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Google Adwords Is Stealing From You!

Discussion in 'Google AdWords' started by stavros, Jun 26, 2007.

  1. #1
    Hi all,
    In case you were wondering why your campaign budget's always reach the specified max each day, here is the answer: IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE BEING RIPPED OFF BY GOOGLE. I have used adwords for 2 and a half years and was spending $65 per day which was always reached without fail. Then a funny thing happened. Due to a mix up with their new my client center, I was forced to open a new account with a different email address but using the same campaign, same keywords and same bids per click. I didn't transfer it but rather typed in the details again from scratch into the new account. I ran this for the last couple of days and my total costs for each day were around $7 as opposed to $65. This is even though the ads were sitting in the same position as the previous campaign.
    As such, if you feel you are being overcharged, re-open a new account and type in your campaign details from scratch. You will be both shocked and horrified with the outcome. And don't worry about their trying to tell you that longer term customers have better standing as it is a lie. The only reason you are told this is they have suckered you in to believing that you really are receiving $65 worth (or whatever your max is) of clicks per day. My positions for keywords did not change at all with the new account even though it was on its first day of business. Have a look back at your payment history to Google and ask yourself why it seems to have increased in cost gradually whilst business hasn't. The answer is Google's click fraud. That's right they are stealing from you with a program designed to mislead you into believing you really are receiving that amount of traffic. As soon as you open another account, you will see how many clicks you really are receiving. I am never going to keep open another campaign for more than two months with them and suggest you all consider doing the same. If you are skeptical, just try it for yourself.

    by the way, please keep replying to this message in whatever way you choose so it can stay near the top of the page.
     
    stavros, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  2. CustardMite

    CustardMite Peon

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    #2
    So you're telling us that when you erased your campaign history, your bids to appear in the same position mysteriously dropped? What are the odds?

    I take it you've not read up on how Adwords works - specifically the Quality Score?

    You wouldn't have quite a low clickthrough rate, would you?
     
    CustardMite, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  3. stavros

    stavros Peon

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    #3
    you need to re-read what I said. The only thing that dropped was the amount of clicks because of all of the rest of them were click fraud. I still made the same amount of sales as every other day but only got charged $7
     
    stavros, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  4. celt

    celt Peon

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    #4
    Before you do all that, you may want to check whether the Budget Optimiser is active for your campaign. If it is, then that's the reason your budget is maxed out every day. When I turned it off way back, my costs dropped considerably, while CPM and CTR remained the same. Now, I hardly ever reach my daily max, which is much lower than yours.
     
    celt, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  5. stavros

    stavros Peon

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    #5
    Had done that a long time ago as well and yes you are correct, with budget optimizer I noticed a difference. However this is not the cause. Just try what I am suggesting and you will see what I mean. If you are doubtful and think it might affect your 'standing' then open the new campaign and while it runs merely pause your current campaign for a couple of days as opposed to closing it down. You will then see what I am talking about and won't have risked anything.
     
    stavros, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  6. johnnyGBH

    johnnyGBH Guest

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    #6
    Stavros is right believe it or not. We stumbled on to this in a similar fashion about five months ago and the same thing happened. Same amount of business, same position, much, much lower fees. We no longer allow a campaign to run for more than 10 weeks without moving it to a new account. It's more work but we are only paying 20% of what we used to pay and are getting the same amount of trade. Some of the new ebooks about Google adwords include this information as well.
     
    johnnyGBH, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  7. petyard

    petyard Well-Known Member

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    #7
    I don't undersatnd you logic
    why wouldn't do the same with the new account?
     
    petyard, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  8. stavros

    stavros Peon

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    #8
    because google are artificially upping the amount of clicks in established accounts. I believe that they gradually increase this with accounts over a period of time and continue to suggest that you increase your budget because 'you are missing out on X number of clicks.' I think they are more forgiving on new accounts because they want you to think you are on to a good thing and don't include as much fraud early on for fear of losing you. This is only a tip and if you choose not to try it then it is no loss to me whatsoever. I have nothing to gain by passing this info on.
     
    stavros, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  9. Easy_Rider

    Easy_Rider Member

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    #9
    I have never seen the thing like this thugh I change my accounts often
     
    Easy_Rider, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  10. stavros

    stavros Peon

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    #10
    Well in that case easy rider perhaps you can confirm to custard mite that changing accounts has had no impact on your quality score or position.
     
    stavros, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  11. Easy_Rider

    Easy_Rider Member

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    #11
    never had probs with ad position after changing account (not taking the 1st 2 weeks into account after changing the account for adverts appearing above the searching results)
     
    Easy_Rider, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  12. stavros

    stavros Peon

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    #12
    I have never had any probs either other than top ranked listings taking a week or so to appear back in the yellow above the normal results as you suggest. I had a look at custard mites blog and see he wrote an article about how important your quality score is. No wonder he replied that way. After all, I wouldn't like to admit that I wasted my time on writing a baseless article either.
     
    stavros, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  13. magda

    magda Notable Member

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    #13
    If you were paying for $65-worth of clicks a day, but not getting them, didn't you notice that your conversion rate wasn't good? Did you not have any means for tracking your clicks and seeing where they came from?
     
    magda, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  14. stavros

    stavros Peon

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    #14
    The conversion rate was fine. This is a high selling campaign with a CTR that rates between 8 and 15%. We are using a range of stats packages to clarify sources including the obvious for unique ID such as awstats and trace and the more specific such as packages including Xwhois. However, as anybody would know who has been doing this for a few years, any complaint made to google about unique user totals in another stats package against clicks charged merely results in google sending you a whole bunch of cut and paste style responses as to why the other stats package is wrong. No offense magda, but questions like these are a bit obvious just as custard mites response was. For the record I have a multimedia degree with honours and am the owner of a multimedia company. I am not big noting here but do you think someone in my position who has been using adwords for three years would not know something as absolutely basic as that? I suggest instead of making statements essentially defending adwords, you try my suggestion. If it doesn't work for you then please post at that stage. By the way, quality score means nothing and that is demonstrated to anyone who opens a new account and finds their ad position in the same place from day one. It is just a way of google ensuring that long standing customers don't leave for fear of losing their good standing in the rankings. It is just a way of google trying to lock people in by making them fear that any change will result in a position drop. As for the $65, this is only one of 185 campaigns that we currently run and if you think that a chicken feed amount like that is of significance then you are wrong. However if you multiply the amount we will save on each account by the 185 accounts then you are talking a saving of seven to eight thousand dollars per day.
     
    stavros, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  15. magda

    magda Notable Member

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    #15
    I've no reason to try your suggestion. I've been using adwords for about a year, my costs have dropped and my conversions have gone up. Your contention that everybodys costs go up just isn't borne out by my experience.
     
    magda, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  16. silo

    silo Well-Known Member

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    #16
    I'm starting to think this may be correct too. I've been looking at the stats on the back end of our site and where the referrals come from. According to our adwords account, we had 97 referrals from Google, yet the stats from our site show only 60.

    Something is clearly incorrect.
     
    silo, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  17. stavros

    stavros Peon

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    #17
    Magda, as I said before if you choose not to try it then it is no loss to me whatsoever. I have nothing to gain by passing this info on. As for your 'experience' give it another year and revisit this thread and see if you still feel the same way.

    What is even funnier silo are these cut and paste responses that google will send you when you raise this issue as to why the other stats package isn't interpreting the data correctly. Isn't it funny how the only time these long running packages stop working properly is when google is involved?
     
    stavros, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  18. GuyFromChicago

    GuyFromChicago Permanent Peon

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    #18
    Good luck with that.....

    stavros, you've arrived at false conclusions based on inaccurate assumptions.

    And I suppose that's just a coincedence that you both post from the exaxt same ip...
     
    GuyFromChicago, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  19. oseymour

    oseymour Well-Known Member

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    #19
    I'm glad you outed them publicly......My experience with adwords is the opposite....the longer I have my campaign...the lower my costs get........
     
    oseymour, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  20. shorebreak

    shorebreak Peon

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    #20
    And I was just getting ready to unload 8M shares of Google stocks on Stavros' stunning analysis...
     
    shorebreak, Jun 26, 2007 IP