Click Forensics: Botnet click fraud on the increase

Botnets aren't slowing down. That is the indication from the latest Click Forensics report in which researchers found that click fraud by botnets increased 10% in Q3 2008. Currently, about 27% of click fraud is attributed to botnets.

How to effectively mix online and offline ads to drive campaigns Mixing online and offline venues has been a growing trend for many marketers. The problem is blending offline with online effectively enough to justify a possibly larger ad spend than if only online or only offline were involved. A new report from MarketingSherpa sheds light on how on company used multi-channel ads to build brand and increase ROI.

Yahoo adds geo-targeting capabilities finally Geo-targeting for Yahoo advertisers has been launched this week. The new tool will enable search advertising marketers to fine tune campaigns and create more relevant ad clicks by selecting specific target locations.

Man killed wife in Facebook row A man has been jailed for life for stabbing his wife to death over a posting she made on the social networking site Facebook.

Google earnings: Report Google just released third quarter earnings. It reported revenues of $5.4 billion (about $4 billion after traffic acquisition costs are taken out, which is what Wall Street looks at) and profits of $1.3 billion. The $4 billion in revenues is right around what investors were expecting, and non-GAAP net income of $4.92 a share was well above the $4.79 consensus. Better control over costs contributed significantly to the upside surprise.

Pay Per Click: Advtise.com Targets every town in the world! With the ongoing battle between online marketers, Advtise.com has announced today that they are upping the ante with providing geo marketing to your local town, with a simple geo selection which allows you to select your customers precisely by town.

Newspapers’ Web Revenue Is Stalling Newspapers, already facing a grim economic forecast, are digesting another piece of bad news: the growth in online advertising they saw as their salvation has slowed to a crawl.

A Pop-Up Ad That’s Less Annoying In 2003, during the golden age of pop-up ads, the advertising research firm Dynamic Logic asked hundreds of people about over-content advertisements: ads that pop up from a Web page, lurk behind it or hover translucently over it like tiny digital storm clouds. Nearly a third of respondents said that such advertisements were “never appropriate.”

Google loses 60% of its employee stock value. Only eight days ago Google’s shares were trading at $411 and three months ago they were above $450. In that time, a lot of paper wealth has disappeared and along with it incentive for many ...