Hey Google: Instead of spamming the known universe with Adwords coupons for “new accounts only”, why don’t you let new advertisers actually run some ads for once?
There’s something completely broken with the logic of doing everything in your power to bring new businesses to Adwords, then arbitrarily making them pay a “newbie tax” combination of high bids/low Quality Score before their first ad has even had a single impression.
How many new businesses (even those who set up their campaigns according to “best practices”) decide to try out Adwords, only to find that they get an automatic 2/10 or 3/10 for their own brandname as a keyword? What kind of message are you trying to send to these new Adwords customers?
Why bother sending coupons up the nose of every small business only to slam the door in their face before they even set foot inside?
How about this: If anyone is brand new to Adwords, give them one week to actually see their ads run at a reasonable price. If their CTR is too low after a week, turn off their ads and tell them to improve the relevance of their ads or find some new keywords. If their ads perform well, just let them run.
Either that or improve the alignment of your internal business initiatives so that we can at least save some trees and postal stamps by telling the guys that mail coupons ‘there’s really no point’.
/rant
Couldn’t agree with you more. Now to see if Google actually listens. #fatchance
11.29.11 at 2:53 pm
Google AdWords coupons are the AOL install discs of the 21st century.
11.29.11 at 3:07 pm
Google spams me more then SMBs I think. I’m in the Google Engage program and they send me emails about once a week and recently they sent me direct mail postcards that I can send to my clients. Basically they want me to start spamming SMBs too!
11.30.11 at 2:49 pm
Google is looking “hungry” of Money doing this. I don’t think they are “short of cash” but should implement a different way to sell their own “making-machine” program.
11.30.11 at 8:04 pm
haha – love this post – 26 so far and counting – I even had 15 turn up in a lovely presentation box – all now in the recycle bin
12.01.11 at 2:59 am
Good point! However, there are some ways around this, such as being really agressive (when you launch for the very first time) with high bids and keywords (using modified broad and phrase), but only during a specific window of time (such as 8am-10am) and possibly even in just one geographical setting (e.g. Dallas, TX). For best results, it’s best to approach this test already knowing what TOD most searches happen (especially for the keywords that are best sellers online), and knowing in which geography they are most likely to search/buy. Also, you’ll need to set your campaign to accelerated delivery under the settings.
What you’re essentially doing is building a CTR and historical campaign data rapidly. It’ll also give you a good idea as to how well your campaign does within that timeframe/geography. However, this will only work on keywords/ads where you actually have a strong chance of getting a decent CTR (>3%). Because if you compete on popular keywords and don’t actually get clicked on, what you’ll have left is a lot of impressions, few clicks, an embarassing CTR, and a CPC that made you blow through your entire daily budget with just a handful of clicks…So choose your keywords carefully (preferrably long-tail and model specific keywords).
The best way to sum this up, is pick a spot and own it. If it doesn’t work, pick another and own it. And so on… eventually, you’ll have enough impressions, clicks, q-score, and impression share that you can turn the campaign on nationally and 24/7 with whatever resources you have. Just don’t expect that you’ll appear very often if you’re competing on popular keywords amongst large brands.
Good luck;)
12.01.11 at 2:40 pm
Google is not really looking out for your interests when they manage the pay per click. You need an agency to the work.
02.03.12 at 1:56 pm
Couldn’t agree more on this – I have a pile of them on my desk from clients who haven’t a clue what they are for – so as a marketing exercise – thats a fail to start with
04.16.12 at 4:05 am