How Google Ad Words Is Getting You To Spend More

Google Wants to Help You To…Spend More…and this is how they do it

Fair warning. This post is more digital marketing [industry related] and may not be intended for the general business audience. As such, this may be painful reading for those not yet ensconced in the search. Read on at your own risk. Fair warning delivered. Moving on…

I wrote an article…one of my first, where I complained about the lack of service from those at Google Ad Words. You can read about it here. Not much for a post in 2009 but a post nonetheless. There was a time when the Google Ad Words team wouldn’t help you unless your business was spending at least $10,000.00 per month. Yes, it is true. I have been working in the search since 2002 and during the early years of the Internet [and yes, those were the early days], Google did offer whole teams to help optimize account for maximum effectiveness. Times were much different then. Easier in many ways and more difficult in others.

SEO was a twinkle in just a few marketing mangers eyes and paid search could make a company millions. In fact, PPC can still pull in millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands. I am a huge fan of PPC, in fact. Without question, PPC and drive highly qualified traffic and produce excellent ROI. However, over the past few years, the folks at Google Ad Words have been taking their collective jobs a little too far for my taste and I assume too far for the likes of other companies like mine.

You see, the folks at Google have been calling on clients regularly. Calling on as may clients as they can to help optimize campaigns and improve performance. Mind you, not just calling…but emailing…and following up…and emailing…and calling…and following up…getting you to spend more money. It seems as if the folks at Google Ad Words have gone a little too far. Their exuberance is surpassing their patience or surpassing their collective understanding of good business. In other words, their desire to help has had some negative affects on some highly performing paid search campaigns.

Sure, I have learned some new tricks. That is an easy task when Google continues to roll out new components and assets for Google Ad Words. For the help, I am thankful. But for the changes they have imposed on some of my clients and past returning clients…it has not been a very good thing. In short, Google wants to improve your overall performance to create a better search environment for users. Fully understood.

However, with many of the changes, they request or suggest; bigger monthly and daily budgets, higher bidding on keywords, and additions that will cost advertisers more money in the short and long terms. Yes, I do the same thing IF the situation requires it. But those people at Google carry some great authority and they can be very convincing. Of course they have done a great many good things within these campaigns as well. It can be very hard to decipher the difference between someone wanting to help just to help and someone wanting to help in order to increase the corporate bottom line. Make no mistake about it…Google makes BILLIONS off of Google Ad Words.

I fully respect Google, the founders, and those folks I have had the great pleasure to work with. But Google has to stop being the daddy of the Internet and paid search. There are hundreds of digital marketing professionals that know how to do the same job just as well as the insiders. Those of us that touch these accounts daily don’t need the insider/outsider creating more conflagration on the PPC cabin that has already been built. If I need any assistance, I reach out to Google Ad Words. And for all of their assistance I am grateful. I have stated such in several surveys.  But until I or any of us running PPC campaigns ask for help…or until internal folks at Google verify who is managing these campaigns…they should hold off on the calls, emails, and constant contacting. It is just a little too much.

Is it too much to ask just one more question prior to pilfering clients or asking for more budget? The question is…are you agency or proprietor? I believe it will open a door of opportunity and create better relationships. Thanks Google Ad Words team. I’m sure we will talk again real soon.

 

Hey Google, There Is A Fly In My Soup!

In a recent article by Kevin Lee, “When Did Google Become The Bad Guy” has inspired me to point out a few items which make me wonder if Google’s motto is still “Do no evil.” Sure just like any huge coporate organization, critics will abide and conspiracy theories will flow. However, there are some issues which make me really wonder how much good the biggest search engine in the United States can be.

Google’s Customer Service? Where in the hell is it?

I have had may oppportunites to work with various types of Google personal on the pay per click side of the house and on the affiliate side of the house. I can certainly attest that the Google Affiliate Team [at least the ones I have worked with] really go the extra mile to build relationships and help where they can. For that they get a big A +.

On the pay per click services…not so much. I have been in a few situations [especially when I started out in searchology] where any help from the Google teams would have done me and my clients a great service. It was made rather clear to me that; smaller budgets do not get any type of help from a live individual and budgets need to be upward of $5,000 in order to get noticed. Somewhere in my mind I had imagined Google was the grand waiter of the search service industry and I could lean on them if I had a fly in my soup or if I needed more help cracking the crab legs.

Google’s lack of service does not only lack on the paid search aspect but on the Google Analytics side as well. I have experienced many issuses with Google analytics tracking and conversion measurements. In addidion, the new one-click to conversion vs. many-click to conversion has not helped matters. I have attempted to reach out to the owners of this product with the black hole of voice mail and when I did reach someone my call was quickly dumped.

My short article here is not about Google bashing. I’m sure they get enough of that from much larger fish than Searchology . My point is simple…as American continues to rely on it’s skills as a service based economy, the importance of SERVICE [and excellence in execution] should be in the forefront of all business matters. Since when have large companies become exempt from building relationships with their users\clients as it pertains to service?

Do you need good pay per click service? You got it. Did I mention it comes with killer people and outstanding service AND it’s cheaper than Google?

Sure, Google has really cool tools and is one of the most innovative U.S. companies ever created but no service. I just don’t under stand that. I do know if you are paying tens of thousands or millions on paid search, affiliate marketing or banner advertising you can get top notch service from Google. Newsflash: Small business does not have thousands or millions to beg for attention or spend for online marketing. No, most small business are trying to take over the world one client\customer at a time.

I have driven many of my clients away from Google not because of the lack of cool tools or service [if you have the money] but because I can get better service and more for my clients money on another search engine. Yahoo. Yes, Yahoo. Many Internet marketing industry types bash the hell out of Yahoo and so does the press.

Truth be told, Yahoo (and you know who you are) have gone above and beyond for me and my clients on a consistant basis providing me with insight and more than one HAIL MARY pass to save the day. I am sure there will come a day that more and more small business owners will come to find out that Yahoo is typically 16% cheaper on a cost per click basis but moreover, they can help you when you need it.

In fact, they have been so good at service I am very concerned about the potential Microsoft\Yahoo deal. It has a way to go be I can only hope Yahoo will remain 1# [in my mind] for client service in the search marketing space. Google should take heed or it will find there really is a sleeping giant about to wake up.