Overview


The reports all include the clicks that were logged for all of your landing pages. You can see all these clicks in several ways:
  1. A listing that shows every click
  2. A listing that lumps together all clicks from the same IP address and sorted by IP address, and
  3. A listing that also lumps together all clicks from the same IP address but is sorted by geographic location.

What data are shown for each click in the on-line reports?


The data shown for each click include:
  1. The IP address. You can click on the IP address to list all clicks from that IP address. This is useful if you want to explore that IP address in more detail by, for example, expanding the date range over which clicks are searched for listing.
  2. The Location of the IP address based on data provided by MaxMind.com, a major supplier of geolocation data
  3. The Source of the click, which is useful for helping you see how much of your traffic is coming from your PPC campaigns and from which campaigns.

    • "organic". This is a click that does not fall into either of the following categories.
    • "PPC tag-value". A click is marked as "PPC" if the link that was clicked includes the "ppcpal=tag-value" tag that you included when you set up the landing page for PPC-pal. The value that you provided after the "=" sign follows the letters "PPC". This lets you identify the ad campaign and the PPC provider that led to each click.
    • "test". This is marked when the referring link includes the keyword "ppctest", for example on the Landing Pages/Test Landing Pages screen.

  4. Organization. Supplied by MaxMind.com.
  5. Network Speed. Supplied by MaxMind.com. Useful for seeing the quality of the network link with the visitors to your site.
  6. User Type. Supplied by MaxMind.com.
  7. Date and time of the click. ppcsafe.com also stores the click time in milliseconds, and this extra-precision field is included in the CSV download.
  8. Referring domain. Taken from the information provided by the user's browser.
  9. Count. When clicks are grouped by IP address, the number of clicks from the same IP address. Note that you can always click on the IP address to list all clicks individually.
Please note that if your account has a high volume of organic traffic, not all of the above information will be retrieved for all of the organic traffic. The PPC clicks will still have all of the above information.

What additional data are shown for each click in the CSV file?


  1. The date and time of the click with millisecond time precision. This value is expressed in "epoch" time, which is defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thursday, 1 January 1970, not counting leap seconds. It is commonly used to synchronize times in advanced computing systems.
  2. The values of all of the parameters you included in your PPC ad links. For example, if you assigned additional parameters before or after the "PPCpal=" parameter, the value for each parameter for each click will be shown in the column labeled with that parameter's name. When you load the CSV file into your favorite spreadsheet, you can sort on this column to group clicks according to their ad campaign.
  3. Additional geographic data, each in its own column, including country code, region code, and city name.

The "Show Every Click" Report


This report lists each click individually, grouped by landing page. You can click on any of the IP addresses to see a drill-down report that lists all clicks from that IP address.

The "Group Clicks by IP Address" Report


This report lists all IP addresses and the number of clicks from each address, grouped by landing page and sorted by IP address. You can click on any of the IP addresses to see a drill-down report listing all clicks from that IP address.


If you have linked your AdWords account to your PPCSafe.com account, your campaign performance (impressions, clicks, and invalid clicks) over the time span from the start of your campaigns, will be shown periodically. Currently, we are downloading these data three times a day.

The "Group Clicks by Geographic Location" Report


This report lists all IP addresses and the number of clicks from each address, grouped by landing page and sorted by geographic location. You can click on any of the IP addresses to see a drill-down report listing all clicks from that IP address.

How to Use Your Reports to Block PPC Ad Abusers


Most if not all PPC providers, such as Google and Microsoft, have a procedure to getting credit for click fraud.
  1. Identify who is committing the fraud. You can tell this by repetitive clicks from the same IP address or the same machine. Usually, a computer will have the same IP address when it is attached to a wired network, but not when it is connected by a wireless connection.
  2. Make a drill-down report showing the exact dates and times of the suspected clicks. You can generate this report simply by clicking on the IP address in any of the PPC-Pal reports.
  3. Expand the report on the suspected IP by selecting the earliest date available in the date window of the drill-down Report. This will ensure that you produce a record of all the clicks on record from that IP address.
  4. Identify the PPC provider for the clicks by examining the value of the PPCpal= parameter you inserted into the PPC ad's URL. You will find this in the report in the Source column.
  5. Contact the PPC provider, present the report, and request a refund for all of the fraudulent clicks.

Quick question: Why does nothing happen when I click on the Download PDF button?


  1. If you are using Google Chrome, the downloaded PDF file may be being put automatically in your default download directory. You can can instruct Chrome to prompt you for the download location in the "Settings" menu item. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Show advanced settings". Then, scroll to "Downloads" (between "Languages" and "HTTPS/SSL") and check the box labeled "Ask where to save each file before downloading".
    You can see the history of your file downloads by typing Control-I or by selecting the Downloads menu item from the main Chrome menu in the upper right-hand corner of the browser window. Either action will open an new tab with your download history.


    You can see the location and current contents of the default directory itself by clicking on "Open downloads folder" on the right-hand side of the top menu bar of the "Downloads" tab that you opened with Control-I or the Downloads menu item. Clicking on this link will open your operating system's file manager as a separate window to display the location and current contents of your default download
    directory.

  2. If you are using Apple Safari, look for a similar menu item and option box.