What if all the merchants that were spending thousands of dollars, pooled that money into a co-op and started thier own e-commerce only search engine. Only e-commerce companies that were members of the co-op would be listed, and all the listing fees would go to cross promote the search engine in print, TV, and other media. The goal, to become a "buyers only" search engine. This is pretty much what Amazon.com is trying to become, but they want 15% off the top to do it. When I look at just what my little company spends, I know that if it could be organized, the funds would be there. Let's face it, as a buyer even google's search still sucks.
Google's near-monopoly status has brought about an arrogant, customer no-service mentality that will be there as long as the maintain the market share they currently have.
DT
Google is losing market share; their best days are behind them.
What we have now is the equivalent of the situation which caused unions to be invented: the need for collective bargaining power. So how about an adveriser's union? We can organize advertising strikes when we don't like the state of play.
Unless this fanciful new venture can build a better search engine, its PPC solution won't get off the ground. Overture PPC is already out there and it is not, IMO, going to overtake AdWords. At least in my niche, Google pulls in 6-8 times as much conversions and we advertise in 6-7 other lesser PPC offerings.
Spreading risk has a lot going for it.
my ads were pulled last friday for a "routine" review
Yeesh, you'd think they could review someone's ads without taking them offline!
It's very annoying, and Google tries to get it done as fast as possible, however, I think this review has a lot of room for improvement (why does it even have to go offline to review the ads/keywords anyway?)
However, this goes towards their lack of communication skills. They aren't very good with email notifications when changes are occuring to an account.
why does it even have to go offline to review the ads/keywords anyway?
This is the crux of the entire thing. Ads being reviewed occasionally is acceptable in my view, however, by taking them offline G is depriving it's advertisers of business.
Even worse, not having the courtesy of telling your own customers, from whom you depend for your own revenues and industry goodwill, is just downright stupid.
Could you imagine this happening in any other sector: -
Punter: "Excuse me, but could you explain why my ads haven't been showing on/in TV/radio/cinema/newspaper/magazine over the last few days? They are scheduled to!"
Ad Rep: "Oh yeah, we pulled them a couple of days ago. They're under review - we don't bother telling anyone when this happens - we don't see the point - but we might run them again in a few days. This is perfectly normal - is there a problem?"
To use that modern day Americanism - "D'oh!"
Syzygy
SN
so lets just move on ....
Shak
We need a PPC body to protect its members against abuses by the priveleged few. Say 1% of your adwords cost into a fund to use for fighting our causes. I volunteer to run it for 10% of that 1% :)
I would volunteer for a board position :)
Claims of action, flames, and calls to action against any company or person will be removed.
It's time this thread is ended.
