A Pay-Per-Click (PPC) expert witness is a professional with specialized knowledge and experience in the field of PPC advertising, a.k.a. “Paid Search Advertising.” This expert can provide analysis, testimony, and insights in legal cases involving claims related to PPC campaigns, including issues involving keyword targeting, matching methods, and cost-per-click.
A PPC expert witness will generally have long experience in Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords), Microsoft Bing Ads, search network ads, and contextual advertising found on various other websites. Their expertise is often sought in cases involving claims of click fraud, improper ad placement, trademark infringement in ads, bidding disputes, or violations of advertising policies.
The PPC expert witness may be retained to review advertising data, assess the performance and management of PPC campaigns, and evaluate compliance with laws, ethical guidelines, and industry standards. They can explain technical aspects to the court, provide opinions on whether industry best practices were followed, and help determine the financial impact of disputed PPC activities. Their testimony can be crucial in litigation involving organizations, advertising agencies, or other parties engaged in PPC advertising.
Legal claims involving Pay Per Click advertising often include:
- Trademark Infringement from brand names appearing in the content of text ads
- Keyword targeting involving ads targeted to appear for a company’s brand name queries
- Keyword match types — Google’s options are: Broad Match, Phrase Match, and Exact Match
- Search engine methods for relating keywords with one another, such as synonyms, plural/singular forms, word stems, misspellings, and related industry jargon
- Change logs of accounts indicating when settings were changed and who made changes
- Analysis of PPC ad performance analytics
- Interpretation of PPC ad campaign trendlines and graphs
- Third-party competitive intelligence tools for forensic detection of competitor ad campaigns
- Defamation conducted through advertising text copy
- Deceptive ad copy and unfair trade practices
- Conquesting ad campaigns paired with landing pages that create a likelihood of confusion
- Negative keyword lists, which keep ads from being delivered for specific keywords
A Pay Per Click Expert Witness is qualified to opine upon PPC ad issues in litigation by training and/or experience. Google provides a certification program to establish that professionals are knowledgeable enough about their ad management system to set up and operate ad campaigns capably. The certifications can also validate sufficient experience for potential expert witnesses, although many of those in the internet marketing industry began working at managing PPC ad campaigns prior to the certification program becoming available.
The PPC Expert Witness will have many years of experience in operating ad campaigns for multiple companies. They should be skilled enough to read and understand campaign performance reports, and be able to explain how and why ads may have appeared for various keyword combination searches.
Chris Silver Smith has provided PPC Expert Witness services on dozens of cases, and has testified at depositions and trials. Smith has been Google Ads search certified and has managed pay-per-click ad campaigns for many years. Smith has opined in litigation involving trademark infringement via PPC ads, defamation, copyright infringement, unfair trade practices, Contact
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