Click Frauds Costs USD$800 million. That's an expensive transit lounge.

The San Francisco Chronicle published an article claiming that Click Fraud cost advertisers $800 million last year. Advertisers are claiming that 14.6 per cent of clicks are fraudulent and yet only 7 per cent requested a refund.

It's an interesting situation because pay-per-click looks like a great advertising model at first glance. Only it's half way there yet. The solution is not going to come from chasing fraudsters because there is no feasible way to do this effectively. The solution is going to come from monetizing the click further along the line -such as when someone actually purchases or downloads something from a client's site. This is known as CPA or Cost Per Action.

Of course, CPA is still in its infancy as far as a universal business model is concerned -in fact, odds are there won't be a universal business model for CPA. It will be up to the advertiser and the provider to work something out that is mutually beneficial and will vary from campaign to campaign.

What do we do in the meantime? Do we abandon Pay Per Click? Well, no. But we can move our money around online. According to the above article, 37% of advertisers are planning to reduce their click spend in the near future. Here's hoping they put that into some adventurous online branding: podcasts, viral video, etc. We are right up on the edge of a complete shift in how we market in an online space. All it takes is a few brave brands to beat the path.