Moose on the Loose

In relation to Google’s Trademark Policy Change, I will expand my thoughts in due course, but you can view existing blogs & threads at the footnote of this blog entry. They cover quite a lot of opinion, for which I will precis in conjunction with my own viewpoints at a later date, but make sure you read these as it will give a better overview of the whole topic & the vulturism of those I deem as carnivorous annelid worms of the class Hirudinea, plus it will lead you into this next maybe slightly controversial observation / option (not necessarily opinion)

If a network, the BGG’s & the merchant have no consideration to the cookie over-writing of other affiliates, why should there be a consideration from content affiliates to their self professed omnipotent attitude & contempt in their treating of content affiliates.

Now, some might argue that two wrongs don’t make a right, but if you want to reclaim back some of what you may have unduly lost, then perhaps it’s reasonable enough for self preservation purposes to be a competitor of the merchant’s BBG.

By simply removing yourself or expiring the relationship with the merchant who has a BBG. Thus meaning the network has no jurisdiction over the relationship anymore & cannot be involved in any dialogue or reprimanding.

You can then bid on the brand / hybrids [brand+generic] / mis-spellings & promote a competitor who doesn’t have any clauses objecting to or you can arbitrage instead .. this Google policy change will be an arbitrager’s paradise. Noting : that hybrid terms [brand+generic] are less detectable in the sense they are often mistakenly identified as brand bidding when it was broadmatch on the generics anyhow. Make sure you use the Google Keyword Tool and check out synonyms, you will see that there is a lot of correlation for what is known as expanded match or I refer to as synonym. With the impending automatic matching this could prove even more beneficial.? Let’s consider it divine retribution.

Two wrongs can make a right, if any networks with BBG’s don’t have the respect for content affiliates & cookie over-writing, breaching contracts without proper disclosure, then why should content affiliates give an iota in return. Now as a competitor bidder you may not be able to have the brand in the ad copy, ad title or display URL .. so your click thru rate (CTR) maybe less & minimum bid maybe slightly more, but as long as a competitor advertiser is making a positive ROI which is what it is about (unless is a brand building exercise) then for every £1000 you earn thats £1000 less for the BBG’s and £300 less (30% override) for the network, plus in tandem there is a trimming of the fat from the fat cats from both ends, the BBG’s CTR will decrease, minimum bids rise & ROI reduces.

So am I advocating this? You’ll have to decide for yourself, and be happy with your own conscious if you partake. But this is business and its survival of the fittest, these BBG’s & the merchants / agencies are affecting your bottom line without any care for you i.e it’s like an additional stealth tax. If your tax rate went up 20% you wouldn’t think that was reasonable would you? Therefore I will have no sympathy with all those parties involved in a BBG whether it be an affiliate, the merchant / agency or network … and those affiliates going head to head with the BBG’s won’t get any complaints from me.

Now, the problem is decent merchants will be affected by this too, so the gauntlet is if you decide to target merchant brands, then only go after those merchants with BBG’s. I’ll happily shared compiled lists of merchants with other affiliates.

I do have a solution to BBG’s which can benefit all, which I blog later, which would be a win win situation for most.

Forthcoming Blogs:

1) A Solution To BBG’s group (before the idea gets nicked and a network or merchant does themselves.)

2) My Viewpoint on Google’s Trademark Policy Change?

3) How Long is a Piece of String? (The Answer)

4) Why I Am Considering Moving Away from CPA to CPC

5) Which So Called Leading Strategic Networks We Are Going To Dump & Why

Read these blogs & threads to keep up to date with Google’s Trademark Policy Change

• AdWords – Brand Bidding Group Feeding Frenzy Ahead !?

• The 10 Affects Of Google’s Trademark Policy Changes For Affiliates

• The new Google UK Adwords Policy – My view on the pros and cons

• Google Opens up Brand Name Bidding

• Google Revises Trademark Trigger Policy

• Should We Be Worried About Google’s New TM Policy?

• Which Network Do You Think Has The Most Brand Bidding Groups?

• Google trademark policy change

• Google Trademark Shake Up in UK

I don’t know if you have noticed, but Wikipedia is not listed in Google UK, nor does it have any pages listed, which seems a bit asinine.

Click Here to Search Google UK for Wikipedia

Fortunately?! for Wikipedia they are listed in on Google (The Web), but then it is subject to Google’s embedded site search … Google Embedded Site Search – Brand Abuse ?

Hot News From Google HQ

Here is  some hot news from Google HQ which other affiliate buddies have already blogged, just make sure you are sitting down when you read it. All I can say is that one of my recent blogs will become even more applicable … To Not Appear or Not To Bid … That is the Question. Have a peruse of the following.

Google Trademark Shake Up – Apocalypse Ahoy ! by Shane

Google UK Gives Trademark Triggers The Bullet by Jason

AFK for a while?

My basecamp shall be relocating for a couple of weeks for fairer climates with a few affiliate colleagues whilst we drench ourselves in Ambre Solaire … sizzling like sweaty sausages in the sun.

Out of Hours Bidders

As you maybe aware, when I “work” I tend to burn the midnight oil & continue until the sun has well and truly risen in the east, during this time I do notice a significant number of out of hours brand bidders, which day in day out seemingly go unchallenged, which leads me nicely to my next piece of exciting news (well for me anyhow).

The Grim Reaper Unleashed … Soon

To curb these out of hours bidders The Grim Reaper is soon to be unleashed into the public domain for more suitably commercial purposes, for those several networks which have been turning a blind eye to pocket the over-ride or not covertly monitoring the PPC environment satisfactorily, it will probably turn out to be their Nemesis, simply because it won’t be taking any prisoners.

It is generally acknowledged & agreed that 0% commission has no place in the affiliate marketing space. There are enough threads & blogs pertaining to this which I will append later where several merchants were bought to our attention.

However, haven’t we been overlooking finance merchants?!

Now a finance merchant may have a suite of products ranging from various types of insurance to loans to credit cards.

If you examine the plethora of finance merchants available for affiliates to promote, do they all offer commission on their full suite of products? The answer is no, such that a program might only offer commission on a lesser popular product like business / commercial insurance when their core selling products might be car or home insurance which are all very easily accessible from the primary landing page and are on the main merchants site. In some instances I beleive this is intentional, for those which it is not .. well it’s very convenient isn’t it?

In my personal opinion these program are a bit of a scam offering commission on what I believe are lower traffic areas of their site. In a way similar to a merchant offering zero % commission on products.

Granted some finance merchants may have a program set up for one of their core products like car insurance products, again, what about all the others within their suite?

There are enough examples of this on several of the networks if you take a few minutes out to look.

Cookie Cross Pollination

You’ll also notice that quite often with finance merchants, if they are offering commission on different products, they split these into different programs, one might be for selling car insurance & the other might be for home insurance. Assuming the affiliate is signed up to both programs, does the cookie pollinate across the programs? i.e. the customer visits via the home insurance link but might end up purchasing car insurance.

Why are we generally NOT fully informed?

My Gripe With OMG

Don’t get me wrong, there are a smashing group of people there. OMG can be considered primarily as a finance orientated network.

What grates me is that individual products for each merchant are separated into different programs, granted there maybe different budget allocations to each, but are we informed which have cookie cross pollination or more still why can’t we simply have one link which encumbers all for a specific finance merchant & then as long as we are signed up to their other products we’ll still receive commission from these. Personally I find it a real pain having to sign up to multiple programs of the same merchant & have multiple links which I might not need, many with the most lengthy superfluous program names I can imagine. ie Endsleigh Insurance on OMG have 7 seperate programs & Buy.at have simplified it under the single program which is preferable.

Just imagine a retail merchant offering several thousand products & thus having a program for each product?

Come on OMG make life easier for us, you might find you’ll actually get more sales by simplifying & please get rid of all those brand bidding groups which I noticed when going through your merchants at the weekend.

Summary

On the whole I do think finance merchants have generally been getting away with things lightly & whether intentionally or conveniently enjoying the free ride on the gravy train, unless they offer commission on their full suite of products they could be deemed as merchants offering 0% commissions, thus why should different rules apply to them?

No doubt we’ll get counter explained as something about budget allocation & different departments of finance merchants versus the mark up & profit margins on retail products.

It looks like another big bear hug is in order for the guys up at Paid On Results with their latest development catering for expired links and closed programs.

Dead Links are Alive! … Like a phoenix which rises from the ashes ensuring that those potential extra pennies find their way into the coffers of affiliates.

• “Paid On Results launch a unique way for Affiliates to deal with expired links. In the ideal world, as Merchants close a program, Affiliates will nip on and remove the links replacing them with relevant new Merchants. However, we are very aware that the time involved in just hunting down the links over a number of sites can be very time consuming and, as one large affiliate pointed out, some times a few links get lost in the mix and are very hard to track down. “

Now affiliates have their own preferences on how they wish expired links to be treated, from the options below it seems they have catered for a vast majority of choices which include:

• “Display the standard expired Merchants page, with related Merchant links.”

• “Display your own customised expired Merchants Page. You design it and we automatically insert the most relevant Merchants from our Network.”

• “Continue to redirect to the expired Merchant as normal. Of course no commission will be paid.”

• “Redirect to any URL of your choice.” (My Personal Preference)

• “You can even show related Merchants links with the cut and paste in code that we provide.”

By default, if you do nothing, they will display the standard expired Merchants page, with related Merchant links.

This will all cater for all historical programs within Paid On Results, for example you can send the visitor back to a page on your site and show relevent merchants along with your own content.

The system is about you sourcing & removing your dead links whilst the information emails come in, so you at least have the benefit of potentially making some money in the short term until you have removed the dead links, where previously you were making zilch.

It doesn’t just stop there, if that wasn’t enough, you are even alerted to potential sales from the defaults page for merchants you might not be signed up with.

• “If one of the related Merchants we have chosen on the expired Merchants page is not one you’re an Affiliate of currently and if you make a sale via this Merchant you will be sent an email inviting you to join the program. If you do so within 7 days of the sale and are accepted (note currently we only show Merchants with an auto-join policy) then you will be rewarded with the sale. You should consider removing and updating your expired link with this new Merchant as clearly your customers are interested in buying via that Merchant should a sale happen. “

• “The new system doesn’t just do all that, we will also email you every day with a list of expired link locations that have been clicked on (note that you do not get an email if nothing was clicked on). This will allow you to more effectively find and deal with old links on your website, and will hopefully lead to greater conversion as your site is full of live Merchants you can actively make money via.”

I am looking forward to seeing this in action, because when I view the reports on some other networks, I do see a number of clicks for merchants which have closed and don’t have the foggiest idea where they are coming from.

Even at this moment I am tediously spending a couple of days cross referencing programs across several networks whose can’t quite grab the conception of communication, perhaps it’s too long a word for them to comprehend. But from two of the four networks we feel are notorious for this. One had about 15 program closures we were not notified about & another was 40-50.

Cheers Paid on Results for looking after my pennies so that the pounds will look after themselves. Dead Links are Alive!

One may say be a fat affiliate for longevity & survivability another may say be a thin affiliate to milk the cow whilst it is fat. Why is it one or the other?

Simply do both at the same time & it’s a potential win win situation.

At the moment we hear these buzz words like … “thin” … “fat” … “length” … “girth”, take your pick on whatever grabs your fancy, but realistically in 5 years time, 10 at most, what is affiliate marketing going to look like? Is it going to be recognisable?

Some folk might reference to the classification of that current buzzwords “Web 2.0” & “Social Media”, where we could point to a few individual sites which may possess sustainability qualities, or do they? U-Tube (I still like) which might have a longer slow burn than Facebook (the novelty factor wore off quickly for me) & very much like an evolved version of Friends Reunited or Classmates. Where if you refer to predecessors like Friends Reunited & My Space, which with hindsight are maybe now considered as passing fads, but these are successes for only a few.

Please note using “Web 2.0” for monetisation is a different conversation and it’s worthwhile checking out Lee’s Blog … Guide: Social Media & Affiliate Marketing (Speaker’s Notes) which is from his excellent presentation at A4UExpo.

Hypothetically speaking, assume a network cuts 4000 cheques a month for those meeting the minimum payment threshold. Maybe a quarter of those do affiliate marketing full time, I haven’t checked the census.

However, you can’t have 4000 Facebooks or U-Tubes, so what will happen to those 4000 cheques cut or 1000 affiliate who are full time businesses. Will it evolve or evaporate down to a concentrated few hundred fat cat affiliates, if that even, who have the resources to recoup a healthy income.

Hold on though … Facebook, MySpace, U Tube, Friends Reunited are NOT affiliate sites, so why are they even referred too by affiliates?

What are good examples of “fat” affiliate sites? I don’t go around checking what affiliate sites are out there, so I admit that is ignorance on my behalf, unless someone wants me to offer an opinion of their site. I am only familiar with a few friends sites, who are as long in the tooth as me, and yes they are certainly top notch.

However, could we partially, not wholly, blame networks in not providing the tools over the past 5 – 10 years to expedite affiliates into developing fatter sites, or should this lay at the doorstep of the affiliates for not taking more initiative.

Google may have inadvertently revealed another one of its underbellies, and there are few to be exploited. If you read Shane’s Blog … Google Embedded Site Search – Brand Abuse ? Apart from the valid points on there like a bigger wedge of cash derived from advertisers, and brand losing their brand status cos of the search capabilities, thus levelling the playing field a little. Yet, Google keeps advocating spin about “content rich” sites and so forth, but hang on if these so called “content rich” sites become too “sticky” then it means less users going back to Google to search & less advertising revenue for them. So would they want to list sites which are too sticky, well in theory no, but they want decent search results thus thin ones are thrown into the mix. Thus Google’s Embedded Site Search may have been the compromise, illustrating that Google is keen to keep search on it’s own site for revenue driven purposes. That’s the clue, the philosphy of keeping search on your own site.

A couple of years ago I suggested that if most affiliate sites had search functionality on their site i.e. organic search, I don’t mean just for products on their site. Then it will give less reason for visitors to leave & use other search engines. It won’t be much of a dent initially, but will depend how well you market it, how good the results are & how many affiliates embrace it.

Thus we have the following pointers for Survival of the Fattest

• Affiliates develop their own search engine & market themselves? I hear affiliates are quite good at this thing called marketing.

• Affiliates start having web search on their sites to keep users within site.

• Affiliates in different niches combine content or different verticals for one super site.

• Affiliates start planting the seed to users of other search engines apart from Google.

I am a little more optimistic, that with the right consolidation of skill-sets within this industry, affiliates can make a significant dent in the monoliths monopolisation, not go head to head, but out flank them. Affiliates know how to manipulate traffic & inform users, they just need to be more shrewd in how they do it.

i.e. Do you add content to Wikipedia or do you add content to your own sites or better still get users to add it to yours on various niches instead of Wikipedia. On the whole I find this whole content discussion thing viewed as too black & white with buzzwords used too liberally once again.

Crib Notes: Google Adwords

One thing I will say, Google looks for a shopping cart, with some direct to merchant paid search we have done has in the past, the ads have been affected for those merchants where the secure transaction went off site, it was something Google mentioned to us in passing as they were also looking for an on-site shopping basket, and even though the sites had decent enough content, they considered it a bridging page.

Maybe you should trial having ALL external links from your site going via redirects & https (note https !!!) & rel=”nofollow”. Fake the basket.

When using adwords, treat your sites as disposable & don’t get emotional about them, like SEO I guess you never know when you might get hit & are no longer the teachers pet, simply play kiss chase. They hit you by kissing your proverbial backside goodbye, you run (copied content over to another domain), they chase, rinse & repeat.

Just because you get spanked it doesn’t necessarily mean your content was bad, make a few modifications & whack up a new one. This maybe “thin” & “narrow” minded, but it’s no reason why you cannot operate as a “fat” & “thin” affiliate concurrently, why should it be one or the other?

Your “fat” site can then be your fallback biatch.

What exactly is unique content? How can we define it once and for all?

I don’t know the answer to the question, so I am asking the question instead.

Then I will come onto what is recognised by search engines as unique content and how to avoid duplicate content issues. There are easy ways around duplicate content issues, which I ‘llexplain later as well as how some ultimately comes down to copyright, they are distinctly different.

As for Fat Affiliate or Thin Affiliate … my answer is in allegory … Does one buy milk from the supermarket? … or does one buy a cow & milk the cow whilst it’s fat for oneself.

Is it simply the volume or detail & description that makes something perceived as unique? What one’s perception of unique content might be, may not be to another. By scrambling the same words around & injecting a few others, in theory (whatever that theory is) does it actually make it unique? Thus are we using the correct adjective?

Is content simply something which is reworded, rephrased, re-mocked or rehashed & then put out there in some form, is it basically one & the same thing?

How many ways are there to describe a widget or the paint colour chart at your local diy store. Unique & quality is down to user & individual perception / evaluation, what you call light blue I might call topaz, what you call green I might call jade .. or ..

• Woodgate scored the winning goal for Spurs

• Woodgate headed to score the winning goal for Tottenham Hotspur

• Woodgate leaped high above Cech outwitting him to head the winning goal in the Carling Cup Final

• Woodgate leaped high above Cech outwitting him to head the winning goal for Tottenham Hotspur in extra time of the Carling Cup Final to beat Chelsea 2-1 and win their first major trophy since 1999.

The result is the same .. Woodgate scored the winning goal! .. so is any more unique than the other when it boils down to basically the same point?

Writing your version of an event or a product is still a re-edited version of the event or product detail, where it probably becomes more unique is via personal experience of an event or use of a product or experience of a services.

Do affiliates need to oversell, pre-sell or worse still pre-sell twice

Prefill the Basket – Don’t Presell the Customer Twice

Now for the Pise’ La Resistance

What is recognised by search engines as unique content, and a way of avoiding duplicate content issues & what some ultimately comes down to copyright, is distinctly different.

Let’s take a hypothetical example … you copy a full blown article from Wikipedia …

Say for example something about Imhotep, the first architect of the pyramids of the non royal population of Egypt, and the first mortal to be heralded as god-like.

How will the search engine spider measure unique content? On the site it will display exactly the same as the Wikipedia article, however the source code is different. Using simple coding you can randomise which words appear as hard coded, which display via javascript & which appear image based. The spider / bot cannot fully differentiate, by randomising the process you can fool the search spider / bot into thinking you have unique content which is constantly /intermittently changing (thinking its updating) through simple randomisation. Thus, though there might be copyright issues for articles or you have used the description from a merchants product feed for example … to the search engine you have fooled them into thinking it’s unique content & you’ll potentially avoid content duplication penalties.

I am not questioning the need for unique content, but questioning what the true definition is & if we use the adjective “unique” or phrase “content is king” too liberally, without analysing the actual core substance of the written material.

Just a little thought for you, expanding on a recent blog entry, is for paid search affiliates to be a little wary of a possible trend in the keyword policy for merchants, whereby merchants will start restricting you from not only bidding but also APPEARING / SHOWING. Putting you at the mercy of Google’s expanded match or possible full introduction of automatic broadmatch or any other paid search engine’s broadmatching algorithmn.

First of all let’s cover some real basics, and I mean basics.

Currently most merchants with restricted keyword policies say don’t bid on their brand, which is fair enough, though they should ensure they actually register the official marks they own with the respective paid search providers.

The misspellings & variations has a different discussion of its own pertaining to it’s merits, though these keyword policies too are respected. However, does a merchant really know what they ALL are? The answer is NO, so in essence the standardised “no misspellings & variations” policies you see illustrates that either network or merchant or both isn’t thinking outside the box. For example is that merchant appearing in number one spot organically for those? Many merchants foolishly think that because they might appear number one or high up in organic search, even on their brand, they get a 100% CTR, when by rule of thumb it is probably a fraction of this. Even if you think reasonably, say 60%, that is still 40% leakage! Which can be offset still further (not completely) with a paid search advertisement in place, assuming they know ALL the variations & misspellings?

What merchants / networks fail to realise is that paid search & seo are not so different entities, if you ask this simple question.

“Do you agree that it’s unreasonable to expect a merchant to pay commissions on sales generated on their brand name by affiliates appearing in organic results?” … My answer is that I think it is unreasonable. Each has an element of cost & can be influenced to a certain degree but not ultimately controlled because of paid search & search engine algorithms. How do you know you haven’t had sales deduped becuase the last clickcame via a merchants own organic listings?

So many merchants / networks show there naivety on this alone!

A similar understanding can be thrown in the mix with hybrid phrases (brand +generic), there is then a likelihood of an increased number of sponsored ads bidding on the generic element, with merchants holding the brand part, still mistakenly thinking they get a maximum CTR rate from organic search, though if they are marrying this with paid search too (assuming they know ALL the hybrids, this is more measurable metric)

This related article will assist in the discussion to.

Say No ! to Restricting Affiliates Using Generic Terms in Paid Search Advertising

Now for the point of the blog …

To Not Appear or Not To Bid … That is the Question

Being asked (not dictated to like a scolded child) not to bid on brand, is fair enough, if an affiliate is using generic & product terms, a network / merchant / agency forcing negatives to cover expanded broadmatch issues & the possibly impending automatic match is over stepping the boundaries. Issues with Google’s algorithm for example are between the network / merchant / agency and Google et al … not the affiliate.

Ethical affiliates will respect not bidding on the brand & even misspellings / variations, but poppycock to negatives. Paid search affiliates will have thousands of adgroups & a number of accounts. To negative match every adgroup, account. merchant or site they promote is not only impractical, impossible but also unreasonable.

Put the boot on the other foot, If affiliates turned around to a merchant and demanded that the merchant put in a negative keywords for EVERY affiliate … i.e. 20,000 affiliates … which is an equal & reciprocated demand, do you think for one nanosecond that the merchant or network would agree or comply with this? No, they wouldn’t … so back off!

Now for the foreseeable trend, which affiliates should be wary off. Merchants & networks are going to try & circumnavigate this Google or paid search broadmatching problem by sneakily introducing a clause instead of saying you CANNOT BID on a phrase, YOU CANNOT APPEAR or SHOW FOR A PHRASE.

Take this as a warning, a few parties are really going to try this on by forcing negatives on paiod search affiliates.

Thus, yet again I refer to the aforementioned reasons, the onus is on the network / merchant / agency to register their actual marks with the paid search providers and apply pressure on them to stop aggravating affiliates. Any network that permits this to continue can expect an exodus of paid search affiliate (whatever the degree) unless they STOP putting the onus on & dictating to affiliates, because affiliates will bite back twice as hard or worse still simply abandon you.

So remember, forcing negative keywords is no jurisdiction of the network or merchant or agency. If you do, then you’ll need to re-examine the Pyramid of Perception.

Click Here for the Pyramid of Perception

Stop thinking SEO & Paid Search are different entities, preventing a merchant from appearing in organic search to a certain degree is just as easy or hard. So why aren’t SEO affiliates having the same restrictions imposed on them, ranking reasonably on Paid Search or Organic Results has their own elements of individual skill.

Why not turn to a SEO affiliate and say no more meta tags or name=”robots” content=”index,follow” or forcing javascript or images to be used for wherever the merchants name, variation or misspelling is mentioned.

Totally unreasonable isn’t it! Then in the same manner so is forcing negative keywords on paid search affiliates! When it seems there is lack in equality of who is receiving all the slaps by the happy-slappers, when perhaps neither paid search or seo affiliates should be be getting slapped at all.

Part of the problem is the training & perception of many network employees & merchants was incorrect from the start, so much so that it becomes ingrained as a bad habit, which needs to be reprogrammed, as bad advice is being given out.

But please heed this warning, as these are & will be further introduced without you fully realising and only then will it be from a network taking the side of a merchant, which is a familiar story with several networks. If it does, dump that merchant & if persistent the network too.

They perhaps can sometimes be more perceived as a sheep in wolf’s clothing, rather than the traditional saying as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

I am just wondering if it would potentially be a nice idea to read more blog entries about the trials & tribulations of affiliate managers from a network or agency.

We all know they read affiliate blogs, but can’t give an a4uforum backing because it’s perceived as “political”, so you occasionally get virtual back slaps via msn messenger.

That aside, I am looking for an affiliate manager(s) from a network or merchant to intermittently blog with no deadline pressure, anonymously of course, about what happens their side of the fence, so that as affiliates we can appreciate what they may go through from the good & humourous times to bad aspects to the daft questions affiliates ask them. Obviously client names & affiliate names will be dubbed out as xyz etc, but it would be nice just to get a smidgen of a balanced perspective out there, even if just one article & written in their own creative style.

Realistically I am not anticipating much in the way of takers, but if there are any affiliate managers who would like to come out of the closet, please feel welcome to contact by  either Email, PM on the forum, or Pinging me via MSN Messenger.

It’s fairly rarely I initially get stumped for words or flabbergasted … and upon discussion with a friend, he quotes “I’m stumped for expletive free words… not so rare but unusual” … “Google. … the constant struggle to extract yet more cash from advertisers wallets continues” … If this is a sign of things to come forpaid search advertisers, then it’s quite disconcerting … so read on

My first and immediate concern IF this is rolled out, is to hold Google (a carnivorous annelid worm of the class Hirudinea?) in further disdain, that it is believed advertisers will be automatically opted-in … yep that’s right … you “could” wake up one morning to realise that your bank balance has been bled dry before you have had the opportunity to opt-out. Especially if you are unaware of the future potential changes (assuming this is fully rolled out).

A couple of days ago, some information was released pertaining to a private Google Adwords beta program they are testing called “Automatic Matching”. I haven’t yet ascertained if this is purely for the US market or across advertisers over different territories.

The perceived email being circulated is as follows:

“I’m excited to tell you that you have been selected to participate in a beta for our new Automatic matching feature which will be starting on February 28th.

Automatic matching automatically extends your campaign’s reach by using surplus budget to serve your ads on relevant search queries that are not already triggered by your keyword lists. By analysing the structure and content of your website and Adwords campaigns, we deliver more impressions and clicks while maintaining your current CTR’s and CPC’s.

For example, If you sold Adidas shoes on your website, Automatic matching would automatically crawl your landing page and target your campaigns to queries such as: “shoes” “adidas” “athletic”, etc., and less obvious ones such as “slippers” that our system has determined will benefit you and likely lead to a conversion on your site.

Be assured that automatic matching will try to never exceed your budget. If you’re already meeting your daily budgets, automatic matching will have a minimal effect on your account.”

So currently we have expanded match which I just call a form of contextual matching which systematically happens on both Google & major partner sites like AOL, displaying ads for keywords advertisers don’t actually bid on, which in itself makes a mockery of Google’s irrelevant “quality” score. Now we have the probability of Google’s so called & self proclaimed advocate of the holy grail of relevancy as nothing more than hollow spin. As you may have experienced this has been around for several years & a few so called networks & merchants still haven’t got their heads around this.

Whereby we might soon have Google’s algorithm “magically” choosing which of our keywords they will decide to “automatically match” by supposedly looking at our website.

Poppycock, only last week we set up various adgroups using the same ad copy & set of keywords, except for changing the display & destination url. Two of the display/destination url’s were for sites that didn’t exist, and guess what, yep the minimum bid requirements for the pages/websites that didn’t exist had lower minimum bid requirements.. 1/4 to 1/5 of the cost. Yet still we get these “quality” score advocates beating the Google drum.

This strikes me as nothing more than another opportunist attempt for Google to empty our wallets & rake in more cash by underhandedly manipulating advertisers to spend up to their maximum budgets each day.

The Google spin machine will probably go into warp over-drive by proclaiming it’s not intended to exhaust the budget, without giving credit to experienced paid search marketeers who know what delivers ROI for them and how to achieve the desired performance metrics such as CTR’s, CPC’s and so forth.

Another area this might effect are the keyword policies pertaining to existing affiliate programs whereby ads could appear for hybrid phrases, misspellings & even brand (if not registered with Google) due to this “automatic matching”, which may lead to these keyword policies changing from “you cannot bid on xyz brand” to “you cannot appear for xyz brand” … notice the subtle difference … For which in the latter case advertisers will have little control & will be at the mercy of the Google Adwords Automatic Matching Algorithm.

Even if this is only at beta testing stage at the moment, perhaps we need to be wary of what might unfold. The perception of the Holy Grail of ad relevance is no more .. so accept it.

This will naturally be advantageous to some lazy agencies who’s goal is to arrogantly blast thru the ignorance of their clients budgets each month with little thought for ROI or effectiveness, since they get a % of their clients ad spend.

Whilst, in tandem users will possibly see more irrelevant ads.

Will this subsequently push minimum bid prices up?

It could possibly be a coup for loose arbitrage sites!

As an advertiser I want better reporting & control over my ads, especially knowing what search phrases are triggering which keywords, so that I can add to my never ending negative keyword base /arsenal (sorry about swearing),  allowing me to focus on those converting keywords. What about those niche keywords at low cost that advertisers may promote, they might find this once profitable route suddenly becomes a traffic jam in a cul de sac.

I know I have mentioned before, but there is something sinisterly wrong if advertisers are automatically opted-in.

Many advertisers have their budgets set way higher than they could afford, to ensure visibility & daily fluctuations in ad spend, which as mentioned could prove dangerous for them.

“Broader match means less targeted … Adwords users will spend more money to get more traffic of less quality … Adsense users of quality content sites will get more un-targeted ads annoying their visitors”

Why can’t Google simply further promote optional additional keywords rather than imposing, thinking in some draconian way they know the advertisers businesses better than the advertisers do themselves. It all seems a long way from the training manual Google use to brainwash their client servicing reps, just because they are trained it doesn’t mean they know. You should hear the template/flowchart reasoning, rebuttals & excuses I hear from some reps when I speak with them on the phone. I know of several ways Google could massively increase their revenue for some very simple verticals, but I’m certainly not going to divulge how.

If this does fully roll out and even for those who are unsuspectingly enrolled in the beta testing, at first glance this seems pretty outrageous … automatic opt-in is simply wrong … potentially exhausting advertisers budgets with no guarantee of ROI … potential jacking up of minimum bid prices of targeted campaigns … less relevant ads for users,… whilst making Googles pant pockets of wonga even deeper by squeezing the margins of advertisers & sponging every bob, dime or penny they can lay their greasy paws on.

Over the past few months personal circumstances have changed a little & I am maybe looking for a slightly new direction within the industry & new projects.

Therefore I am contemplating selling the website  ShopperUK.com. Being unfamiliar territory for me, I am not sure of the procedure of how to go about selling a website, so any advice would be appreciated, together with any potential interested parties.