Today we're excited to begin testing a new feature of AdWords called AdWords Comparison Ads, which lets users compare multiple, relevant offers more easily.
. To see how it works, let's use our mortgage example. Users searching for "mortgage" on Google.com may see a promotion from Comparison Ads prompting them to select the type of loan they are looking for and to compare various rates.
At this time, Comparison Ads will only show to a small number of users in select U.S. states and is only available to a limited number of advertisers in the mortgage/refinance space. Over time, we'll increase the number of users who see Comparison Ads offers as well as the number of advertisers able to participate.
You only pay if a user calls the phone number on your offer or fills out a form to request a quote.
[edited by: engine at 4:45 pm (utc) on Oct. 30, 2009]
[edit reason] Added relevent quotes [/edit]
If you sell mortgages or mortgage leads, you're now ####'ed.
If you are into auto insurance leads, jewellery, or travel I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.
Phew, I'm in travel
I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.
The age of disintermediation? Hardly. Just fewer middlemen. Possibly just one with any real chance of survival, scaling, profiting handsomely.
Now that I see "that future of disintermediation" unfolding I find it ironic how various intermediary's PPC payments helped to fund the development costs of the technology, and how their click-data-stream helped design the system and methods that will now lay waste to those very same intermediaries.
The age of disintermediation? Or, is it once again, a case of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." From We Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who.
Won't get fooled again. Again.
If you are into auto insurance leads, jewellery, or travel I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.
Why would auto insurance be any different than mortgage? You could replace the 'purchase' or 'refinance' mortgage example with 'comprehensive' or 'liability' in an auto insurance example...
their search engine is fast becoming a big net in which they catch people and keep them, whilst all the other sites are left looking from the sidelines.
someone needs to tell them to seperate the search out from the content or businesses are going to suffer.
someone needs to tell them to seperate the search out from the content or businesses are going to suffer.
I think they know what they are doing... Unfortunately. They are in the advertising business, and this is a form of advertising for them. If we were in the same boat and able to cut out some middle men, would we do it? I bet most of us would.
If you are into auto insurance leads, jewellery, or travel I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.
Webwork's comments about funding development on the backs of PPC advertisers is eloquent and true. Google's built it's business on the back of both content providers and PPC advertisers. Now they're taking aim at both of them. This move tastes of foul business ethics to me, particulary combined with their recent move against affiliates.
Have the Yellowpages and IYP's been dealt a coup de grace by virtue of local listings being extended from 3 to 10? Sure, they are a victim of their own stupidity and lack of vision, but 10 local listings where once there were none? Hello?
Are local content portals, like Yelp (ironic naming?), in the cross-hairs of Google Places?
Is the Associated Press, CNN, MSN and the "breaking news media" in the cross-hairs of Google Wave? Hello?
Is Twitter in the cross-hairs of . . .
Just like any good webmaster I suppose.
I once read how the Web marked the beginning of a new age of disintermediation - cutting out the middleman. People could now make connections they once couldn't . . without going through a middleman. People would be able to "go direct" - around the world. With all that connectivity who needs a man in the middle of the transaction, a broker, a lead generator, a salesman, a middleman/woman?
The mortgage broker I used to use was calling me last year with his best mortgage rates for refinancing. In the past, I'd used him for years and every time rates would go down I'd refinance. He would get his commission and pay for my points and closing costs out of his commission. It worked great for both of us and he always had lower rates than I could find myself, even with his commission cut. One time we even refinanced with my existing mortgage holder who paid him many thousands of dollars to broker a new loan for us at a lower rate. I called the mortgage company myself to try to negotiate a lower rate directly and they wouldn't budge. But going through him they gave us a lower rate and paid him a commission, even though we were already their customers. It was crazy costly on their part not to deal with me directly but years ago I guess that just wasn't how they did business.
But these days the broker's rates, points and closing costs were too high compared to what I could find on the Internet myself. This year when rates went down I called my existing mortgage holder, told them what I found on the Internet and they were happy to cut me a great deal on refinancing to keep me as a customer - even better than what I found online.
I just don't see how mortgage brokers can make a living these days when lenders can just advertise on the Internet for customers and customers can look up rates from thousands of mortgage lenders right from their PCs. The Internet is in effect the middle man these days, and one that works for free, at least from the customer's point of view.
;¦
It seems that they simply pick ideas off the internet, perhaps by seeing where traffic goes (which they can do thanks to their search engine) and once they find a nice site/idea, they create a "remix"/"mash-up" that does the same thing or some approximation thereof. They don't have to be the best, they just have to be good enough so that people won't bother looking beyond Google "XYZ". And that's pretty easy, from what I surmise.
Which begs a good question, what do we do? Give up and find a day job? Put up resistance and block Google from our content? (Say good-bye to 80% of your traffic!)
What are some the ingredients of an online business idea that Google can not or will not want to copy?
Right now Google shows about 2 or 3 horizontal ads and 6 vertical ads per page.
With this approach they can cram a lot more ads into a smaller space by grouping them by product or service.
So Google can now compare dozens of products/services and still get their CPC.
If you think about it. The keyword "morgage" most likely has thousands of adword accounts bidding on it, and Google is limited to only trying to convert a few ads into a click per search activity.
Now the odds that they can convert a visitor into a click has increase because they can present them with more adword accounts to select from.
Does this add value to the searcher? No, not really. Buying a product/service based upon a single displayed "value" is foolish.
Does this add value to the adwords advertiser? No, because now competition has increased.
Does this make Google more money? Yes, now they can show more of the ads businesses are bidding on. Which will drive up the bidding cost.
People never go to the bottom of a comparison list and then say "I'll buy that one".
I'm 99.99% sure this was sarcasm (just google sarcasm - wait, doh!)
You can round that up to 100%.
Well, now I feel silly. :)
Now that I see "that future of disintermediation" unfolding I find it ironic how various intermediary's PPC payments helped to fund the development costs of the technology, and how their click-data-stream helped design the system and methods that will now lay waste to those very same intermediaries.
So very true. And, the vehicles are Google Analytics and Conversion Tracking... producing free business intelligence for Google in nice, neat reports. Once you know what converts, your only concern is then Quality Score. I sure hope they can crack the code...
as a publisher, i'm sick of this double dependancy we're trapped in. they catch you everywhere, there's no escape. we're largely dependent on search for our traffic. and we're largely dependent on adsense for monetization. two issues - one company that gives and takes all.
[edited by: moTi at 12:42 am (utc) on Nov. 1, 2009]
i'm sick of this double dependancy we're trapped in. they catch you everywhere, there's no escape. we're largely dependent on search for our traffic.
Which begs a good question, what do we do? Give up and find a day job? Put up resistance and block Google from our content? (Say good-bye to 80% of your traffic!)
remember who STILL has the power in the google-webmaster relationship. We do.
All it would take would be for a small, savvy group of webmasters to organize a "No Google Robots" day, a long time in the future (say for January 1, 2010) and on that day, get as many webmasters as possible to block G through robots.txt and keep them blocked.
how many of you believe strongly enough to do that? If there are 5000, 10000 sites that join that, watch how fast G acts to mend fences.
If that happened, you'd lose 80% of your traffic for a week or two. Are you willing to pay that much to start getting G under a tighter rein?
All it would take would be for a small, savvy group of webmasters to organize a "No Google Robots" day, a long time in the future (say for January 1, 2010) and on that day, get as many webmasters as possible to block G through robots.txt and keep them blocked.
This sounds interesting - it's certainly worth a couple of weeks without traffic if the result is noticeable. But what do you think that end result will be? People switching to BING? (Which would be a healthy outcome for all sites, I think) Just after 2 weeks of disappointing search results? Somehow I doubt it.
boycotts like this are amazingly effective but equally they are extremely hard to organize. Nobody wants to act alone and everyone thinks "I'll stay in and get more traffic!". Ultimately, people are selfish and "the other side", in this case, Google, know that full well.
the other alternative is to educate the public on some of google's misdeeds. that's also difficult, but cwith a viral campaign could have a serious impact on google's business. I beleive information privacy is one achilles heel they have.
google and webmasters have an uneasy alliance, this step seems to me to have shifted their power too far.
in fact, i've got thousands of pages of unique content going online over the coming months. its intended for linkbait, but i think i can afford to take the links and block the bots. one small step backwards for them.
All it would take would be for a small, savvy group of webmasters to organize a "No Google Robots" day.
Why just a day? Wouldn't a month or a year be more effective?
rupert murdoch has been making it plain recently that he doesn't like some of the ways that google operates. if something is going to happen, then it's going to start with someone like him.
As you've all rightly noted, G launching comparison shopping ads is but the latest manifestation of Google using its dominance in search to further its own revenues at the expense of advertisers - and with no appreciable improvement in user experience. Prior to that it was the mid-August change whereby right-side ads were pushed further in to the left, pushing up AdWords CTR without the concomitant increase in ROI advertisers would need to feel like something other than rape had occurred.
I've just joined a startup, one of whose aims is to put advertisers & publishers more in the driver's seat going forward.
A solution to the dilemma you've described in earlier posts will involve:
a) someone coming along who provides a better, richer user experience in the areas of search, navigation and ecommerce;
b) publishers and advertisers embracing a business model that naturally protects them and prevents predatory traffic monetization practices on the part of engines and browsers; and
c) consumers liking and adopting (a)
FWIW, I think that 5 years from now we'll be well on our way towards less reliance on Google.
