Google is giving us some problems, and I'm wondering if anyone out there has any advice. Here is the situation: My Dad, My brother and I (all living at the same address) each have a completely seperate business. We are all selling the same product, but our business are totally seperate. Google has decided that for each of us to have an account is "double serving". I have tried to explain to them that we have the same address because we each have a home business, but that our businesses are all seperate. Here is a little of our communication: Me: Our businesses are unrelated. They have absolutely no affiliation via "common ownership or contractual relations". My brother & I still live at home with our parents, and we each have our own seperate business selling the same products. We each own our own seperate franchise with Mannatech (the company who's products we sell). We each operate our businesses completely seperately, in every way (taxes, legal entities, advertising, customers, etc, etc.) Google: I understand that you have additional questions regarding the status of you and your family members' accounts and apologize if the previous email was unclear. Even though you have different contact names on the various accounts, when we reviewed all of these accounts, we found they were in all equally in violation of this policy. We stand by that decision. Me: Hi, So, you're saying that unless our businesses each have seperate addresses, they all have to share one account? Adam Google: When we review accounts per our double serving policy, we take many factors into account. While we do take the customer address into consideration, there are many other factors, and accounts with different addresses may still be in violation of this policy. To be clear, you may manage your accounts separately. However, please note that regardless of the status of your accounts, as a matter of policy we will not display more than one ad for a given site per search query. As you can guess, trying to run three seperate businesses off of one Google account is seriously reducing our incomes. Any suggestions?
I understand your situation, but google wants to prevent single entities from taking up all the ad space. I could set up three different entities and claim each one is competing with the other - but it would also be reasonable to assume that each one could have access to bid amounts, etc., and the end result is that I would be taking up ad slots which greatly increases the chance that the end user is going to click one of the ads. Being in the same house and related, there is less of a chance that you are going to operate as if you want to kill the competition. I don't know if there is anything you can do now that google is aware of the situation, but if you had set up three different business entities with no common ownership, all of which had separate addresses, each of which paid their own taxes, and which didn't share the same computer or ISP connection (IP), then it would certainly appear more like competing businesses. I would make sure that you don't share bid amounts or text copy results with each other - and certainly not show a pattern of lowing or raising bid amounts in tandem. Operate them as if you didn't know each other - or as if they were your competition that you wanted to take business away from. You could also try using yahoo search (overture) or other forms of advertising. Other than that, you could form a join venture that would only run one ad, but share the business between the three businesses. Your ad costs would probably decrease without bidding against each other for the same keyword. I know this isn't ideal, but it sounds like google isn't going to change their decision. I doubt faxing the separate tax returns to them is going to work, but it would give your story credibility- But if there is a pattern of adusting bids in tandem, then I think you're out of luck.
You could try and register your businesses at seperate addresses. Maybe a PO box, or, you could get an address at one of those shipping places (like Mailboxes, etc). Can't guarantee that would solve your problem...but it would be pretty inexpensive to test it out.
I've thought about doing that, but my concern was that if Google noticed, they would completely kick us off.
Have they ever kicked someone out of Adwords? To do it right and be sure it won't cause problems you would need to terminate your current accounts and reopen new ones that are in no way linked to each other - including the billing address associated with the credit card/cards that is used for making payments and the IP that's used on a regular basis to check the accounts. It all comes down to how important it is to your business. Black Hat Adwords, lol
OK Thanks. I'd never heard of being kicked out of Adwords, but I didn't know. How do we terminate our accounts? I couldn't find how to do that...all their help said was to pause all of my campaigns, which, of course, does not terminate the account.
I don't know if google keeps track of the urls to the websites they have flagged, but that would be another concern. I'm sure you wouldn't be the first person to try and get around the adwords policy. It also might be that it was a competitor that complained and brought it to their attention. In that case, your problems might not go away if you continue to advertise the same website urls.
It seems that Google is using IP addresses to track, too. They have also merged our accounts with accounts of two of our affiliates (who live in other states). The only way they could have connected the accounts is that we have logged into their accounts a couple times to help them with ads. So...I guess, we'll have to get three high-speed internet connections...one for each business?
GuyFromChicago and I both mentioned the IP address in our posts. Now that google is probably looking for a connection between the accounts, you should also be using different computers as google has the ability to check computer profiles. A proxy server would solve the IP address, but not the computer. Your website urls could also be flagged, which would mean getting new websites and operating them as if they were from different locations - which would mean different IP addresses and computers.
Yeh, we have seperate computers...we may use a proxy browser...that would solve the IP address, right?
Adam, One other tactic you can use is to register another domain and create a landing page with a review of the product you are promoting. It doesn't have to be anything very fancy, just an honest review. People love getting that info. In essense you "presell" the visitor which increases your chances of success on the main page to which you then send them. You can also set up an optin form on that page offering a topically relevant item (ebook, software, report, etc) in exchange for their name and emal address. You can then go back to them to further presell the product. A multi part report or mini-course works quite well as you are all but guaranteeing multiple emails delivered to them (unless they subscribe). Give them content only for the first two emails then content with a plug for the third. Content for the fourth and then a pitch and content in the fifth. This can stretch out however many emails you make the "course". If you don't want to write the info yourself you may be able to find a Private Label Rights book that you can chop up. This is becoming a common tactic as Google limited the number of ads that they allow to point to any one URL at a given time. Another problem you run into is the fact that Google will only let results for any given key word be served a single time (one at a time) for a given account. This means that you do need multiple accounts to each use the same key words. The suggestion of a P.O. Box for each of you (or 2-3 for each of you ;-) would enable you to operate multiple accounts. Mix that with the idea of multiple landing pages each with a seperate domain and you could be in good shape. I am not sure where things stand in terms of Google tracking IP's. That is sketchy as you could all be using the same computer in the Library for all they know. The anonymous proxy should deal with that. Basically, Google is making people jump through more hoops than in the past which is a pain. The good news is, this seperates those people that are willing to work for their money from those folks looking to make an easy buck. If you are serious about success and thus put in the extra effort it should pay off. Is this product (you don't have to mention what it is) an intensely affiliate marketed product? If so, by doing the above you will be able to rise above a good chunk of the other affiliates who are not willing to put in the effort. I hope this helps a little. Onward & Upward! Sam