I understand that under current Adwords rules, a company can't have two accounts and also can't run two ads at once in the same account for the same keyword. How do we get around this? Does the new brand need to open a second account and pre-emptorily explain to Adwords support that it shouldn't be banned?
We don't want to screw up our main account, so any tips or experiences anyone else has had with this situation would be appreciated.
Though there is no harm in asking.
We'll definitely have to ask them, but I wanted to ask here first to see if anyone else has dealt with this successfully...
From the AdWords end of things, the answer lies in the precise details of the actual situation. So, it is pretty hard to make a broad statement that applies to all cases.
It is worth remembering though, that in the final analysis, the intent of all policy on this subject is to show only one ad for a given advertiser, for a given keyword.
Perhaps another answer may lay in using very specific keywords that are different, and very specific to each of the similar products - rather than the same keywords.
AWA
If we form a 2nd corporate entity that will be selling our new brand of items, yet this entity is owned by another corporation that is advertising for those terms with a different brand, how does that situation get decided?
As a concrete example, would PepsiCo be prevented from advertising both Pepsi and Sierra Mist websites at the same time for the keyword "soft drink"? Each website has unique content advertising a unique brand, and let's imagine they are owned by two separate corporations that are in turn owned by PepsiCo.
Bad analogy.
What you are seeking advice on is illegal and Google will probably catch you even if you set up a separate corporation for such purposes.
Your competitors will likely be the one's to report you. You can't hide all your tracks even if you think you can.
By the way AWA, is there someone in particular that my company should speak to on your support staff to get a "final" answer on this? We don't want to get an answer from someone there, go through the trouble of architecting our decisions around that answer, and then later on have it over-ruled by someone higher up. Any tips appreciated.
As I mentioned, the decision rests on the exact details of the individual situation. So, I guess my best advice would be to write from within the existing account you're referring to, and precisely describe the situation - then ask for a manager to review the details in advance, in light of the fact that the whole process would be time consuming and costly for you to complete.
When I say precisely describe the details, I am referring to things such as the following:
* What does 'very similar' mean, really? Is it is in fact the exact same product with a new digit in the part number, and marketed in a different way - or is it a different product?
* However you choose to configure it, do the two sites or the two corporations ultimately belong to the same person or group of people?
* And so forth...
Bottom line - most often, I'd guess that in this is the sort situation, most advertisers already know if what they want to do is in line with the spirit of the policy or not. And in cases where they're not certain, well, I'd suggest fully describing the situation and asking for a manager's opinion.
And again, if the products are truly different, then perhaps different keywords in different Ad Groups in the same account would prevent all conflicts - and maybe give you better results in the bargain.
AWA
A. Due to the nature of the product this is an almost entirely PPC-marketed product.
B. The targeted terms are of course all the same for their private label widgets and the brand name widgets.
B. They need to keep selling the brand name widgets
I inquired about getting an exception from Adwords for this case. It's been denied -- but I'm not giving up on it!
IMHO Adwords policy doesn't make good sense. The spirit of the policy is good. My interpretation of the spirit of the policy is:
1. Maximize consumer choice.
2. Prevent monopolization of the advertising space by a single advertiser.
But the actual implementation of the policy doesn't, IMHO, live up to this spirit. Adwords allows multiple affiliates to bid on the same terms. Having multiple listings for ebay or amazon does not maximize consumer choice. Arguably it allows such companies to monopolize the advertising space using proxies. However, it prevents companies that own products that compete with each other from advertising them on the same terms. For example, Ford and Volvo cars could not be advertised on the same term, nor could Ivory shampoo be advertised against Pantene shampoo, because they're both owned by P&G.
Does the consumer care about this? No. They shop Ford against Volvo and they switch from one P&G shampoo to another, usually unaware and uninterested in the fact that they're still buying from the same company.
Adwords should change its policy so that for any given term there should be only one ad per website (including mirrors), and so that the same company may have multiple ads per term so long as:
a. the websites are different
b. the websites do not cross promote each other
c. the products offered are physically different
d. the products are branded differently.
IOW, as far as the consumer is concerned, the products are in direct competition with each other, and the ultimate corporate ownership of the competing products is not a relevant factor in the consumer's choice.
One analogy is a Swiss Army knife site being split up into a knife site, a fork site, a screwdriver site etc. This is a standard marketing tactic that has been done long before there was an Internet.
The new brands each have their own domain and web site. Two of the three are advertised on Adwords in the same account as the original site. The new brands are not the old product but share a subset of features, so there is nothing underhand. We also have a separate account for a company that was acquired and is tracked separately, but the two accounts are billed on the same invoice.
Needless to say, Google was consulted in advance, which is the advice given by AWA.
For an imaginary keyword of "breakfast," say that you have completely separate web-sites, each serving their own one individual subniches of "eggs," "toast," "bacon", etc. Say that the user only knows the "breakfast" word to search. However, in most users' minds, they are more specifically just looking for "eggs." Others are looking for "toast." And yet others are only looking for "bacon." For whatever reason, they do not know these individual words, but only "breakfast." But when they search for "breakfast," they are individually looking for one of the subniches.
If there was only one AdWords ad, it would most often be too generic to fully inform the user of all the possible subniches. The user might not recognize that the one generic AdWords ad could serve all those subniches (if it put all the subniches together on one website).
But if the "egg"-searching user could see an ad for "eggs," and the "toast"-searching user could see an ad for "toast," and the "bacon"-searching user could see an ad for "bacon," then all would be served and even G$ benefits too.
How could it be wrong to have three different specialization companies, each with their own domains and legitimate web-sites, and each providing the specific subniche separate from the others, and all being made visible for the user to immediately recognize their subniche for clicking in their search?
I mean, in this kind of situation, this is about fully serving the user.
