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Now, after the weekend update (I see nothing changed - do you?), I redid the whole campaign. Most of it got rejected right away, mostly because I submitted for "widget-widget", "widget widget" and "widgetwidget" - combinations I know from AdWords are frequently searched, but where Overture claims it seperates them automatically.
One got rejected due to inappropriate content. A whole list of sexual practices were listed, a few of them with words I have never heard before! Which is funny, because our widgets have NOTHING to do with smut. Not even remotely, and not even due to a misunderstanding.
And finally one was rejected to to "null search". They claim that the keyword does not get searched at all. Funny only, that it gets searched on AdWords quite a lot...
I mean, AdWords doesn't care a damn, and I'm up and running within half an hour and Google gets money from me.
Overture DOES care, has spent quite a lot of money THEMSELVES for callcenter-reps and editors in contact with me, and hasn't seen a single Euro from me so far. DON'T THEY WANT MY MONEY?
I have the suspicion though, that they want to slightly nudge me into the direction of the assisted-service. I chose the fasttrack option due to my background with AdWords. I though "How hard can it be?".
Actually, if I consider MY time spent, I would have been better opted for the assisted service...
The simple answer is their system doesn't work.
Not in the way that you or I understand a system works.
The key with the Overture system is to ignore any discussion with them and to keep pressing the button.
When I realised this it enabled me to get everything running.
I now have mutiple keywords and ads direct to affilates running.
When they say no just press the button again and eventually they will say yes. Simple!
dregs33
But reading through several shiploads of posts in the Overture forum (some of them by you) you seem to be right.
Well, I'm going to have fun tomorrow. Good night!
Next, learn their system. They have different rules than AdWords. Their system groups a lot of KWs together automatically. This not only drives up the cost of advertising, but often gives the end user the ads for what they are looking for. (good and bad).
If you see an instance where Overture says 0 searches, but Google shows a lot - put the KW in the suggestion tool and see if that KW is being mapped to a similar query. If they are just wrong, let them know - their tech heads like seeing the data collection/aggregation work correctly, and will do some research into why this is happening.
Their system is also a lot less complicated that Google's, and a lot of people like them better for that reason. It's not they are better or worse - just different. A little more strict on a lot of policies, but also a lot less spam on a lot of ads.
Not defending them - just had a hellish week with them (and all solved well by a very concerned OV team) - but think both sides of the coins need examined
All my other issues were blamed on the system update:
Eva: "When did you make those entries?"
Me: "Sunday evening."
Eva: "This explains everything. We made an upgrade during the weekend and most likely something got mixed up."
I have still 4 pending entires (issues Jan 23), where the system said they will most likely be approved by Jan 27. Eva told me she sees whether she could at least speed these up.
*sigh*
After almost three weeks they finally switched on my remaning THREE keywords. The fourth one was rejected again, due to the same reasons as stated above. Funny enough one reason for rejeaction was "webpage forbidden" - but the other 3 keywords point to the very same page and were granted...
OK, now let's see how things proceed. Following eWhispers advice I will simply resubmit these words :-)
just keep resubmitting to overture.
try submitting friday afternoon. seems to work better.
A few others were rejected due to similar reasons like mentioned earlier. And if even their telephone reps couldn't understand the reason for this while looking at the very URL submitted... Some 17 are still pending approval. My guess is that maybe 3 or 4 of them "survive" :-)
I guess I'll get into a bi-weekly routine of stupidly resubmitting over and over again.
However I got the first referrals yesterday, so things start to move.
One of my widgets works in a medical environment, and the graphics on the landing page show pictures of a medical exam. Yes, there are patches of nude skin. No, no genitals, breasts, nipples - nothing even remotely sexual. Just a clean, aseptic hospital scene.
Other keywords were rejected due to "superlatives in title". Well, the superlative is "competence center" - quite common in my industry. To make it even more bizarre: the 3 (THREE!) keywords the accepted so far also had this "superlative" in the title.
I'm shortly before pulling the plug. This cost me so much so far in terms of time and energy spent, that I begon to doubt if it is worth the effort at all. I just offered them to come to Dublin to sort it all out in person and get started. In the end this will be cheaper for me (and for them anyways) instead of continuing this farce much longer. Going to Dublin and staying for one night will probably cost me 250 EUR for flight and hotel. That's a small price compared to what I am prepared to spend monthly on PPC...
I'd suggest finding one person's name who has helped you out, and that you like, and every time you call Overture ask to speak to that same person.
If you can get their Overture email, that would also be helpful in sending out short emails explaining the situation that can be forwarded to the editorial team.
I noticed it because the visitor used tracking URL's from rejected keywords :-)
Let's see where this leads. I didn't even know they had an office in my country...
Let's see what the last bunch (8 still pending) does.
Pmkpmk sounds like you are enjoying the wondefull world of Overture :)
The budget daily budget problems have got so bad for me, I have stopped using them, as my clients understandably blamed me!
If this company didn't have the search partners it does, it would be long ago dead and buried.
As I have said before when they roll out their version of Adsense I will be the first in the queue, as I will earn a fortune through their useless programming.
dregs33
I expect to get a call from my local branch office today. I'd be surprised if they don't react at all. My mail was TOO explicit to ignore it :-)
She offered to resubmit the last rejected batch again since she could not see a single reason for rejection. She also offered me, that I can switch to Premium Service with a 50% discount, so that their staff does all the keywords and the copy for me so I am on the safe side.
I told her that I need some time thinking about it, that I will probably taker her up on that offer, and that she has an answer by monday. In the meantime, she promised to resubmit the latest stuff.
A few minutes after that, I went back into the Direct Traffic Center, only to see that my last 8 pending keywords were rejected as well. Reason: "site blacklisted"....
P.S. Seems to be a quite undecided blacklist. My 6 approved keywords are doing got. Still active and at 9% CTR.
I will say that my feelings have changed of late with them. Most of my new accounts have a lot of trouble getting keywords to pass editorial. They will sit in pending for a week and I'll have to contact my rep to get it pushed through.
I'm certainly understanding of having an editorial process. However, they have just gotten too slow to become a viable option for campaigns that need to be up or changed in a short period of time.
I took them up on their offer to switch me to premium for the 50% discount. I took some time, compiling a list of all my desired campaigns, the keywords that turned out to be good in AdWords, the ad-texts that were the ones with the highest CTR in AdWords. I even gave some background information on the campaigns, in order to give their editors no room for misunderstandings or errors. I thought this time it would really, really work out. That was last Friday.
Today, I got an email that in premium service, only one single URL could be taken into account, and that I should let them know which (of the 11 I sent them) I wanted to see processed.
Again I'm close to pulling the plug. They have cost me so much effort until know...
We have had nothing but woes with Overture lately. From our last round, where all we did was update some URL's, 408 rejected, 14 pending, 1 approved.
Most rejected for dead site, lack of content. Yet Google seems to have no problem with the thousand of pages on that dead site with no content, nor do our customers.
This is a copy of the message I just sent to Overture CS:
------------------------------------------------
"About 2 weeks ago we started updating the URL's for our site.
As of this date, 408 declined, 14 pending, 1 approved.
Most declined for "broken site" and insufficient content". This is for a site that has been advertising with overture for 5 years, has thousands of pages, and has not been offline for more than 2 hours since 1997.
Are you people nuts?
At one time we spent around $50 a day with Overture, now it is down to around 45 cents per day last time I looked. The service just seems to be getting worse each year.
And why does the email you send out say we are OFFLINE?
Account Status: Offline <<<---
Approved Search Listings: 0
Declined Search Listings: 15
Pending Search Listings: 14"
"View URL Broken Site , Insufficient Content Feb 04 2005 Feb 08 2005 2911163" <<--- this for a section that sells over $15,000 a day on a yahoo store. Yet it is "broken"?, no content? 2500 pages of products is not sufficient content?
Bleh."
In the meantime, the Dublin office sent me their suggestions for keywords and ads. Unfortunately I did not had time to look into them right away. The next day a new rep from Dublin called me (I hope poor Eva didn't get into trouble because of me - it was not her fault). The new rep apologized for all the trouble I had, and informed me that I am getting a full 100% discount now for the premium service. I told her I look into her Excel as soon as I can.
Two (working) days later, I finally managed to scan their suggestions, and I was shocked! The ad-text they selected was nicely crafted. But the keywords! Remember, I sent them a "best of AdWords" - the keywords from AdWords wich had the highest CTR and conversions. The keywords THEY selected were simply rubbish! They simply did not understand what our business was about (even though I explained that in detail). If I took their keywords, I would spend a whole bunch of money (their most costly suggestion would have generated 3000 EUR / month in CPC), but I would not get any revenue from it!
I immediately mailed back and asked for a telephone discussion the other day. That was early last week. Today I got an email back, apologizing since my rep was out for a week and emailed her directly. She asked me to send her my corrections/annotations and to phone tomorrow.
I'll keep you posted (if you still want to hear about it).
