What terrible service from Overture

Anyone else getting the same

[designhaus]

I am experiencing such bad service from Overture. Their DTC and Editors are a bunch of monkeys! I dont even think they read subbmissions before they vet them.

Anyone else getting the same issues?

[redzone]

Submissions go through an auto-edit process before anything is hand checked. I think this has been a Catch 22 for Overture. It speeded up processing of submissions, but isn't doing a very good job in certain areas. The process was supposed to free up reps to handle other areas of account support...

[cline]

Depends on what location you're talking about. Overture US and Overture UK have dramatically different quality levels, with UK being unspeakably low.

[pmkpmk]

Hello soulmate! See my sad story here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[Wlauzon]

I sincerely think that Overture has been taken over by the patients. Lately they seem to be totally clueless. I have seen drunken monkeys do better.

We had about 400 listings running. We did nothing but change the URL them from the main home page to a more specific area for that keyword.

As of right now, 408 declined, 14 pending, zero approved.

The reason? "broken site" and "insufficient content". Yet I can click on the URL in the report, and it goes exactly where I want it to go. In the past 3 weeks our spending has gone from around $50 a day to *** 42 cents average ***!

And the "insuffient content" site has over 2500 pages of products for sale. What a bunch of ^*%&^%

And to make it worse, it takes forever to find the tiny size #1 link hidden at the bottom to email them. The email they send you has a link to go to - that link is broken. I go to their main site - and cannot find a single link to email CS, no phone number, nothing.

URL's they say have "insuffient content" we do around $10,000 a day sales on, yet they don't seem to think it has enough content - even though that same keyword listing has been pointing at the same place for 3 years.

Overture is seriously seriously fubar.

[edited by: Wlauzon at 6:07 am (utc) on Feb. 12, 2005]

[sun818]

Agreed - customer service is seriously lacking. But maybe they're not after the little guys. I'm sticking with the other PPC engine.

[Wlauzon]

And here is an odd thing...

Over the past 4 days, my best PPC of all has come from (you won't believe this).....

Yahoo Shopping...

[bears5122]

We typically deal with an account rep who has been very helpful with all our matters. I can't complain about their service in this regard.

However, their editorial process is an absolute joke. Terms can take weeks to get approved, and have some bizarre results in the editorial process. I've seen words that were almost identical show 1 approved and the other not. I've seen words that are right on topic get declined, while terms that have no business being approved getting approved.

Not sure what is going on with their editorial team, but I know that I've pushed new clients to Google because of this. It's not easy to explain to them why it takes 2 weeks to get their account live. Maybe they should go the route of Google.

[ByronM]

definately slow editorial review.. which stinks considering my target market is hot right now

[sem4u]

Well I have just set up an account and had ads running in an afternoon. Things were going fine until some ads were declined because of 'broken site' (read URL). There was nothing wrong with the URL at all, so I just resubmitted them. They have now been declined for the same reason and the page is definitely up!

Will have to call them to sort it out now...

[designhaus]

hi sem4u ... these are the problems i have been experiencing as well. i think the best solution is to call them and give them a right talking to over the phone .... and ask to lodge a complaint. maybe if a storm of WebmasterWorld supporters all start complaining it may raise alarm bells :)

[Sweezely]

Submitted a spreadsheet of keywords the other day and whatever/whoever put them up decided the "category" column was meaningless, and put each keyword in its own category - so I now have over 50 categories with one keyword in each. It's almost as bad as Espotting!

[sem4u]

Well I just called them and the rep couldn't see anything wrong with the listings. She is putting them through as a priority for me. Will be interesting to see what happens now...

[Wlauzon]

We also had tons of submissions turned down for being supposedly a dead site. Yet the site has been up for years with only a few hours downtime total.

I emailed them about it, they agreed, the rep resubmitted them all - and so far as of a couple hours ago..... guess what - over half got rejected for the same thing.

Monkeys.... footballs....

[dan_popescu]

Same here. I submitted a lot of terms, all but a few got rejected for Broken site (site was always up) and some other strange reasons. I submitted a ticket and they actually called me. The rep was friendly and she said she would resubmit my listings. She did so and they got rejected again (again with a few exceptions). Probably I could get'em all approved if I took the time to resubmit them over and over again.

[sem4u]

Well I can't see those listings that were going to be put through again anywhere in the DTC, apart from each term showing twice in declined listings....maybe it will be fourth time lucky! :o

[Total Paranoia]

UK Overture - Bunch of no good brainless monkeys with stupid policies to match!

The sponsored ads produce below average results and the lowest ROI I have ever come across. Stay away at all costs.

[designhaus]

Well I just called them and the rep couldn't see anything wrong with the listings. She is putting them through as a priority for me. Will be interesting to see what happens now...

haha, i had the same thing happen to me. BTW priority means another 3 day wait.... and then yet again they messed them all up again.

[Wired Suzanne]

Overture UK never read what I asked for, I've never got a precise info within 1 email, and they ignores all questions they can't answer.

Overture USA is a bit better, but just a bit and that doesn't help.

[Wlauzon]

I just checked my backlog of submissions (rejected count now up to 583 BTW), and I still have about 15 that were due for review by the 17th that have not been reviewed. Jan 17th that is.... :/

[designhaus]

perhaps we should start a petition of some kind from webmasterworld and unhappy customers to Overture ... telling them to get their act together. Maybe they will listen then.

[chewy]

right now it looks like the inventory is down.

is there another alternative?

[jeffpq]

Yeah, they are slow/down right now...

I'm on PPC all day and OVR is definately one of the stingiest authorization processes.

[Tropical Island]

perhaps we should start a petition of some kind from webmasterworld and unhappy customers to Overture ... telling them to get their act together. Maybe they will listen then.

People have been complaining about Over since I joined WW 2½ years ago.

They have always shown a disregard for their advertisers unless you are spending many thousands with them.

They should have cleaned up their servers years ago and haven't. Actually the Interface is quite easy to use - it's just so darn slow and is always breaking down.

[Wlauzon]

"They have always shown a disregard for their advertisers unless you are spending many thousands with them..."

Actually, from all the complaints I hear about Overture on all the boards, they screw the big spenders also.