In the first case I sent data about two ads being run by same advertiser. Both ads are pointing to the sites that are selling pirated software. I sent a keyword, Google domain, and country where the search was done. I also sent display URLs of the both ads.
In the "cute" reply from the member of The Google AdWords Team I was asked this:
"To help us investigate these ads, please respond to this email with any additional information you have about these ads, such as the search terms you used, the display URLs, and screenshots of the search results page(s).
Once we have received this information, we'll be happy to investigate your report. Thank you for your cooperation."
Man, do you read English?! Go and get as many screenshots to yourself as you want! I gave you everything already!
In the second case it was an obvious invalid display URL, plus the branded term in the ad text has been spelled in the fashion of "A.A.A.A".
To make an example, let's say you are bidding on keyword "google" and you pout this in the title of your ad: G.O.O.G.L.E.
You want like it... No way...
Now, the biggest problem is that this (second case) was submitted on June 07, with "thank you" reply from Google dated to June 09 - and nothing - the ad is still there - happy and approved in yellow area.
Good job buddies! (muddies)
For the money your turn around you could:
1. Be more respective when we do your job and submit such crap so you don;t need to chase it around;
2. Simply do it. Compare the case against your own policy, and bring those crappy ads down.
What else you want form us?!
Ping, ping, ping Google. Wake up! Do the work! Chop chop!
P.S.
No offense please. Just do your job. Thanks.
At this point, Google should be *increasing* its support options, not decreasing them. They need something more than size-of-market to keep their edge and keep them on top. And there also needs to be a way for power users to bypass front line support and get to someone who can help them - quickly.
I really don't think the AdWords people are seeing the forest for the trees here, and it's going to prove to be a very costly business decision. The power users are NOT going to visit the forums, and they are NOT going to sit there watching endless videos on YouTube. The small business end users aren't either. The people most likely to use these venues are, in many cases, the people whose business models AdWords doesn't want to work with anyway (such as affiliate marketers). As soon as another option comes along, the small business users and the power users are going to jump on it.
There has always been grumbling about AdWords - its complexity, its inflexibility, quality scores, etc. But up until this year, you could at least get support pretty reliably. Now, you can't. And I don't think AdWords realizes the depth of the ill feeling that's growing now - it's not just the people on the edges anymore, it's going mainstream.
(This is in no way meant to be a slam at AWA, who has always been as helpful and supportive as he can be. I'm looking at Google AdWords as a whole.)
Thanks very much for taking the time to write it up.
AWA
As customers, we would really appreciate and respect Google's business better if we see that people over there are really keen to get things (first) understood, and (second) resolved quickly and without too much of complication.
Reporting an ad that is in obvious violation, and seeing it disappeared same or next day is something that helps in our trust building.
Support *has* severely deteriorated.
At this point, Google should be *increasing* its support options, not decreasing them.
This is in no way meant to be a slam at AWA, who has always been as helpful and supportive as he can be.
I couldn't agree more with all three statements.
Our company just lost our full-time contact (which was, by the way, probably the 12th or so Google contact I've been shuffled through over the past 6 years). But, this time it was different.
For the first time, we weren't proactively notified of our demotion. We found this out after 2 weeks of suddenly unreturned voice mails and emails. A brief note stating "I'd recommend calling our general support line for more info and help going forward" was the eventual reply - with further communications requesting transition to another contact left entirely unanswered.
Perhaps it's inflation, but in these tough economic times, a run-rate of $10MM in annual spend sure doesn't go as far as it used to...
