Now I got an email from adwords support in which they falsely claim that I have repeatedly submitted ads that contain dialers.
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It has come to our attention that despite multiple disapprovals, you have
repeatedly submitted ads that violate our Dialer Policy.
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Well, I never did this, and there is nowhere a single dialer on my landing pages, and there is even nowhere a single dialer on my whole domain.
They didn't sent me any proof about their false claim, but stated also this:
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Please note that if you submit these ads again, we will be unable to run
any of your AdWords ads in the future.
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I'm really mad about them, didn't google teach their support and tell them what a dialer is or what it looks like?
How can they make false claims without any proof (and they can't have any proof because there NEVER was any dialer in my campaigns/ads/landingpages)?
So after the last issue (with this technical problem on their side that prevents all my ads from showing and which took them 10 days to find and fix) all my ads are not running again now because of such a bull....
Does no one else has these problems with adwords support? Is it really just me? I can't believe it.
I exchanged a couple more e-mails but finally gave up. The Google attitude was, well, ATTITUDE. They had the charm and customer service skills of the old telephone company.
Every few months I still get e-mail from AdWords disabling another ad. It’s really off the wall, and I don’t understand why they will pick on ad #4 of a six ad campaign when the same wording/spelling is in the other ads, too.
But, I have given up. It’s not my job to teach Google ad editors industry terms or local abbreviations, and I now know better than to beg from relief from their spacing policies. I just delete the suspended ads and let the rest run.
In my case, from my own landing page I'm linking to the sponsors site, and there on the join page is beside the option to join with a credit card an additional link to offer access per minute for international customers or anybody who doesn't have a credit card.
And from today on google won't allow this additional payment option anymore, they start to disable all campaigns which are offering something like this.
Wow, thats at least 95% of all adult ads, at the moment I really don't know any adult site without this additional option.
And of course no affiliate is able to delete this additional dialer link, we have no influence on this. So I think this will be nearly the end of affiliate advertising on google...
What is a "dialer" please? Thanks
A dialer is a little program to connect to a webite and get billed via your telephone bill. You can choose to use a dialer if you don't have a credit card or if you want to be billed discretely on your phonebill instead of your credit card statement.
Nearly all adult sites are offering this as an additional (anonymous) way of payment, you can choose to use a dialer or not, and pay with your credit card or money transfer, however you want.
But as an affiliate I have no chance to remove this additional billing method.
The guy who invents that will become very rich :-)
To make sure that this all is not my fault I added last week a new campaign which can not violate the new dialer policy in any way, and this campaign was running the first two days but got disabled again on saturday morning like all my other campaigns were disabled on a saturday morning.
I got no reason from adwords support why this new campaign is now disabled as well. It just didn't show up on google anymore and the campaign doesn't get any impressions anymore. No reply from the support about this all.
I'm nearly to explode.
I emailed adwords support several times that most sites on google have this link as well on the join page but they do not care. They told me that they did everything right.
So has anyone any idea how to solve this problem please?
I'm an affiliate and can't change these links on my sponsors sites. And because only I am disapproved for this the sponsors won't change their sites, cause for all their other affiliates it's allowed to advertise their sites on google with this link.
So I'm really lost. What can I do?
So, on to the update: I received your email today, and your specific case will be reviewed. Any additional information that we have for you will be sent in a reply to that email.
Also, when you say:
But like you just saw are hundreds of ads with this link approved and running....
It occurs to me that you may be mistaking the ads on the right hand side of the page, with the unpaid search results on the left. Just to be clear, the results that appear on the left hand side of the page, are not advertisements. These are unpaid search results, which are not subject to the same policies and guidelines as the paid advertising.
AWA
No I mean the paid advertised listings on the right, not the free listings on the left. On average 6 out of these 8 paid ads that are shown per page on the right side have this link on their join page.
With this
But like you just saw are hundreds of ads with this link approved and running....
Repeated emails to support about why my ad (and not even ALL my ads with this trademarked term) is being disabled and not those of my competitors have resulted in nearly-verbatim copies of previous responses, or no response at all.
I have no problem with following AdWords policies, but it's awfully frustrating to see it being only sporadically enforced on only me. (Yes, I know, it's probably not only me, but it seems that way. heh)
So, actually, relevant to the "adwords support" topic, what is the current recommended strategy in dealing with AdWords support when it appears plain that the situation isn't being addressed or even understood?
JK
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I'd also like to say that I, too, have had ads disabled for something that many, many, of my competitors are doing in *their* AdWords ads.
I still can find lots of adwords ads in various niches that link to sites with a dialer. And I really mean there are still more ads running that link to a dialer than ads without this link. And that after 7 weeks. Either adwords support is veeeeerrrry slow or very blind. If I would start now I could compile them in 8 hours a list with at least 70% of all ads with a dialer link. The entire adwords team hasn't achived this in 7 weeks.
5 weeks after my ads were disapproved I emailed directly to the US team (had to use a proxy server to avoid that my email get redirected to the UK team) and asked them why there are still hundreds of adwords ads running which are linked to join pages with a dialer on them. They replied that these dialers are not self initializing and thus they are ok for them. Well, damn, the dialers on my sponsors sites are also not self initializing, they are just an additional way to pay and nothing more. I can even point them to several ads that are still running and advertising the exact same sponsors for which my campaigns are disapproved. And these ads are running since weeks now. So their standard reply "ads my run before we check them" doesn't match here.
I emailed them back that my ads are disapproved but that the dialers are as well not self initializing and they replied that they don't know what to do now and that they will contact their "adwords specialists" about this (although I always thought these were the adwords specialists), I never heard back from them.
I'm sorry to write books here, but I'm really pulling my hair out about this all. I'm working online since 4 years but I never had to do with a company acting more unprofessional than the adwords support and this is really a frustrating experience.
I will not miss to add that I was always happy with the support from the US team, I never had problems with them. All this trouble has started when my account was moved to the UK/Ireland team, from that time adwords was just a waste of time.
I'm working online since 4 years but I never had to do with a company acting more unprofessional than the adwords support and this is really a frustrating experience.
Our experience has been quite the opposite....
.It appears most of the criticism is directed at UK Google AdWords Support
..and some praise...
I don't want to bash AdWords support, I really don't. I know they must be incredibly busy with requests, and that they're doing their best with the guidelines they have. Plus, I'm not a giant big-pockets customer by any means, so I do understand a certain amount of patience is required on my part.
(nyet: just curious -- are you a larger customer in terms of spending thousands with AdWords? I only spend maybe $200 - $500 a month.)
I guess what's so frustrating is sending two or three emails and getting the exact same response, word for word, which sometimes seems as though it's not even relevant to the question. Questions like, "The FAQ says 'X, Y, Z,' but what about A, B, C" seem to get me a response that says, "Read the FAQ." Um ... "A, B, C" is not IN the FAQ, which is why I asked. :-) Questions like, "'Widjit' is a correct spelling because it is a brand name, so could you please re-enable my ad" seem to get me a response that says "Your ad has been disabled for spelling 'Widjit' incorrectly," sometimes several times.
I may be alone in this, but I'd rather wait a week for an email that gives me the impression that someone has read and understood my request than get a response in 24 - 48 hours that doesn't. :-)
JK
Since you even had AWA respond, I dont think you can ask for more than that from support. I hope the situation gets straightened out for you.
I'm not sure how the people with bad experiences approach the support phone team, but I have found the best results come from being nice. I have a guy in my office that takes the attitude of, "Why am I having a problem? Do you know how much I spend? This is ridiculous! I'm the customer! You need to fix this now."
People don't respond to that well. I know I don't. But, if I befriend the person on the other end, I tend to get things done.
Again, I have no idea if anyone complaining here is receiving bad customer service because they're being demanding, but if shifting your approach can help, I wanted to offer the insight.
(BTW, I have had Adwords campaigns disabled, but support has always worked it out with me easily on the phone.)
Like I said, I do understand that small potatoes like me don't merit as good support (i.e. email vs. telephone) as do higher-ticket customers. But email support doesn't have to be poor by definition. Amazon, while perhaps not as large as Google, has always given me better support via email than AdWords, both as a customer and as an affiliate. Not to say that Amazon's email support is perfect, and that I haven't had my problems with it as well, just that overall it's been more effective in my experience.
I know I'm just one person, but I have seen several other posts from people bemoaning the seemingly scripted answers from AdWords support as well. I think it's wonderful that AWA takes the time to post here on WW, and that AWA even dropped in to help Sowe resolve the issue. Overall, I have very few problems with Google, and a lot of admiration for them.
All I'm saying is that perhaps AdWords support could be reevaluated a bit to see if improvements are possible. Perhaps Google might consider a fee-based priority support line or similar. (Yes, I would be willing to pay for support if it were critical.)
JK
That's where I strongly disagree
A customer is a customer
The quality of support available should be identical; obviously the level of that support also needs to be higher for larger clients though
"...Like I said, I do understand that small potatoes like me don't merit as good support (i.e. email vs. telephone) as do higher-ticket customers..."That's where I strongly disagree
Well, in fact,I'm with you, and I do try to offer the same quality of support to my smallest as well as my largest customers. However, I do know that a lot of businesses will be more diligent in providing a quality experience to those customers that spend the most.
What I meant by that was that I'm not asking for support for nothing: I'm even willing to pay for it if I need it, and that I understand that if everyone got to call a free tech support phone number and got the same level or prioritization, that just wouldn't make good business sense in many ways. Putting the 14,000.00 a month guy on hold while you spend time talking to the 3.00 a month guy is probably not best practice. :-) However, allowing the 3.00 a month guy to spend 25 or 50 bucks (or something) to call a special fee-based support line might make more sense, would allow the 3.00 a month guy to get quality support, and would pay for itself with the fees.
I keep hitting this "fee-based support" thing, and that wasn't really my intention. It's just so awfully frustrating, that this is the only thing that keeps sticking in my head. :-) It's like, "Here! I'll give you cash! Just please don't send me that same scripted paragraph for the 10th time!" heheh
JK
A customer is a customer
It just does not work that way....
well..everyone SHOULD be happy and never ever make gramatical mistakes, but it just doesn't always work out that way.
Wha ... it DOESN'T?
hehehe!
JK
This has been a fascinating and informative thread for me, having been a part of both the email and phone teams for nearly two years.
I'll certainly make sure other members of those teams see the thread as well - for a first hand look at how our work is perceived by our customers.
I can tell you, though, with complete sincerity, that our goal is to provide all of our advertisers with great customer service, regardless of the amount of their budget.
As recently as 3 hours ago, I've had a lengthy conversation with an advertiser with a daily spend of less than $1.00 US.
Great service for each one of tens of thousands of advertisers is certainly a lofty goal, and in the real world where volume is sometimes exceptionally high, we may have difficulty meeting it sometimes. Unfortunately, that is the real world for you.
But do at least know that we have that goal. And being familiar with everyone on both teams, I know for a fact that the desire to provide great service is authentic.
With all that said, thanks for the postive comments, and please accept my apology for the times we've failed. But do keep in mind that it is our aim to assist all in and effective and helpful way, regardless of your budget.
Thanks for the opportunity to put in two cents from this side of the equation! ;)
AWA
