However we have a highly niche etail web property that sells say product A. We lucked out on this one and we have no competitors for product A keywords, except for the usual untargeted ebay spam.
Since we are doing so well with product A, we are opening a new website selling the identical line of products (call it product B) from another supplier.
Since many customers swear by brand A or brand B. We expect a net increase in sales, rather than lose sales from one, for the gain of the other.
The problem, is now we are advertising the exact same keywords for both sites, when we want two spots, which will require either Adwords to give us permission, or create a second account.
The ethical method would be to inform Adwords, and seek permission to have both sites displayed for the same keywords. Since we have no competition, the logical answer is for them to say yes, but Im afraid they would say no.
The legal option, would be to setup another corporation, and since each corporation is a legal person in law, then this would resolve the duplicate account issue, however this would create addtional costs including a second set of financial records.
The unethical option, is to setup a duplicate account, and try to rationalize that we are not hurting anyone, since we control this niche market and we have no one to hurt, or to complain against us. The term it is easier to ask forgiveness, than permission ussually works with most companies, however I have heard that Google sometimes will suspend an account without giving a warning, or without recourse, so I am nervous about this option. I may end up paying even greater legal costs to rectify that problem.
Any suggestions about which direction I should take?
The unethical approach is the easiest, but with all the bans that are going around right now it's clear that it comes with some risk. Having said that, I know people who use multiple accounts advertising the same service on the same keywords and it's been working fine for them (they even use the same CC for the different accounts). However, I'd personally wouldn't sleep easy if those were my accounts. If the business is important to you, I'd go with option #2 (assuming the revenue is worth the headache for you)
I had this done for 4 sites targeting the same keywords and our rep set the each site to show 1 in 4 on the searches and it worked like a charm.
Doing this anyother way will be a very bad decision.
Showing each site 50% of the time is pointless, since site A and site B are not interlinked internally (this was part of a legal agreement with our suppliers). We are looking at doubling our exposure.
It's looks like we will need to setup a new incorporated company for the second website. Its a bit of a hassle, but it beats getting banned.
Is this a violation? We do not overlap into any one region.
You can separate the Canadian from the USA using two separate geotarged campaigns, one campaign for Canada, and a different for the USA, all under the same account.
GR
