Two ads on the same term

[toddb]

How do I do this? I have a competitor who has two ads on the same keyword. The whois is the same. The ads read almost the same and certain style points are the same. Then since he is affilate marketing or using an affiliate code for tracking, I can see his links are the same.

I presented all of this to Google 3 times. My rep says, he cannot discuss other people's accounts. I have been told if no action is taken then it is not in violation of the TOS.

Do I just need to be a bigger advertiser to do this? My rep says it is not doable for me.

[Evroccck]

im pretty sure you have to have multiple accounts to do this.... just set up another one and bid on the same words.

[humblebeginnings]

Perhaps I did not fully get your question,
but keywords are arranged by adgroup.
In one adgroup I can make as many ads as I want.
They will be triggered by the same keyword.
However, they will be rotated, so they won't show up at the same time. I guess you mean if you search in Google for a certain keyword, 2 or more ads of your competitor show up at the same time. I have noticed this too and my idea is that you really need more than one account to get this done. That however is against TOS. Helpful rep you have, by the way;-(

[toddb]

Yep, you need two accounts. But it is against teh TOS. I would need an excption. Just curious if lots of people are allowed to do it.

[humblebeginnings]

I believe you are allowed to manage more than one account as long as the accounts are registered by different entities. Many visitors of this forum make a living of managing Adwords accounts for their clients. So if you ask your boyfriend, girlfriend, mother-in-law (no wait,`forget about her!) or whoever you trust, if it is ok that you open an account on their name...

It wouldn't surprise me if smart entrepreneurs pay people a small amount of money to use their name for opening an Adwords account. If you manage to control a handful of accounts, you could control specific keywords, and thus make a lot of money...

[ogletree]

You can just create another company. Put another suite number or something.

[ronmcd]

You can open multiple accounts under a single My Client Center account, so you can work with different accounts for different clients. But you cant double serve, if google know you have multiple accounts they will only show one of your ads for a single keyword, just the same as if they were different campaigns within one account.

Double serving is definitely against the TOS, and might get your adwords accounts by google.

[humblebeginnings]

Todd,

forget my lousy advice, Ron seems to know a bit more about this;-)

[toddb]

Ron,

The one is question was turned in on 7/30, 8/23 and 9/26. I just checked, and it is still there. Must be doable.

[ronmcd]

Hi Todd
I'm sure it's do-able, but its definitely against the TOS to double serve. I know of examples where an advertiser has had multiple accounts, once google worked out (not sure how) they were the same person they informed them their ads would be rotated, not shown at the same time.

In your case how can you tell they are the same person? Is is the same affiliate id, or is it that both urls were registered by the same person?

The grey area I suppose would be where the merchant registers 2 domains, one is promoted by the affiliate (say through clickbank) and the other is promoted exclusively by the merchant themselves. In that case no-one is actually double serving, the merchant and affiliate really are separate entities, even though the same product is being promoted. It goes against the spirit of the TOS, not sure if it actually breaks them. Maybe thats why google havent closed them down?

[toddb]

67 days later, they have removed one ad. Lesson learned. Do not bother with this stuff.