n_a_nutshell@gmail.com
Oct 23rd 2004, 10:55 pm
Adwords, in some cases, has become a war-zone. A few select companies ruined it for everyone by commissioning its affiliates for leads inbound from paid searches. Hundreds of "marketers" all compete for the same keywords, advertising only a few of the same companies dozens of times for each keyword. Because of the ridiculous number of campaigns running simutaniously for these high-volume keywords, it's nearly impossible to legally maintain a decent CTR, even when matching the top bids.
These commissioned "marketers" devastate eachother by maxing out each other's budgets by generating fraudulent clicks through proxies. Google only investigates sudden spikes in traffic. Many of the marketers I've encountered run these scam campaigns as full time jobs and are able to manipulate the system methodically and indetectibly.
Why are these larger companies commissioning affiliates for traffic rather than run the campaign themselves? Either they're lazy or they know that the conversion rate isn't profitable.
If you're a smaller company in a high-volume market, don't even bother with Adwords. The best you can hope for is a double digit page placement, and if you do dare to venture into page 1 territory, you'll get F-ed in the A. Only multi-million dollar companies have the purchasing power to survive attacks from scammers, who eventually give in and focus on fresh meat.
If you're suspicious of your conversion rate, set up a redirect and log IPs. You'll be surprised.
These commissioned "marketers" devastate eachother by maxing out each other's budgets by generating fraudulent clicks through proxies. Google only investigates sudden spikes in traffic. Many of the marketers I've encountered run these scam campaigns as full time jobs and are able to manipulate the system methodically and indetectibly.
Why are these larger companies commissioning affiliates for traffic rather than run the campaign themselves? Either they're lazy or they know that the conversion rate isn't profitable.
If you're a smaller company in a high-volume market, don't even bother with Adwords. The best you can hope for is a double digit page placement, and if you do dare to venture into page 1 territory, you'll get F-ed in the A. Only multi-million dollar companies have the purchasing power to survive attacks from scammers, who eventually give in and focus on fresh meat.
If you're suspicious of your conversion rate, set up a redirect and log IPs. You'll be surprised.