Google Adwords: Suspensions & Warnings.. a Necessary Evil

I hate nothing more than to see advertisers get hurt. Having 100s of members with Adwords accounts, I’m in a unique position to see how it really affects the small, medium to large advertisers. Because we have all of them in the Blast Membership..

And I’ve seen this play out many times over the years. I’ve been running this membership since the end of 2005.

I’ve always teached my members to focus on Quality. It’s hard-wired into my training. Quality Merchants.. and building Quality Campaigns overall. But still, some fall into the trap of testing merchants or strategies that in the end hurt them.

Not always intentionally. Sometimes it’s just a novice or beginner mistake; but it happens to a ’small’ percentage. A majority of members are just fine after the changes I’ll talk about next here.. but a small percentage have been hurt and will need to shift their focus, improve their business and/or focus more on other PPC Engines (Yahoo, MSN).

This last week Google made another major sweeping move to clean up their SERPs. And it’s not been pretty for those that use specific strategies, have certain account histories or have a record of poor quality landing pages (either their own or the merchants they are promoting).

And it’s not just Affiliates; merchants have been hit this last week as well. If you hear or read that Google hates affiliates, that’s a myth. They don’t. They don’t even hate affiliates that send traffic direct to merchant (that’s not inherently a bad thing.. that’s just someone driving traffic for a merchant that’s ok with that).

They hate what a percentage of affiliates do to make money.. their landing pages, their complete lack of focus on Quality.. thin affiliates sites and strategies. Redundant, useless or unnecessary content prior to sending traffic to the merchant.

I’m just going to basically re-post something I posted in my private forum here in the Blast Membership.. you can imagine we have a lengthy thread on this. I couldn’t reword or say this better.

It’s always been this way though.. it’s not that they don’t give a **** about their ‘advertisers’. After doing Search Marketing for 6+ years, this is how I see their philosophy.

Improve the SERPs and they will keep coming and their users will keep growing. Make that the #1 priority. Advertisers will get hurt.. but many more will benefit. It’s the same way with Organic Search.

You don’t actually think if you focus on Free traffic you’ll be safe from algo changes do you?

They’ve had this policy for years and that’s why they are still a billion dollar company and crush their competitors!

See all the people saying it’s the end of Google or I’m never advertising with them ever again in the public forums (and here I guess..)? They say, there’s always yahoo and msn?

That’s a broken record.. I can’t count how many times in the past that’s been said by those in public forums because of major changes, shifts in the algo or quality score. Yet Google is stronger than ever and their user base is as devoted.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, but the reality is, the advertiser benefits from their focus on the user. That’s why we have so much traffic to tap into with Google. That’s why those of us that do stick in there and figure it out do so well.

It’s fact: The End User IS more important than us.. and we should appreciate that because that translates to the majority of us making more money.

If they just let advertisers do whatever they wanted, in the end their competition would exploit that.. or they would loose their base of users.

They are in the business of creating the best user experience and making search pure and the best it can be so they and we make more money.

People give Google a hard time for saying they ‘Do No Evil’; that it’s a total lie.. For some reason they think that has anything to do with changing their algo and QS to benefit the user which of course will hurt some advertisers along the way.

Understand the above is just my opinion based on my observations and having been a Search Marketer for 6+ years and an Adwords Advertiser since early 2004… and having coached a whole lot of people in the last 4 years.

In 6 months, a year.. Google will still be on top and there will be still advertisers making a lot of money; including affiliates..

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BUT.. I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH THIS.

You’ve heard the saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

There are 3 things you can do right now to secure your profits and business.

#1

As Blasters, we aren’t limited to just Google. Many of our members do heavy PPC advertising with Yahoo and some with MSN; I have campaigns in both engines as well. That’s smart.. taking your profitable campaigns and testing them there or focusing Blasting (launching campaigns) at those engines (including things you know Google doesn’t like).

#2

Also, personally, I consider myself a Search Marketer. Part of that is I did SEO and focused on free, organic traffic long before I did PPC; and still do. So it’s bred into me. But it’s not difficult to expand your piece of the pie by expanding profitable PPC campaigns into the realm of Organic Search.

#3

Use better strategies with Google and your other PPC Engines.. like list building or developing Authority Sites and Networks. Set yourself apart.. model the affiliates that are successful and improve on what they are doing. Bring Value and Quality to the table; give people a reason to love your site or to find it useful.

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So these are very concrete and smart things you can do to protect yourself.

The reason I stand today (along with many of my friends and members) while I’ve seen many, many advertisers lose everything and give up, is because I live this approach. I’m not dependent on one traffic source or even one niche.

Some things to think about.

-Matt Levenhagen

[Adwords Bidding] Should I Always Be in the #1 Position?

Let’s talk bidding strategies..

There are PPC Pundits out there that will tell you that first position is everything. That is THE goal. Forget it if you aren’t first page, at the top, in Google’s results.

That’s fine in some cases, but look, it’s not quite that simple. How you approach Adwords Bidding depends greatly on ‘what’ you are doing and how much ‘control’ you have over your campaign and landing pages.

Here are two instances you’ll run into problems:

Adwords Bidding for Direct to Merchant Campaigns

Yes, some people still do have ‘Direct to Merchant’ campaigns running. Sometimes it’s the best option for a given keyword phrase. There’s no reason to make buying traffic go through another step to buy; and Google will reflect that in the Quality Score. I have campaigns that are direct where my Quality Score is 10 and no matter what I do my landing pages are always 7 or below.

But if you are going Direct, you have less control. You still can control click through rates, write better ads, choose better keywords, target better, exclude, use negatives etc.. but beyond that, you won’t (in most cases) have any control over what happens on the landing page.

LANDING PAGES are sometimes where it needs to happen and where you can separate yourself from the pack. You can capture e-mails, follow up or use other techniques to increase your conversions. But if you have no control, you will find it hard to compete with other affiliates that do or the actual merchant’s campaigns.

Competition is Embedded… And Very, Very Good.

Yes, it would seem some individuals talk like they can kick anyone’s butt. But I guarantee for every person that says that, there are advertisers that are better than them in some market somewhere. Some of the best players in some markets don’t sell info products or run blogs related to PPC.

You’re simply going to find yourself in situations where a person can out bid you all day long because they have the budget too. They may defend a space even if they aren’t profitable. Or they are very, very well established and have such an incredible sales funnel where it’d take you years replicating it. If you can ever.

Face it.. you can’t be the best in every market. You can find markets you can be; but it’s not always possible. Be realistic.

Bidding Strategies are Diverse Depending…

See, yes, in one person’s world, their market, they can say things matter-a-factly. But the reality is, that’s maybe true in their market, but not in every market and situation. So don’t let them pull your leg.

Some people that teach Adwords aren’t doing Affiliate Marketing, have narrow experience or have flawed advice if they don’t know what YOU are doing specifically. Not knocking a lot of the coaches and teachers out there, just driving home the fact that it’s not always cut and dried.

I explain this in the Blast Guide. I highlight the fact that if they seek advice from others online and with Blasting that they get that advice in the Context of Blasting or run it by us who are Blasting. Because what we are doing is different than most.

Blasting is a great method.. but it is different than anything else out there in many respects. And although someone’s advice may seem logical (and they have an authority status), it’s only logical with the methods they themselves are using. Not necessarily in what ‘We’ or ‘You’ are doing.

The better strategy is to do the best you can with your given campaign and using the tools you have at your disposal and following the advice and guidance of those you learned the methods from primarily.

Test different positions etc, and use tactics like capturing e-mails if you can, but don’t be in “I suck at this” mode just because you can’t rank #1.. Sometimes, it’s ok to just be #2, 3 or 4.. if you are making a profit, who cares right? Just do that best *you* can, keep learning and improving.

-Matt Levenhagen