealing with ads. They spoke of their ad budgets being used up quickly. Maybe they're in the minority, but I doubt they're lying.

That doesn't mean it is happening with book publishing. I mean, who can afford a room full of spare IPhones and all the other regalia to go with them, to click on someone's ads? I don't think the problem is all that widespread from a practical perspective. I would think that there are probably better ways to compete than that sort of thing.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

jb1111 said:


> I mean, who can afford a room full of spare IPhones and all the other regalia to go with them, to click on someone's ads? I don't think the problem is all that widespread from a practical perspective. I would think that there are probably better ways to compete than that sort of thing.


Not to mention doing it, or organizing it, probably means the ban hammer from Amazon.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Chris Fritschi said:


> I'm amazed by all the shrugging of shoulders and the 'eh, it's just the way things are' attitude.
> There are literally thousands of members on this board. Sure, if a few authors complain to Amazon it's easy for them to blow them off. If *everyone complained at once*, that would be an entirely different story.
> 
> The fact is Amazon created a software program, marketed it, take peoples money to use it, and profit from it without any transparency of their fraud protection. The reason behind that is obvious. Amazon knows they're safeguards are full of holes, so bad in fact that they know if we knew the facts, many people would stop using AMS.
> ...





Chris Fritschi said:


> If you walked into your house and saw the place was ransacked, would you need an itemized list of what was stolen before feeling upset?


Totally agree. Not only does Amazon rip us off, writers/ publishers, who are charged extremely exaggerated monthly sums (some of us pay hundreds/ some pay thousands) for *PPC Sponsored Product Ad Campaigns that are targeted by Fake Clicks and rampant invalid activity that comes from Click Farms/ Automated scripts* (both inside US and outside it, usually in poor countries such as China, Bangladesh, Turkey, Ukraine and more). Such activity involves many devices and "poor sapiens" clicking on Kindle PPC Sponsored Product Ads drawing campaigns out of budget and killing them off...

*See here how a Click Farm looks like:*





*But also, as mentioned above, the Zons opt to conceal from us writers/ publishers important statistics about such invalid activity/ Fake Clicks:* Data such as count of Fake Clicks, for what Keywords, from what region, and the precise refund sum (at least on a weekly/ bi weekly basis)-- that could help us decide weather to go on with a certain ad or with certain keywords that were affected or shut them down, because we are losing too much money...

*Apparently, the Fake Clicks scheme is such a big deal for Amazon that they opt to hide from us such critical information, which is dishonest as an understatement.*

Another nice source:

https://mywifequitherjob.com/amazon-scams/#Amazon_Scam_7_Amazon_Sponsored_Product_Ads_Click_Fraud


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

The comments below the click farm video were enlightening. One guy claimed to actually run a click farm operation, and described the process somewhat. He said $100 can bring you 10,000 likes.

It seems to be more orientated towards social media and product boosting than sabotaging your competitors.

Like I said before, obviously there is a_ capability_ of using fake clicks but what indie author is going to actually bother trying to put together their own click farm, and what's the point of paying some click farm a couple hundred bucks to slam a competitor's advert budget? It just doesn't make practical sense.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

jb1111 said:


> The comments below the click farm video were enlightening. One guy claimed to actually run a click farm operation, and described the process somewhat. He said $100 can bring you 10,000 likes.
> 
> It seems to be more orientated towards social media and product boosting than sabotaging your competitors.
> 
> Like I said before, obviously there is a_ capability_ of using fake clicks but what indie author is going to actually bother trying to put together their own click farm, and what's the point of paying some click farm a couple hundred bucks to slam a competitor's advert budget? It just doesn't make practical sense.


Competitors (human scammers/ automated clickers via Click Farms) clicking on Sponsored Product Ads and disabling those costly ad campaigns is just a part of the Fake Click Scheme run on Amazon servers.

There are many publishers who use those dark hat tactics, and there is the Zones...

But the key issue is that Amazon does not stop this fraudulent activity, or does very little to stop it-- because those Fake Clicks are in their favor. *They earn billion on Fake or Invalid Clicks activity! *

*Consequentially, they fail to report to us about the Fake Clicks problem in any shape or form !!!*

*They basically conceal the Fake/ Invalid Click data, giving us no stats whatsoever about the Fake Clicks massive fraud activity that hits their servers. *

We need to get info such as Amount of Fake Clicks, Origin of Fake Clicks, What Keywords were affected by Fake Clicks, the Adjustments, and the Refund Sum.

We need to see the Adjustments for the Fake Click activity (similar to other PPC providers) and the Refund sum. 
Those two parameters (Refund and Adjustments) do not appear in their current reports... while the Billing department has all the info on the Fake Click fraud.

Concealing such critical data from us writers/ publishers/ advertisers, who pay every month hundreds/ thousands dollars for those extremely expensive, yet controversial, ads is dishonest / illegal.

How can we trust any part of their reports if the Fake Click Adjustments / Refund parameters are missing?


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Avis Black said:


> According to the WSJ article, they estimate click fraud at about 28%. People who are making a lot of money in KU are the ones actually being hit hardest by this. If you're making around $5,000 a month, 28% extra income would be $1,400.
> 
> That's quite a loss of income. $1,400 extra dollars a month would buy a lot of advertising, among other things. I must say that those who are losing sums like that without complaint are showing a superhuman amount of forbearance. Most people would pop a cork.


Absolutely, all of us are ripped off from the Fake Clicks fraud, but I don't think that 28% Click Fraud well represents it.
I'd assume more than that. Perhaps 50% of all clicks might be Fake, perhaps more?

We can't really know how many clicks are invalid, where they come from, and we have no control over the Fake Clicks Refunds. There are no reports accounting for Fake Clicks.

The billing department has all the Invalid Clicks stats, but won't release them to advertisers. No accountability at all, which is dishonest/ illegal. It is a matter of time until advertisers claim.


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## W.L. Wright (Jan 21, 2019)

Click fraud happens and has been happening for a long time online and any ad that has clicks as the cost factor is affected. Competitors or just plain ol' criminals with whatever scheme of the day they are engaging in makes all of our lives tougher but they don't care about that. I do know Amazon is working on that issue because they have a message regarding verifying clicks as part of their process.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

W.L. Wright said:


> Click fraud happens and has been happening for a long time online and any ad that has clicks as the cost factor is affected. Competitors or just plain ol' criminals with whatever scheme of the day they are engaging in makes all of our lives tougher but they don't care about that. I do know Amazon is working on that issue because they have a message regarding verifying clicks as part of their process.


I don't think that Amazon are doing much, if at all, because they profit from the Invalid Clicks scheme. They are capitalizing big time on all clicks (legit and fake), and it's not in their interest to kill them off. There is also a talk on Amazon bots creating those clicks.

See more here:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/amazon-sponsored-products-claw-back-for-unreported-clicks/353786


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

I am stunned that supposedly rational people think that *no one* would go to cheating lengths to gain a foothold above others. We've seen evidence of it over and over with Zon in the past and yet somehow Amazon Ads are somehow pure and sacrosanct.

There's just no talking sense - no matter the evidence - to those who have their heads in the sand (deliberate or not).


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

I'm not sure if a single person has denied click fraud exists. I haven't.

We all know it exists. There are problems with reviews, KU and a bunch of other things as well.

In the business world, this is situation normal. Recognizing that isn't burying your head in the sand.

No one has to advertise if they don't want to. That's a guaranteed way to ensure you don't get hit by click fraud. If you do advertise, and you suspect click fraud, you can ask Amazon to investigate and they will.

If click fraud was _rampant_, no one would be profiting from Amazon ads. But lots, and lots, and lots of people are. These are the people who spend the time and effort to get good at advertising. They don't waste their time ranting. They just get on with the job.

Getting on with the job is what commercially successful authors do in a commercial dog eats dog world. The system is _never _going to be perfect. And Amazon is _never _gong to provide the kind of data requested (because that only serves to help scammers understand how to scam better).


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Laran Mithras said:


> I am stunned that supposedly rational people think that *no one* would go to cheating lengths to gain a foothold above others. We've seen evidence of it over and over with Zon in the past and yet somehow Amazon Ads are somehow pure and sacrosanct.
> 
> There's just no talking sense - no matter the evidence - to those who have their heads in the sand (deliberate or not).


Absolutely. Ignoring the extent and the amplitude of the *Amazon Advertising Fake Clicks fraud* is like burying your head in the sand of political correctness.

*Most authors, no matter how great their books are, how broad their readers' outreach and platforms are, or how adept they are in advertising-- are ripped-off by this scheme!!!*

There is no accountability on Amazon's side, and no reporting of basic statistics about the Invalid Clicks to us Authors who spend hundreds/ thousands on those dubious ads. Those ads are extremely costly, and we have the full right to demand those statistics in a transparent manner (similarly to other PPC providers who reveal this data).

Data such as amount of Fake Clicks, origin of Fake Clicks (IP Addresses), and the Adjustments-- in terms of percent of total clicks and in terms of sum reimbursed-- is data Amazon conceals from Authors and other advertisers on their system.

And this is no rant, but a major legality issue. It might be 30% Fake Clicks, or 50% or more... We can never be sure and trust their reports, unless they give us the Invalid Clicks data.

It's a sweeping scheme that allows them to reap billions. And it's matter of time until this bubble will burst...

Here's another fascinating discussion about the origin of the Fake Clicks, which happens to be Amazon Servers:

https://support.google.com/adsense/forum/AAAAKDuOfxQD1xt59CEdGI/?hl=en&gpf=%23!msg%2Fadsense%2FD1xt59CEdGI%2FDm5i7TzML30J&msgid=Dm5i7TzML30J


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## azebra (Jul 30, 2011)

I ran an ad on another site (NOT AMAZON) and used my own smart url rather than straight amazon link. In this way I could count the clicks myself. There were huge discrepancies. I complained. I did't get my money back. I got cautious.

Amazon is too big not to have a pretty good click accounting system. If your ads are running out of daily budget (and $5 is a low budget) check your keywords by sorting highest to lowest. I'v fat fingered a bid or two in my time and run through a few hundred dollars very quickly.


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## felicity (Nov 28, 2012)

DrLiz52 said:


> Here's another fascinating discussion about the origin of the Fake Clicks, which happens to be Amazon Servers:
> 
> https://support.google.com/adsense/forum/AAAAKDuOfxQD1xt59CEdGI/?hl=en&gpf=%23!msg%2Fadsense%2FD1xt59CEdGI%2FDm5i7TzML30J&msgid=Dm5i7TzML30J


This is not discussing AMS at all. They are talking about adsense clicks for google ads on their own website. Nothing to do with ads on Amazon.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

felicity said:


> This is not discussing AMS at all. They are talking about adsense clicks for google ads on their own website. Nothing to do with ads on Amazon.


Amazon is earning lots of billion dollars from KDP PPC ads, whose functioning is constantly compromised and abused by Click Fraud.

In addition, Amazon's Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Advertising Servers are constantly abused by Click Farms and Fraudsters who abuse their cloud services, implanting bots and scripts that click on costly PPC ads...

*This bubble is sure to burst one day, as advertisers are screwed-up daily and pay way to much (hundreds, or even thousands per month) for this abuse that Amazon fails to address properly.*

The above article pinpoints problem with Amazon servers and could services that are abused by fraudsters and automated clickers.

The following Wall Street Journal Article provides more details on the severity of Amazon Click Fraud. The discussed Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud servers are constantly abused by automated clickers who reap millions.

_"But topping the list of "bad" ISPs was Amazon's AWS cloud service. Unlike the other companies, AWS doesn't offer high-speed Web access access to consumers. Instead, its cloud computing platform has been twisted by fraudsters to create artificial bot traffic and to disseminate it across the Web."_

https://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/06/05/fraudsters-use-amazons-cloud-to-create-fake-web-traffic/


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

That article is about Amazon's AWS cloud service. It gives _zero _information on click fraud relating to Amazon ads.

It does talk about click fraud on the web in a general sense. The comments come from a fraud detection agency that gets paid to find fraud. It's in their financial interest to find fraud and get people worked up about it. They're certainly never going to _understate _the problem.

But again, there's no data relating to Amazon ads.


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## lea_owens (Dec 5, 2011)

Surely one or two simple little program tweaks would ease the pain of a lot of these 'fake clicks'. I know some are click programs, but I read in a fb group when one small time author (a few books, rarely better than 100,000 in the rankings) repeatedly clicked on sponsored ads by competing authors in her categories. She had no qualms about costing them money for nothing - she was just getting rid of their daily budget so that her book came up in the searches using those search terms - seemed like a hundred dollars worth of effort for a dollar or two in sales, but there is no logic with snarky people. 

For the ones like her, all it would take would be a 'only one click from this user/isp counts' program so that if she went back day after day, doing the search that brought up the competitors' AMS ads, only her first click on any book would count for the length of the advertising of that book, not the three, four, or more, clicks every day on each ad. Then, of course, the issue is: does Amazon care more about looking after those authors who advertise with them than it does about the profits from those ads, even if those profits are made in such a way that the author cannot possibly get sales from the ads?, Yeah, yeah... nup. So, I can't see them hurrying to create those program parameters.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

I believe Amazon does only allow/charge for one click per IP. This reduces the problem somewhat. Not sure if that's once per day or once in total or what. Of course, a real fraudster would create a floating or rotating IP and automate the process. Not sure Amazon's defense is sophisticated enough to catch that.

Funny how I raised this issue over a year ago as the OP, and hardly anyone was worried, or thought it might happen...


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

David VanDyke said:


> I believe Amazon does only allow/charge for one click per IP. This reduces the problem somewhat. Not sure if that's once per day or once in total or what. Of course, a real fraudster would create a floating or rotating IP and automate the process. Not sure Amazon's defense is sophisticated enough to catch that.
> 
> Funny how I raised this issue over a year ago as the OP, and hardly anyone was worried, or thought it might happen...


A year ago the Ad Click Fraud was not so grave. Today the web is flooded with info on the Invalid Clicks scheme.

Here is another article expanding on Amazon Fake Click Fraud. It delineates the scammers role in the fraudulent game, but Amazon is doing little, if at all, to stop the scam, plus they conceal from us (millions of writers and other advertisers) essential data about the invalid clicks activity!

https://mywifequitherjob.com/amazon-scams/#Amazon_Scam_7_Amazon_Sponsored_Product_Ads_Click_Fraud

*Amazon Scam #7: Amazon Sponsored Product Ads Click Fraud*

If you find that your Amazon PPC ad budget is abnormally depleted early in the day, you could be a victim of Amazon Sponsored Product Ads click fraud.

Unfortunately, there are services out there that deploy special bots designed to click on your ads and artificially waste your ad budget.

Even though Amazon has security measures in place to combat fraud, it is impossible for Amazon to completely stop this malicious practice.

*And what's particularly frustrating is that it's difficult to gather evidence to prove click fraud because Amazon controls everything.*

*There is no way to trace the origin of an ad click and Amazon can simply sweep the click fraud under the rug.*

These false clicks not only cost you money but they also reduce your conversion rate which negatively impacts your keyword rankings.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

lea_owens said:


> Surely one or two simple little program tweaks would ease the pain of a lot of these 'fake clicks'. I know some are click programs, but I read in a fb group when one small time author (a few books, rarely better than 100,000 in the rankings) repeatedly clicked on sponsored ads by competing authors in her categories. She had no qualms about costing them money for nothing - she was just getting rid of their daily budget so that her book came up in the searches using those search terms - seemed like a hundred dollars worth of effort for a dollar or two in sales, but there is no logic with snarky people.
> 
> For the ones like her, all it would take would be a 'only one click from this user/isp counts' program so that if she went back day after day, doing the search that brought up the competitors' AMS ads, only her first click on any book would count for the length of the advertising of that book, not the three, four, or more, clicks every day on each ad. Then, of course, the issue is: does Amazon care more about looking after those authors who advertise with them than it does about the profits from those ads, even if those profits are made in such a way that the author cannot possibly get sales from the ads?, Yeah, yeah... nup. So, I can't see them hurrying to create those program parameters.


You are right. They are doing little, if nothing at all to combat the Fake Click fraud. The KDP PPC Sponsored Product Ads are ripping-off many writers (established writers and new ones). Those ads are Amazon's cash cows.

*Those ads are extremely costly, in part because they keep accumulating Invalid Clicks. It's a sweeping fraudulent scheme (yielding Amazon billions). Many advertisers, not only authors, raise their concerns, because it's an issue of distrust/ dishonesty.*

While Amazon claim not to charge for the Fake Clicks, in reality they are doing little, if at all, to stop the scam, because they benefit (in fact, reap billions) from those clicks (legit or fake). Some even suspect that they might "cooperate" with the "scammers" in this game.

*The issue is aggravated by Amazon lack of transparency, and unwillingness to share with advertisers any statistics related to the invalid activity and Fake Clicks in their reports. *

Data such as amount of Fake Clicks, their origin (geographical, IP), their derivation, Adjustments, and the corresponding Refunds columns... are not disclosed in the unstable Amazon Reports.

Their billing department knows everything, but they opt to keep this information close to vest as a firm policy; a bubble that will eventually burst.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

DcLiz--if you're replying to me, I have you on ignore, so don't bother.


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## atree (Jan 1, 2019)

Mods. can we lock or delete this thread?

It is replete with doubtful content that only serves to confuse and mis-align new writers and will do neither them or Kboards beneficial service. It reminds me of absolutew... and the general tone is aggressive.

Inflamatory and conspirational ideas with outright unfounded accusations (repeatedly bolded) are not in line with Kboards TOS (not even the new one), are they? 

Noob, beware of desinformation.

Petition to delete or lock.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Lock, delete, or allow to go on.

My only request is for more bolding. Thx.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Anarchist said:


> Lock, delete, or allow to go on.
> 
> My only request is for more bolding. Thx.


*snicker*

Yes, far more, and more pot-stirring. Then maybe more people would use the ignore function and the instigators-for-fun wouldn't get their rush.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

TwistedTales said:


> I don't think there is any reason to delete this thread. It has a number of opinions and counter opinions and anyone reading it can draw their own conclusions as to the validity.


*Happy Easter everyone * (bold used for emphasis!)

Here you go, they want to silence any trustworthy, serious, critique against their beloved lords...

And if they call us (offensively) "conspiracy theorists," why won't they be just "spies"... (just a joke).  No no no... they are just bestseller writers with 10% ACOS rates, for sure  please excuse, another joke.

But this is so childish; they don't agree with you, so they ask to close the channel. Very humorous and hypocritical too. If they don't like the discussion, they may want to pick another thread and close the door... But no, they need to comment here and offend. But I am not crying. We had our own experience, and we have the right to let other writers know, before they burn too much...

*And guess what: many authors in this thread, and many other forums online agree with my points and raise the same concerns about Amazon Ad Fraud!*

Many of us pay way too much for way too little (overcharged, or pay more than sell), and the reason being: Fake Clicks and Ad Fraud so rampant on Amazon! Many have not heard of the problem.

Amazon goes on hoarding millions at the expense of naive writers, who are constantly misinformed about the Clicks/Invalid Clicks activity on their accounts.

Hard fact is, Amazon does not account for the Fake Clicks, and this is unethical and dishonest. We must be able to see the calculation and the adjustments/ refunds on our reports. This is only part of the problem which makes us doubt the validity and accuracy of their reports.


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## atree (Jan 1, 2019)

DrLiz52 said:


> ...
> Amazon goes on hoarding millions at the expense of naive writers...


This is a serious accusation.

Can you kindly elaborate? Links? proof? Can you submit a single author, or your own stats that prove Amazon is any way a participant in this either actively or passively?
Could you also elaborate on your thoughts on how and why Amazon should be responsible for what you call invalid and fake clicks? Is aAmazon any difgferent from Google Adwords, a generic PPC website ad, or any other type of ad serving platform? Do the people shouting click fraud even know what conversion rate to expect from PPC capaigning when it comes to products such as books? Are they even aware they can set a daily budget? 900, 70 or 4 dollars a day as a max, just pick a number

I humbly suggest you stop throwing ideas about and put forth some proof. Proof as in here is this campaign, here is the budget, here is the ad and here are all the "fake clicks". BTW.... define what a fake click on Amazon ads is. Is it a bunch of click but no sales? Hmm, lets see, is the ad perhaps better than the book it points to? 

Proof or silence.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

DrLiz52 said:


> But this is so childish; they don't agree with you, so they ask to close the channel. Very humorous and hypocritical too. If they don't like the discussion, they may want to pick another thread and close the door...


Er....the problem is that you keep popping up in other threads too proclaiming your *!!!Fake Clicks Amazon is Criminal!!!* conspiracy theory everywhere. In bold, of course. For emphasis.

And calling me a spy for Amazon is starting to wear thin. Even under the guise of a joke.

Speaking of spies and social media agitators...If I were a scammer I'd be agitating (loudly) for Amazon to release the exact same data about fake clicks that you are. It would help me to scam better.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

TwistedTales said:


> Happy Easter to you too, DrLiz.
> 
> Just as an aside, last year Amazon admitted (in the press, but I can't find the article right now) to using what they called "Amazon Associates" on social media. From what I read, they are Amazon employees who are paid to say positive things on social media. The idea being that when something negative kicked off about Amazon, the Amazon Associates would swing into action and tell everyone how wonderful Amazon are.
> 
> Now, I don't know if they still have these folk doing this, but I did run into a few on Twitter, it was kinda nauseating to read. I'm not saying anyone on kboards is an "Amazon Associate" playing the role, only that Amazon did publicly admit they use them to influence social media.


Thanks @TwistedTales! Great point, well made  Those kinds of "Amazon Associates/Ambassadors" or "insiders" are spending much time on various forums and social media. Looks like they almost live there.  
There are many of them, and they are paid. I suspect by the post, because they rush into reaction... They pop up very quickly in threads, and drop their (what appear to be offensive) responses and slurs. It's truly concerning and can remind of dark (non capitalist) regimes of past generations.

In fact, the more concerning the issue is, the more they burn to try out various tactics to hush our critique. They might pay attention to minor things such as typos, type, and the like, or just blow things out of proportion, take things out of context, and turn you into their "rival". They might use "blocking" or dark lists, or beg supervisors to close discussions with various participants and versatile points of views that contradict their "opinion," which corresponds with Amazon commercial interests.

That is also done to ward off any potential gatherings of groups (say of writers/ publishers/ advertisers who were ripped off) because they are afraid of an action, which might cost more than what they can think of. Social media have massive power, and they are aware of what happened to FB as well.

Google also had their share of Invalid Clicks in the past, but unlike Amazon, nowadays they do account for the Invalid Clicks in their reports. That means that they make all clicks we're paying for totally transparent. There is a column called Invalid Clicks, and one can actually see their count. There is a column called Adjustment and a Refund. While Amazon claim not charge for the Fake Clicks, they don't reveal it to advertisers in their reports. Perhaps they are doing behind the scene calculations, but they don't disclose Invalid Clicks in the reports, and the don't report/ announce when one's account has been victimized by Fake Click or Ad Fraud on their systems.

Recently, the FBI has gone into Ad Click Fraud investigations in various billion dollar behemoth firms. 
Hopefully, a more thorough investigation of what's going on in this huge digital casino called Amazon Advertising will finally be made.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

atree said:


> This is a serious accusation.
> 
> Can you kindly elaborate? Links? proof? Can you submit a single author, or your own stats that prove Amazon is any way a participant in this either actively or passively?
> Could you also elaborate on your thoughts on how and why Amazon should be responsible for what you call invalid and fake clicks? Is aAmazon any difgferent from Google Adwords, a generic PPC website ad, or any other type of ad serving platform? Do the people shouting click fraud even know what conversion rate to expect from PPC capaigning when it comes to products such as books? Are they even aware they can set a daily budget? 900, 70 or 4 dollars a day as a max, just pick a number
> ...


Zon has it's own ugly profit rules and practices. Only really blind people don't acknowledge it.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-taxes-zero-180337770.html?soc_src=newsroom&soc_trk=com.apple.UIKit.activity.CopyToPasteboard&.tsrc=newsroom&fbclid=IwAR16nAfXhMdbq822UnzpzZzSzFSeT-0BVm7iOsPA9ihLlyvoDibEMLV4SAY


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

TwistedTales said:


> @DrLiz
> 
> I put a correction through on that post:
> 
> ...


Thanks for the links! 
This is so creepy! A few quotes:

"The company now has a small army of "FC Ambassadors" saying nice things about the company online and engaging in dialogue with average Twitter users. The ambassadors are full-time employees, according to an Amazon spokesperson, and it is their job to share their experiences working at a fulfillment center."

"The ambassadors also seem to back each other up when they face criticism or pushback from users who call them bots."

"Despite the intentions, the Amazon Ambassador Twitter accounts are making people more uneasy, rather than more trusting of the company."

"This kind of coordinated pushback, targeting specific criticisms, shows that Amazon is taking steps to improve its reputation."

"Amazon has also been criticized, fairly or not, for seeking tax breaks for its second headquarters project, HQ2, and for making business conditions difficult for small retailers."


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Laran Mithras said:


> Zon has it's own ugly profit rules and practices. Only really blind people don't acknowledge it.
> 
> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-taxes-zero-180337770.html?soc_src=newsroom&soc_trk=com.apple.UIKit.activity.CopyToPasteboard&.tsrc=newsroom&fbclid=IwAR16nAfXhMdbq822UnzpzZzSzFSeT-0BVm7iOsPA9ihLlyvoDibEMLV4SAY


Thanks @Laran Mithras. "It's hard to know exactly what they're doing..." which again proves that Amazon is not transparent in their ethos & business.

Here's a quote for the lazy/ busy ones:

_How is that possible?

"It's hard to know exactly what they're doing," said Steve Wamhoff, ITEP's Director of Federal Tax Policy. "In their public documents they don't lay out their tax strategy. So it's unclear exactly which breaks [the company is taking advantage of]. They vaguely say tax credits. One could think of many different ways a corporation could do this, like the depreciation breaks which were expanded under TCJA."_


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

atree said:


> This is a serious accusation.
> 
> Can you kindly elaborate? Links? proof? Can you submit a single author, or your own stats that prove Amazon is any way a participant in this either actively or passively?
> Could you also elaborate on your thoughts on how and why Amazon should be responsible for what you call invalid and fake clicks? Is aAmazon any difgferent from Google Adwords, a generic PPC website ad, or any other type of ad serving platform? Do the people shouting click fraud even know what conversion rate to expect from PPC capaigning when it comes to products such as books? Are they even aware they can set a daily budget? 900, 70 or 4 dollars a day as a max, just pick a number
> ...


Are you not starting to see a pattern here?

Why are you even taking this stuff seriously? It's unproductive pot-stirring and sealioning, whether deliberate or naive, whether to get attention or innocently--the result is the same. Makes some stuff up, throw it into the ring and take advantage of the good will of serious answerers like you and me and others.

You can't answer someone who's not actually asking questions with an open mind--they've already made up their mind and are not asking real questions--they are looking for either validation, or an argument, nothing in between. They're not teachable, so why even try, when they're not open to learning the truth?

Every virtue can become a vice--and in this case, it's the virtue of patience and tolerance for deliberate muckraking beyond what's reasonable.


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## atree (Jan 1, 2019)

David VanDyke said:


> Are you not starting to see a pattern here?
> 
> Why are you even taking this stuff seriously?


I don't of course. I merely post as a counterbalance in the hope new authors don't take all this *bolded crap* to heart because it might derail their potential.

I suggest the OP is probably not an author nor an Amazon ads buyer.

Also, I'm not seeing admins being as pro-active as they used to be when the forum was under the previous regime. The bullwhip and cattleprod seem to have lost some of their edge. So I also post to see if they may somehow be recharged 

_Edited. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod_


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

That word as an accusation here at Kboards is about as welcome as the N-word. I'm betting that post gets edited by the mods real fast.

_Edited. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod_


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

How is it that we're not allowed to name names of scammers who had their account banned by Amazon, but it's OK to call Amazon criminal and fraudulent? And with no rational argument to back it up...just conspiracy theories and bold? Not to mention accusing people of being Amazon agitators.

No one would mind a proper thread discussing click fraud rationally. But...

*!!!!This thread is out of control!!!! 
*


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> So, now you're trying to manipulate the moderators by calling a poster a word which you obviously know is not allowed on this forum.
> 
> Maybe you should simply stop reading the poster's posts, you know, like put them on your "ignore" list. Just because you don't like their opinions doesn't mean they can't have them. What you can control is whether you read them or not.
> 
> ...


It's not inaccurate in this case...and it's not merely about overuse of bolding, or exclamation points, and other things disrespectful to decent and reasonable conversation, but about sealioning with these the-sky-is-falling and overstated, unsupported opinions. Call it what you will, it's muckracking, rabble-rousing, and deserves to be called out once it reaches an unreasonable level--when a bunch of very savvy people tell the plain truth in contradiction to the OP's out-of-thin-air opinion presented as fact--and prescriptively, meaning trying to tell people what they should think or do, in contravention to the facts and evidence.

It's starting to border on flat-Earth-level conspiracy theory stuff here, a pattern of it.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> I think Kboards has lost good posters in the past because they were chased off by the more controlling members.


I think Kboards has lost many, many good posters because of threads like this.

Mostly, the good posters who sold by the bucket load and started or contributed to threads that helped other authors with savvy insights have gone. They hang out in Facebook groups now.

And this is the type of thread we see so much more of. Hysteria. Amazon hatred. Bold. Exclamation marks. Conspiracy theories. Unsubstantiated accusations.

I don't think this forum will exist in another five years.


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

In my experience, it is those attacking the naysayers that are controlling.

Why even bother saying anything when those who footstomp "all is well, you're just hysterical" posts against any opinion rule the day?

Let me repeat: why bother? It is easier to leave Kboards.


_edited, PM if you have questions -- Ann_


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

TwistedTales said:


> Most likely.
> 
> I assume the mods are paying attention because they usually are. But the poster some people (and it doesn't seem to be many people) want to oppress isn't doing anything against any forum rules that I know about.
> 
> ...


Case in point, friends  Here we go again: name calling... offensive remarks... verbally attacking writers (me as an example) (BTW, of many books) and professionals (BTW in data analytics & computers, among others) they don't know at all, and asking moderators to block discussions -- is part of the RIDICULOUS AND PATHETIC TACTICS used by those "insiders" / "ambassadors," whose presence in this thread (and in the forum in general) is felt like hell. Anyone with a bit common sense gets the point real fast. They just try to threaten.

*But these hypocrites dare to call us, honest writers with legitimate concerns and actual evidence on Amazon Ad Fraud (in a huge Amazon Fake Click scheme)-- "trolls." *

*Don't they get the point that millions of us are constantly being ripped-off in this Fake Ads scheme? Where Amazon fails to account for the invalid and fraudulent activity in our accounts? It's only natural that we'll raise our heads and protest. *

All they want us to do is complain to moderators, and that those will "intervene" in their favor... But guess what, moderators are not dumb, and writers, in general are normally above average people. Many of us are highly educated as well.

*Their condescending, yet infantile approach, underestimates writers' ability as a potent group that can attest to the scheme in their current failing Amazon KDP (formerly AMS) Advertising Reports.*


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

I don't think many, if any, good posters left KB because of threads like this. 

Many of them left because of the TOS, and said so at the time.

Maybe some left because they didn't like their posts or stated positions challenged. 

But I doubt many left because of accusations here about Amazon's business model or tactics -- or failures, for that matter. Remember the book stuffing / scamming debacle? There was plenty of speculation going on then.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

jb1111 said:


> I don't think many, if any, good posters left KB because of threads like this.
> 
> Many of them left because of the TOS, and said so at the time.
> 
> ...


No one is leaving really; it's a pie in the sky story. All I can see is more and more "ambassadors" joining in with flattery attempts for the Zons, which feel pathetic. Amazon has bad reputation they are paid to defend.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

It's not about the message. It's about how the message is delivered.

Suppose someone says...



> "I think some AMS clicks are fraudulent. I don't have proof, but my conversion data from other ad platforms suggests it."


Most people are going to be courteous in response. They may disagree. They may agree. Either way, they'll state their opinions and move forward.

Now suppose someone says...

*AMAZON IS A FRAUD!!! THEY KNOW CLICK FRAUD IS HAPPENING AND ARE WILLING TO ALLOW IT BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM MORE MONEY!!!

HOW MANY OF YOUR CLICKS ARE FRAUDULENT??!! WE DESERVE BETTER TREATMENT FROM AMAZON. WE DESERVE COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY!!! *

Now imagine that person does this ad nauseam. In multiple threads.

It's no longer about the message. It's about the message's delivery.

This ain't the first time click fraud has been mentioned on this board. It was mentioned here. The matter was treated more seriously in that thread.

Why? My guess is that is has nothing to do with the message. Rather, it has everything to do with the message's delivery.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

^^^^^^^
Point taken. And it seems the people on that thread concluded that a certain amount of click fraud existed, at least in December, 2016. Maybe it's been fixed since then.

As I don't do ads, it's a non-issue to me presently, but still curious to read about.

RE: Amazon itself: I am a fan of the company. If it weren't for the Zon, many of us would be completely unpublished. Writing for fun only. Yeah, I'm sure there are glitches. In my year and a half being a member here, I've read about several of them over that time period.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Anarchist said:


> It's not about the message. It's about how the message is delivered.
> 
> Now suppose someone says...
> 
> ...


*Great delivery, thank you!* Now with regard to proof, as I mention in my initial post (had they bothered to read it) our never ending correspondences with Amazon's (totally useless and unprofessional) "robots" called amazon AMS/Advertising Customer Support-- CONFIRMED OUR ACCOUNT WAS ATTACKED BY FAKE CLICKS.

There were many cases/ ads we reported about, and all of them were investigated by them and confirmed (in writing, signed by a rep) to be scammed. However they refused to give us any data about the amount of the invalid clicks, invalid clicks rates, etc., in their reports-- they have it, but opt to conceal it from advertisers (unlike Google Ads) see screenshot attached.










We lost thousands on Amazon's Click Fraud, and we have the right to discuss and raise our concerns. We will also inform others and warn them, despite the ambassadors and other Zon's sycophants who endlessly complain about fonts and other minutia.

There are too many writers and advertisers at large (millions I guess) with skyrocketing ACOS rates, who pay Amazon Advertising for those SP Ads far more than what they earn from Amazon's sales of their books/products-- and that despite great books/products, great ad copies, large ad budgets, and competitive ad rates. They are basically being ripped off by Amazon and loose hundreds and some even thousands each month.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Just to confirm that moderators are even looking at this thread, could you please comment and confirm that you think all is well? Or not, as the case may be...

I'm getting really, really tired of being called an Amazon agitator. Although I'm greatful that now I seem to be getting paid to do the job. At least that's an upgrade.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Unlike Amazon Advertising, Google takes a proactive approach to Ad Fake Click fraud. Any click that is deemed as invalid is automatically filtered from the reports and billing schedules-- so you are not charged for them. And if any clicks have escaped their detection filters, you may be eligible to receive credit for them. These are known as "invalid activity" credit adjustments. Nothing of which exists in Amazon reports!

The "ambassadors" should let their masters know that unless they provide us with such Invalid Clicks activity detailed reports, the FBI might take on it.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Jack Krenneck said:


> Just to confirm that moderators are even looking at this thread, could you please comment and confirm that you think all is well? Or not, as the case may be...
> 
> I'm getting really, really tired of being called an Amazon agitator. Although I'm greatful that now I seem to be getting paid to do the job. At least that's an upgrade.


Sorry, Jack, had something written earlier today but forgot to post it before stepping out.

Some clean-up has been done in this thread.

Further application of the T-word will lead to a ban from posting in the thread. Such accusations are not allowed here. If you suspect someone is posting with the sole goal of creating conflict, you should desist from engaging with that person let the moderator staff know about the situation.

DrLiz52, even the vaguest suggestion that your fellow KBers are employees, spies, or shills of Amazon will lead to a ban from posting in this thread and/or further moderation actions. I let you know some fifty posts ago that such treatment of your fellow members was not acceptable here; I'm disappointed to see it has continued.


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## Flying Pizza Pie (Dec 19, 2016)

DrLiz52 said:


> Unlike Amazon Advertising, Google takes a proactive approach to Ad Fake Click fraud. Any click that is deemed as invalid is automatically filtered from the reports and billing schedules-- so you are not charged for them. And if any clicks have escaped their detection filters, you may be eligible to receive credit for them. These are known as "invalid activity" credit adjustments. Nothing of which exists in Amazon reports!
> 
> The "ambassadors" should let their masters know that unless they provide us with such Invalid Clicks activity detailed reports, the FBI might take on it.


I think these screen shots show how well Google takes care of what is obviously an issue. However, DrLiz52, I haven't seen reference to any credit or adjustment from Amazon. You said they admitted there was some click fraud. Did Amazon adjust your ad costs or billing charges?


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> Sorry, Jack, had something written earlier today but forgot to post it before stepping out.
> 
> Some clean-up has been done in this thread.
> 
> ...


Thank you. Much appreciated.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

jb1111 said:


> I don't think many, if any, good posters left KB because of threads like this.
> 
> Many of them left because of the TOS, and said so at the time.
> 
> ...


The TOS issue and scamming are very, very recent history. I was thinking of authors such as Russell Blake, Hugh Howey and HM Ward (and a lot of other big names) who stopped posting long before that.

Time was when kboards was at the cutting edge of marketing tactics for indie authors. The advice, comments and threads going around (as you can imagine with such high-level authors) was motivating and educational.

Now, we have far too many threads like this...


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

An inappropriate post has been removed.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

D. A. J. F. said:


> Yuz got no proof those people left because of threads like this.
> 
> Hugh Howey doesn't even post a lot on his blog, and he even stopped posting videos of his sailing adventures on YouTube.
> 
> ...


You're correct. I have no proof.

I haven't tried to silence anyone. I called for an end to excessive exclamation points, bolding and calling people Amazon agitators. I've also said, repeatedly, that no one doubts click fraud exists. I wouldn't mind having a logical and rational conversation about it. I wouldn't mind discussing the things that might indicate its occurrence. I wouldn't mind talking about tactics to safeguard against it. _None of that is happening in this thread. _

I also accept it's an inherent risk of business in any PPC model that exists on any platform. I also accept that Amazon takes steps to prevent it, but they don't detail what those steps are. This is a counter-scam measure.

I also accept that some people hate Amazon with a burning hot passion, and any thread is a chance to kick the boot in, deserved or not.

Perhaps I should accept too that the good old days are gone. This forum is not what it was.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Anarchist said:


> It's not about the message. It's about how the message is delivered.
> 
> Suppose someone says...
> 
> ...


Bingo.

Good writers know that delivery is critical to selling your message. This is especially true with peers. The equivalent of "Mommy, mommy, mommy," repeated 50 times in a louder and louder voice is not endearing and will convince nobody--and in fact, is something that needs to be disapproved of if we are to have a decent, relatively civil discussion board. That's not "shutting down" the person. That's hoping to shut down the specific behavior and bring it into conformance with community standards, no different than if we were standing in a room IRL and one person was doing things that constantly disrupted the discussion and introduced misinformation (disinformation?).



Becca Mills said:


> DrLiz52, even the vaguest suggestion that your fellow KBers are employees, spies, or shills of Amazon will lead to a ban from posting in this thread and/or further moderation actions. I let you know some fifty posts ago that such treatment of your fellow members was not acceptable here; I'm disappointed to see it has continued.


QED.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Flying Pizza Pie said:


> I think these screen shots show how well Google takes care of what is obviously an issue. However, DrLiz52, I haven't seen reference to any credit or adjustment from Amazon. You said they admitted there was some click fraud. Did Amazon adjust your ad costs or billing charges?












Absolutely, Google's Invalid Clicks reports show that Google takes the potential millions dollar loses of its advertisers very seriously. They probably don't want billion dollar legal suits. Their transparency also shows they treat their advertisers respectfully.

*Unfortunately, respect and transparency are not something that Amazon adopts, and that will ruin their reputation, unless they change their algorithms/ treatment of Fake Clicks completely, and provide us with detailed Fake Click reports.*

As of now, Amazon does not account for the invalid clicks in deliverable Reports, concealing crucial statistics on the invalid activity. Data such as counts of Fake Clicks, Invalid Clicks Rates, regions, interactions, and more parameters are not provided. Nothing at all about invalid activity... as if there isn't a multi-billion dollar ad fraud going on on their systems!

Suspecting Fake Clicks on many Sponsored Products (SP) Ad campaigns run by us on KDP (for years), we finally decided to turn to their failing customer support.

1. Our correspondence with various Amazon Advertising (formerly AMS) customer service reps, and also with some "managers," yielded the same cookie-cutter responses, such as your campaigns x,y,z were attacked by Fake Clicks fraud, but you won't pay for them.

2. Asking them to see "adjustments" and corresponding "Refunds" in the form of money back or in the form of activating our Ads for more time/budgets ended in refusal.

3. They said their system "detected" those Fake Clicks and "subtracted" them from the monthly billing reports.

4. *We can accept that or doubt their behind the scene "refund" for Fake Clicks (no trace of "adjustment")-- as they don't provide us any Fake Clicks data in the current reports to prove their claim those clicks were not charged.*

5. Why couldn't they write us to inform about these Ad Frauds in the first place? Great question, no response, aside their intentional concealment attempts. Why only after dozens of emails on our side, our concerns were proven right, and they finally admitted there is Click Fraud?

6. Asking them to give us further data on the Fake Clicks such as amount, rates, regions etc., was vehemently refused!

7. And most importantly, asking them to obtain an Invalid Clicks Report with all the aforementioned Invalid Clicks statistics was totally ignored!

8. Their response was a cold cut brushoff. Something along the line, your Ad campaign (there were many of them) is doing well, despite the clicks fraud. You were not charged for Fake Clicks, although they still exist on your campaigns. Fantastic.


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## atree (Jan 1, 2019)

atree said:


> This is a serious accusation.
> 
> Can you kindly elaborate? Links? proof? Can you submit a single author, or your own stats that prove Amazon is any way a participant in this either actively or passively?
> Could you also elaborate on your thoughts on how and why Amazon should be responsible for what you call invalid and fake clicks? Is aAmazon any difgferent from Google Adwords, a generic PPC website ad, or any other type of ad serving platform? Do the people shouting click fraud even know what conversion rate to expect from PPC capaigning when it comes to products such as books? Are they even aware they can set a daily budget? 900, 70 or 4 dollars a day as a max, just pick a number
> ...





DrLiz52 said:


>


So the OP presents us with Google a campaign info but still nothing from inside their Amazon campaign.

Here's a reminder to everyone following this thread: OP started it about Amazon, not Google. OP accuses Amazon of participating in / or ignoring click fraud on the Amazon Ad platform. Why show us Google stats on an Amazon campaign? For what it's worth, Google might be mistaken since they are not Amazon and are not tied into the Amazon Advertizing platform.

If you look closely at the screenshots the OP has posted (of a Google interface... not Amazon) they have conversion rates of 18%, 22.50% and 40%, which indicates
1) their campaign has been fantastically successful (so why the complaints?)
2) the conversion rate is so high it is doubtful the shown campaign is for a book (and this is a writing forum, about books...)

This is my last post in this thread, but again - if you are a new writer with little experience of your own when it comes to publishing, Amazon ads (or any other online ad platform) be aware that the OP keeps posting questionable info. Do not let it influence your willingness to move forward.


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## Flying Pizza Pie (Dec 19, 2016)

OP, I understand your frustration at not being allowed to see Amazon's click fraud info for your account. However, you do mention the reps at Amazon you were in contact with stated "your campaigns x,y,z were attacked by Fake Clicks fraud, but you won't pay for them."

So, it sounds like they internally do what Google does, and remove the costs associated with the click fraud. Based on my own website statistics for Google ads, Amazon ads, and campaigns on both Google and Bing/Microsoft, my own numbers for AMS seem to be reasonable. I hope they don't have click fraud, but demanding that Amazon prove any click fraud and that they aren't charging me for it seems unnecessary. 

So far, Amazon has been my best friend in publishing. I'll go blissfully on with my ads and take what happens until the ads aren't economically feasible and then stop.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Jack Krenneck said:


> The TOS issue and scamming are very, very recent history. I was thinking of authors such as Russell Blake, Hugh Howey and HM Ward (and a lot of other big names) who stopped posting long before that.
> 
> Time was when kboards was at the cutting edge of marketing tactics for indie authors. The advice, comments and threads going around (as you can imagine with such high-level authors) was motivating and educational.
> 
> Now, we have far too many threads like this...


Point taken, as I've only been on here for about a year and a half (if that), and wasn't aware of KB before then.

But Mr. Howey hasn't published a book in 4 years. Maybe he's done with writing for a while. If you're not writing, are you really going to frequent a writer's forum? Probably not. it looks like Mr. Blake is current, and posting on his blog -- a lot of what he says about AMS is mirrored here.

Maybe he, and others like him, just tired of going to one more forum or website. When you're writing, sometimes the internet can be a time killer. When you are new to the indie scene, you're going to be more active. As the years pass, the appeal of interaction perhaps wanes, especially if you have a business to run.

As for threads like this, the majority of the threads on the KB opening screen aren't like this one. I guess that's why I have more tolerance for their existence.

I think the tone on this particular thread is overblown, but it looks like the concern is valid. Perhaps it's based on the Zon's lack of communication about its addressing the issue.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

Could be.

Russell Blake is an interesting example. He seems to have confidence in Amazon ads - he's started to advertise heavily and has invested in a firm that manages Amazon ads for authors. It would appear he doesn't think it's all based on click fraud, scams and criminal behavior...


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

DrLiz52 said:


> As of now, Amazon does not account for the invalid clicks in deliverable Reports, concealing crucial statistics on the invalid activity. Data such as counts of Fake Clicks, Invalid Clicks Rates, regions, interactions, and more parameters are not provided. Nothing at all about invalid activity... as if there isn't a multi-billion dollar ad fraud going on on their systems!


*So, we've learned that:

A.) Amazon is withholding data concerning ad fraud, and

B.) Their systems are undergoing ad fraud to the tune of multi-billions of dollars.

To me, the interesting thing about this is how you managed to quantify how much ad fraud their systems are undergoing, without access to that data. 

Are you a hacker?

A rogue employee?

Someone who collaborated with a rogue employee?

Someone disseminating intelligence provided by any/all of the above?



*


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Another super-bolder set on ignore.

Mods: how is all-bold any different from all-caps, which is prohibited by KBoards policy?


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Mylius Fox said:


> *So, we've learned that:
> 
> A.) Amazon is withholding data concerning ad fraud, and
> 
> ...


*

First off, I'd suggest that you delete your offensive remarks, name callings etc., are disallowed on this forum and will be removed by moderators. 

Second off, one does not need any access to internal data to figure out ad fraud numbers. We do have access to open stats. You can Google it and find out how many advertisers there are on Amazon. How many Clicks are made (multi-billion), and from those ones, how many are Fake (multi billion).

Here is a snippet discussing Ad fraud online:

"Whilst there has been significant improvements in recent years - particularly from Google Ads - the threat and damage which click and ad fraud can inflict upon the PPC market is still very much increasing. Quite simply, this means a significant amount of advertisers' money is lost as a result.

In 2016 it was estimated that around $7.2 Billion dollars (5.4 Billion pounds) was lost to click fraud.

This increased to $16.7 Billion dollars (12.7 Billion pounds) in 2017, and it is estimated that $27.2 Billion dollars (20.7 Billion pounds) will be lost by the end of 2018.

Statistically, this is equivalent to a 227% increase over the course of two years! It's not just the monetary value which is shocking, it is also the fact that the click fraud statistics are significant over this relatively short period too."










Now this is overall statistics (not only of Amazon). But we can assume that as Amazon controls 49.1% (according to eMarketer's latest forecast on the top 10 US ecommerce retailers, up from a 43.5% share last year) percentage of the Ad market-- the Amazon Ad Click Fraud will still be billions of losses on Fake Clicks.

Bottom line: Ad Click Fraud statistics are significant, and we don't get them from Amazon. Yes, Amazon is withholding data. And yes, there is massive click fraud going on.*


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Jack Krenneck said:


> Could be.
> 
> Russell Blake is an interesting example. He seems to have confidence in Amazon ads - he's started to advertise heavily and has invested in a firm that manages Amazon ads for authors. It would appear he doesn't think it's all based on click fraud, scams and criminal behavior...


Or, he has factored it into his company's business plan, sort of like stores do with loss.

Interesting that he says on his blog that visibility will get poorer without AMS. I see that sentiment repeated here a lot. As if AMS is the new necessity.


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## Jack Krenneck (Feb 9, 2014)

I think that's it. I assume he's factored in that a certain amount of clicks will be click fraud. Probably a small amount, otherwise only scammers would profit. And lots of ordinary authors profit with Amazon ads. 

This is just the same thing that any other advertiser does factoring in that a certain number of keywords will be duds. Or that your losses will be higher when learning the system. Or that some keywords will convert well, but not profitably. It's just a cost of doing business. 

You eliminate what you can that doesn't work. You optimize what you can. And you accept that some things are beyond your control. I wish click fraud didn't exist, but it does. Even so, the evidence is that it's on a relatively small scale - or at least that Amazon's anti-fraud measures are keeping it to a relatively small scale.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Mylius Fox said:


> *So, we've learned that:
> 
> A.) Amazon is withholding data concerning ad fraud, and
> 
> ...


*

Problem is that those Fake Clicks consist of a large percentage of our total clicks and of our credit card billings each month...

They say don't charge for those invalid clicks, but they give us no proof in their reports. No statistics, no rates, nothing!

And looks like the recently added new features are focused solely on click profit generation for Amazon Advertising, disregarding their Click Fraud and our losses on it (multi-billion dollars (for all advertisers together) with no accountability on their side). 

Unless you have deep pockets, you should really be wary of those controversial SP Ads. With the new risk multipliers, the rip-off chance is going up.*


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## Guest (Apr 29, 2019)

David VanDyke said:


> Call it what you will, it's muckracking, rabble-rousing, and deserves to be called out once it reaches an unreasonable level--when a bunch of very savvy people tell the plain truth in contradiction to the OP's out-of-thin-air opinion presented as fact--and prescriptively, meaning trying to tell people what they should think or do, in contravention to the facts and evidence.
> 
> It's starting to border on flat-Earth-level conspiracy theory stuff here, a pattern of it.


+1

Shame it is infecting a number of threads now.


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## DrLiz52 (Mar 9, 2019)

Dear Tilly, Silencing authors with opinions you disagree or dislike, and calling to close media channels... are well known tactics authoritarian regimes often use to enforce their dishonest method of conduct. It has a very bad taste and smell, if you ask me.

But guess what: authors/ publishers/ advertisers are not stupid! I brought in various facts, correspondences, open source articles, as well as graphs and charts (including from other PPC providers (such as Google) to pin point a serious issue and malfunction of the current Amazon Ad system that lacks on what is shown in the graphs.

Since its inception, Amazon Advertising has not accounted for the invalid activity on our accounts, in a multi billion dollar scheme of Click Fraud. I can get you don't like to hear about it, (BTW, for a reason readers of this thread can easily guess).

But all we want to see from Amazon now is the Invalid Clicks statistics within their formal Reports. Such info should include the amount of Fake Clicks, Fake Click Rates, Fake Clicks Refunds in terms of money back, and Adjustments, and other stats as described above.

If Amazon falls short of furnishing such Invalid Clicks data, such as provided by Google (see below)-- it might be picked up by higher instances. It can also be an action of writers/ publishers and advertisers in general, who loose many hundreds/thousands of dollars each month (x multiplied by Millions of advertisers = equals Multi-Billions-Dollars losses!) as a result of this Ad Click Fraud. Amazon must definitely be able to account for the Fake Clicks and our loses in their reports.

*The following screenshots of Google's Ad Click Fraud Transparent Reporting are examples of information Amazon Advertising does not report. *




























_Edited at the request of the post's author, who left the word "not" out of the sentence beginning "The following screenshots ...." (Only mods can edit posts in locked threads.) Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Best as I can tell, this thread has, for the most part, devolved to name calling, from all sides. Certainly no one is really listening to each other -- y'all seem too busy thinking up what YOU can say next. And, really, everything has been covered so not seeing any added value in allowing the acrimony to continue.

I'm locking the thread ... if my fellow mods feel like it can be re-opened, they will do so.


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