Medical Spa Marketing: Protecting Your Medspa.

Is click fraud costing your skin clinic? If you're one of the tens of thousands of cosmetic medical practices, laser clinics and med spas advertising online with Google AdWords, it's likely that at least some of the money you're paying every month is sucked out of your marketing fund by click fraud.

The practice of "click fraud" began in the early days of the Internet with software programs that automatically surfed Web sites to increase traffic. This led companies to develop policing technologies touted as antidotes to the problem. (Some marketing executives estimate that up to 20%t of fees in certain advertising categories continue to be based on nonexistent consumers.)

You can be sure that it's already happening to your skin clinic, med spa or laser clinic? Here's a quote from Michael Caruso, CEO of click fraud services vendor ClickFacts in an interview:

"In particularly fraud prone verticals such as finance, class action lawsuits and medical, we see click fraud rates in the 30 to 45 perecent range. These are all categories that see high keyword pricing in the auction model. That makes them particularly tasty for click fraud artists. If you can make more money from the dark side than the light side of search, there are plenty of people who will take advantage. Plus, it's not even technically illegal yet."

There are two main ways that your medical spas and laser clinics marketing budget is being drained by click fraud:

First: your laser clinics and med spas competitors who see your ad simply click on it, draining your advertising dollars. Second; click fraudsters set up 'affiliate' sites are set up that run skin clinics ads where they are clicked on by bots or employees. These sites are the most damaging since you're paying for every click without any return at all. Click fraud around skin clinics, med spas or laser clinics can be very lucrative since dermatology or plastic surgery clinics are becoming such a competitive market and the payment per click can be as high as $4-6.

Unfortunately, to keep your medical spas budget safe you have very few tools. (Google just gave advertisers $90 million to compensate for click fraud as the result of a class action suit but you can bet they're not that Google's not interested in your individual account. Especially since they're making money from click fraud when your ads are clicked on.)

Start by limiting your medical spas exposure. If your dermatology or plastic surgery clinic is still running an AdWords or Yahoo campaign, they allow you to limit the maximum amount you spend in a day. Take advantage of this feature by limiting your maximum cost to what you can afford to spend. You can also look for the tracks of click fraud by examining the reports you might have available to you. Multiple clicks coming from the same IP address are a sure sign of fraud.

Malaysia has become such a haven for click fraud 'sweat-shops' that clicks generated there are completely discounted and Malaysian accounts for AdWords or Overture are not granted.

If you're going to run search ads, try to protect your skin clinic, med spa or laser clinic. You can be sure that you're the only one trying to.

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