Google Sucks, AdWords is a Ripoff

I am the head of marketing for the company I'm with and recently started a Google AdWords campaign. Suddenly they stopped running our ads, with no explanation. So I contacted them on their instant message customer support. The guy didn't know anything. Said he'd have tech support contact me. They never did. I wrote two emails. They still didn't contact me. Then I called the home office, twice. Still no explanation. Finally, I get an email saying I didn't follow something in their guidelines but they wouldn't tell me what it was!

So, I thought maybe there were some things on our landing page that may have not fit in their guidelines so I removed everything that I thought could be the culprit and added what I thought may have been missing.

Then, I called Google again to find out how I could them to re-review our landing page. The girl there told me we were dropped permanantly!

So, I asked for a supervisor and this girl tells me the supervisor will tell me the same thing. By now, I'm ready to reach through the phone if you know what I mean. So, she tells there are no supervisors there right now who can talk to me, but she'll have someone call me.

Well, no one calls me, but I get this unbelievably aggravating email from them. Here it is, tell me what you think:

Hello Rick,

We've received your requests to speak with a supervisor. However, as
previously indicated, your account has been suspended and your ads will no
longer run on Google. As noted in our Terms and Conditions, Google
reserves the right to terminate advertisements for any reason. Our support
team is unable to help you with this issue, and we ask that you do not
contact them about this matter.

We appreciate your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team

Good Night Nurse!! The balls on this company are unbelievable! I have decided I will not only not ever advertise on google again, I will never even use their freaking lousy search engine again.

 

That stinks, sorry!

All big companies have customers they've pissed off. You read the guidelines and can't tell why they would have terminated your account?

BTW- How did you find DigitalPoint?

 

That makes you a top class Head of Marketing doesn't it? First you break their rules, get booted, complain and then you swear to never use the world's best online marketing tool ever again.

Good look with your career of sorts!

Welcome to the forum by the way, nice first post

 

They do make mistakes but typically when they shut down an AdWords account it's for a good reason...afterall that's where the majority of their revenue comes from.

Did you read the entire T&C for AdWords? Any chance you were playing outside the rules?

 

You would think that a big company like google would have a tos or something to follow to prevent things like this..... Oh wait they do. Like stated above, you didn't follow the rules and you got punished.

 

To have an adwords account shut down you have to be selling crack, terrorist manuels, or something really prohibitive. I have never read of an adwords account being closed.

 

Sounds like the customer service at every mobile phone company I have ever tried.

 

maybe it wasn't a great first post, I'll give you that. However, I have been using Adwords since day one and nothing like this has ever happened. I'm not an idiot, I know what is completely against their rules and what isn't. Our ads had only been running for two or three days before they pulled this.

Best online marketing tool? At one time maybe, but check some other forums, lots of people jumping ship. Keep kissing up to Google if you want, but I'm outta there.

That must have been it. The terrorist manuels we were selling.

Well, you just heard of an adwords account being closed permanently without one single warning and no explanation. I'll be happy to forward you the email if you like.

 

If you have been using them since day one, and spend a decent amount, they will have given you a telephone number where you can speak to an account manager.

The e-mail you got doesn't interest us much, just post some landing URLs and we will be able to tell quickly probably.

 

Thanks Rob. No, I really can't tell specifically what we did. I had to basically just guess at it. But the fact they wouldn't re-review it or even talk to me about it?

Furthermore, we were bidding $10 a click and had a pretty large daily budget, so it wasn't like we were small potatoes or something. I Just don't get it. And I think I have a right to be pissed off and go on a few related forums and let people know about this.

Can't remember how I found DigitalPoint actually. Probably through my new best search engine Yahoo.

I have been using them with other companies I've worked for. They wouldn't know me from adam. Never had any reason to speak to anyone there before.

Here's the landing page we used, but it's been changed a little as I said I was trying to get their approval on it. It's not unlike a bunch of our competitors landing pages if you do a search under student loan consolidation you'll see what I mean. But here's the page we were using:

http://www.studentfederal.com

 

That page has no content for Google to sniff so it's undermining the core of their ad quality matching technology. Though that in itself isn't likely to have caused the ban.

I bet there's much more to it. Duplicate accounts, redirects, pop ups etc.

 

Okay, you know what, I think I might know what the problem is, I was looking in the wrong place for it. However, what I think the problem is is not anything that would warrent being permanently banned with no warning and no explanation and no chance for correcting the issue.

If you check our competitors lead capture pages they do not have any content either. It wasn't that. I think I know what it is and it's a simple fix, but I guess it's too late for that.

 

What do you think it is?

 

One final note on this. I believe the reason they did not want to tell me what the problem is, is they are afraid I would then point out zillions of other advertisers who are guilty of the same thing and they would then have to ban every other advertiser who is doing it. Well, I'm sorry for this whole rant, but I just had to get it off my chest. If the moderator wants to just delet this whole thread I would understand.

 

What do you think it is?

 

All we had to do was add one sentance in the 2nd page after the form was filled out and I think it would have been okay. They obviously thought we were misleading people, but, one sentance would have fixed it. Oh well.

 

Not sure what IamNed is talking about. Google Bans people all the time. There are companies that get all of there affiliates just from people who have been banned from Google. Google is very large and very arrogant like most large companies get. Once they Ban you thats it. No explanation no reinstatement.
Usually with Adsense they give you a warning about the site. Not sure with Adwords.

 

No they don't wildstuff, that's just... Wild stuff you're talking.

As far as this thread is concerned... I hope the OP seeks blame with himself first next time rather stating something as silly as the Title.

 

lol, i Agree with this post, Try sending a polite email to them. Adwords is the best ., We get 50% of what we spend in one month in the next month itself through payments.
Dont let it go.,
B.o.L

 

I think this is a special situation with North American (USA and Canada) companies. Most of them don't know the first thing about customer service and even large corporation behave like a fly by night operation. In comparison the customer service in Europe is like night and day.
When I was in Europe, we would pay higher price for a product in order to be able to buy it from other European countries or Asia since we didn't want to deal with no customer service attitude of American companies.