Many of these ads do not make any sense at all. If you search for a popular
author you will see ads like "AuthorName for sale" and "Buy your AuthorName here"
Does this type of advertisement detract from the user experience? I can not
see any value added by displaying them. If anything they might teach the user
not to read the ads at all...
What do you guys think?
None of these arguments will make any difference to Google for sure.
So instead of arguing, ad nauseam, why affiliates should be allowed to go on Adwords, why not be more proactive and discuss what affiliates should do IF THE WORST SCENARIO happens?
What do you think :
1. what's the worst case scenario?
2. what can we aff do to stay make a living if 1 is true?
If the argument is that you don't deserve to advertise a website if you aren't the webmaster who built it, then Google ought to prohibit SEMs and marketing agencies from using AdWords since they are buying ads (often with less incentive to make them relevant than affiliates) and sending traffic to sites they don't own.
If the affiliate ads weren't relevant, they wouldn't make money and affiliates wouldn't post them because they would lose money.
That is not always true.
How many times do I have to mention about "drive by bid attacks" and about the repeated failures of affiliate ad attempts one after the other?
If the argument is that you don't deserve to advertise a website if you aren't the webmaster who built it, then Google ought to prohibit SEMs and marketing agencies from using AdWords since they are buying ads (often with less incentive to make them relevant than affiliates) and sending traffic to sites they don't own.
That is a misrepresentation of the argument I made.
Why are affilate advertisers so scaredy-cat afraid to get their own site and actually be relevant?
Besides, the AdWords TOS only allows one ad per website per keyword. To even try to suggest that affiliates are supposedly "also representatives" still fails because multiple affiliates still would be a violation of the TOS.
your right, considering what we all do if google stops affiliates bidding on adwords is whats really important.
Obviously affiliates would have to produce websites for each product, company etc - as is the case currently on overture.
Some affiliates currently do this, and I have tried it, but conversion rates are tend to be lower. Ofcourse on some keywords you can add value by providing a comparison.
It would probably be a good thing for well established affiliates, reducing competition and providing a barrier to entry to new affiliates.
Bad thing for the affiliate marketing industry overall though.
That is not always true.
It's not always true for merchants either.
If there are a lot of affiliate sites in the SERPs now, just imagine how many "ghost sites" would be in there if affiliates weren't bidding on AdWords and had to turn exclusively to SEO to get traffic.
How many times do I have to mention about "drive by bid attacks" and about the repeated failures of affiliate ad attempts one after the other?
What about all the "drive by bid attacks" from merchants who don't know what they are doing? They come in and raise bid prices for clients too, however, when clients just hold the line and base their bids and spend on sound business principles, rather than worring about what other people do, everything works just fine.
But if the would-be attackers had to have their own site to do that, few would be willing to go to the effort, expense, and public open-ness just to make such a "drive by bid attack."
In addition to other reasons laid out about this matter, there is just too much anonymity and unaccountability for affiliates to be in the AdWords adspace.
..."drive by bid attack." That is where they come in ...making ads that are purposely irrelevant in order to NOT get clicks, while setting their daily budget low enough to be removed early ...before paying much, all so that they can then deliberately bid up to just under the Max CPC of their "bid attack" target advertiser to make the attack target pay more -- ALL ON PURPOSE.
Why would affiliates purposely make ads in order not to get clicks? Sounds like a waste of time. I think you may be reading malevolence into ignorance. Quite a few affs just test a program with high bids to get a large enough sample to quickly determine cost per conversion, then readjust or dump the program. It's not personal.
Some affiliates currently do this, and I have tried it, but conversion rates are tend to be lower. Ofcourse on some keywords you can add value by providing a comparison.
Richy,
I've done cross testing with setting up a site to promote a single item vs. sending the person directly to the merchant and indeed, for the most part, sending the surfer directly to the merchant site produced more sales.
I think that happens because some people are suspect of your/my site, believing perhaps it's a phishing scheme trying to imitate the "real site" as Multiman would say. Except for adult sites, you usually can't make your landing page look too much like the merchant's site without violating the merchant's terms of service. So your site tends to look like an imposter. I think that scares people off a bit.
I think single item affiliates perform a real service by helping the novice user to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Some people find it too daunting to see a URL in the newspaper like "http://www.widgets.com" and type it correctly, but are amazed when they are able to type something like "I want to buy a mogu pillow" and voila, a single click lands them right on the Widget Co. page. At least that's been told to me through anecdotal evidence.
patient2all
[edited by: patient2all at 5:38 am (utc) on Nov. 22, 2004]
Sounds like a waste of time.
Quite correct. As I outlined in post #44 of this thread, the scenario multiman stated and rehashed again in post #98 is not plausible as a means of 'attack'.
Before even seeing the prior post, I was about to ask you if you could provide a single report in any media concerning these "drive by bid attacks". Indeed, it sounds implausible and I don't want to invest in commenting until I read some third party corroboration that this actually exists.
Unless, of course "G$" has been able to keep all this hush-hush to stymie "real webmasters" who have invested $20.00 in a domain name and hosting service.
patient2all
You wrote,
Why would affiliates purposely make ads in order not to get clicks? Sounds like a waste of time. I think you may be reading malevolence into ignorance. Quite a few affs just test a program with high bids to get a large enough sample to quickly determine cost per conversion, then readjust or dump the program. It's not personal.
Of course what you describe can happen too.
Even so, with experience in a controversial topic where topical opponents do play games like that, "drive by bid attacks" DO occur, as the cost and effort of setting up an anonymous affiliate account and AdWords ad amounts to next to nothing for them to do.
The reason why they do not want to get clicks is so that their ad can remain viewable for as long as possible until they get that first click or two of the day. That way, they can bid just high enough to be just-under their intended attack-target, but not have to pay much themselves. Once they get that first click or two, their purposefully too-low a daily budget removes their ad for the rest of the day. But each day until their ad is so removed, they had forced that next-higher up ad (their attack-target) to pay its absolute Max CPC for the clicks it got while the irrelevant affilate ad was showing.
As for PPCbidder, the most accurate thing in post #44 is where I was re-quoted as saying,
What is actually ridiculous is people asserting things they have no knowledge about. Maybe such fraud has not happened in someone's keyword yet, but there is a world of experience beyond one's own corner of the world.
Instead of allowing oneself to become informed and educated about something they had not seen before, this is an example of instead trying to say that something real is not real when they have no knowledge about it.
I think you have basically identified the real reason why affiliates in this thread are so scaredy-cat afraid to be accountable by having real sites. Whether honest and innocent or not, they are either not able or not willing to be trustworthy enough (in the customers' eyes) to get all the sales they could on their own site.
Ultimately, though, that yields the next important issue. If selling from one's own site would scare a customer, then one has to wonder just what value the affiliate really has to offer in the keyword. If one can't stand on their own, why should they be "standing" at all? And if that is the case, it again re-affirms the point that affiliates do not legitimately belong in the AdWords adspace.
However, if conversion is all that matters, and G$ stil wants to provide affiliates a place to advertise too, then G$ could let the bottom footers of the SERPs be the place for affiliate ads. Then the user can discern for themselves if they really want what the affiliate purports to offer.
If someone wants to pay for an ad above you, it is their perogative. Plus, none of the arguments you make pertain to affiliates specifically. ANYBODY could try to do what you describe (even though it wouldn't work anyway)
Don't you have something better to do than moan about this 24/7?
Personally, I wouldn’t suffer one bit if every affiliate were required to have their own site. However, I do not think this should happen. The bottom line is if the ad isn’t relevant to what is being searched for it disappears. To solve of the problem of irrelevant ads appearing in the time frame before they disappear because of a lack of clicks, removing the bulk tool would take care of about 90% of this issue. My greater concern about this whole issue is the apparent lack of understanding of exactly who is an affiliate by Google.
By lack of understanding I simply referring to the many different rules, for different organizations that essentially operate in the same way. Worse yet I think this lack of understaning is in large part intentional, and used as a mechanism to create artificial distinctions where none exist. For example, I should not be required to carry the aff designation when promoting my own sites. I am honest and straightforward with my ads. If I am not selling widgets on my site, I don’t put in my ad “buy widgets here”. My ads are much more likely to read something to the effect of “compare widgets here”. I have had ads suspended on more than one occasion, and I am then required to put the aff tag in the ad to get it reactivated even though the intent of my ad is to promote my own site. Quite frankly this is wrong. The last time this happened to me I was promoting a specific product that was available at many merchants. Sure enough my ad was suspended for lack of affiliate identification. When I went back to look at the keywords and who was advertising in the same key words I found an ad placed directly by Amazon.com for the same widget I built my site around. I clicked on it, and what I found out was that Amazon wasn’t even selling this widget. It could of course be purchased at Circuit City or J&R through the links on Amazon’s page. I called adwords and asked what is the distinction between my site and Amazon.com in this case? All I got where a bunch of hems and haws, and then I was finally told If I had a complaint I should email somebody about it. I called back several times over this issue each time you could tell the rep on the other end was probably rolling his/her eyeballs at the suggestion that a little turd like me should be treated in the same fashion as Amazon.com.
I also see this lack of understanding played out with the preferential treatment given to the advertising agencies. I can ascertain no real distinction between an advertising agency and an affiliate when it comes to ad words. The only difference between the two are how they are paid. Adverting agencies are often paid a flat rate and affiliates are often paid a percentage of the sale. Even that isn’t always the case as some affiliates get flat payouts and some agencies get paid based upon the success or failure of a campaign. Looking at this a bit further the experience is entirely the same for the end user regardless if an agency or an affiliate placed the ad. In both cases (assuming the affiliate links directly to the merchant) the end user is taken directly to the merchants site, in both cases someone other than the end user and merchant benefit from the transaction, in both cases there is a contract between the merchant and the entity that placed the ad, and in both cases the end user is tracked through some sort of tracking code so the merchant knows where the sale came from. Why isn’t the agency required to identify itself in the ad but the affiliate is?
Ironically the types of ads Multi Man is complaing about are more often placed by agencies rather than affiliates at least from what I have observed. Yet nobody suggests a crack down on agencies to get rid of the problem. Ebay doesn’t sell anything on their site, what they are is the worlds biggest affiliate portal selling products for other people in exchange of a % of the sale. Yet if you were to call or email google and suggest all ads directly placed by ebay should have the affiliate designation I am sure your suggestion would get a good laugh and nothing more.
The reason I think all of this is relevant to our discussion is that if there is some sort of crack down on affiliate marking in google then all entities that act as affiliates: advertising agencies, amazon, ebay, big shopping portals ect should be treated in the same fashion, but what I suspect will happen is that there will be special rules for these types of organizations even though they are doing the identical things. That is simply wrong.
The reason I think all of this is relevant to our discussion is that if there is some sort of crack down on affiliate marking in google then all entities that act as affiliates: advertising agencies, amazon, ebay, big shopping portals ect should be treated in the same fashion
Amen!
Don't you have something better to do than moan about this 24/7?
If you're going to participate, let's stick to the topic, shall we?
Since you readily admit that 90% of your affiliate methods are through your own sites, then it would not pose a problem for you if you were required to have your own site to advertise in AdWords. The issue here, therefore, is not really a problem for you.
perhaps you don't realize that your own words actually apply to yourself?
No, it doesn't apply to me. Go back and count the number of posts you have made in this thread versus the number I have.
Then go count the posts where you said nothing new. Almost everything you have posted is a derivative of the first couple posts you made. No new information, just useless repetition.
Almost everything you have posted is a derivative of the first couple posts you made. No new information, just useless repetition.
Your issue is not with me then. Perhaps you should accuse others here of posting repeated questions and already-addressed comments and take it up with them.
And I agree that OV does seem to have a good standard.
{My Business Name}
Get $500 for {My Business Name}
& more absolutely free. Aff.
www.example.com
I agree that some of the affiliate ads are not monitored closely enough to knock out the keywords that obviously have nothing to do with the affiliate. An Ebay affiliate is in the 4th spot using dynamic keyword insertion as well.
The sad thing is neither of the ads make sense because it is simply our business name. The Ebay affiliate ads never go away despite poor CTR, someone is always bidding on our REGISTERED name. This definitely has to discourage users who search on Google...
[edited by: eWhisper at 11:05 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2004]
[edit reason] Please use example.com for URLs. [/edit]
Yes, it is indeed a problem that many of us real advertisers have seen. Well said.
Multiman, i respect your argument, i suspect you are in a field which is highly controvesial (such as abortion), and as such you will obviously be more likely to be a target to agressive bidding techniques.
However, both you and anyone else who compains about the results, have no right to show for the keyword you bid on. It is not yours. Google are obviously going to move towards a profit maximising model, and so they should, they are a plc, not a free consumer resource.
I would also argue that you still have not answered my "redundent" question about how having a domain name makes you accountable, given that it is so easy to use fake details for domain registration.
As for destroying the serps, I would say that the results in general have improved dramatically over the last 12 months. But i once again stress that your site, like any other, is an irrelevent speck. Google has 8 billion pages indexed.
Personally, i think it would be a good idea to isolate any clearly non-commerce focused searches from the general search. These should not have paid advertisments.
