There will be only one ad displayed per serach query per domain.
The ad with the highest Ad Rank will be displayed.
This means affiliates and merchants will compete against each other for positioning.
You no longer have to identify yourself as an affiliate.
Google will not change the ad text, you must do this manually.
If you use a unique URL for your landing page, you will not be affected by this change.
Shak
How does this effect tracking company software, ie hitbox, hypertracker etc, etc. Because this would be the same type of codes to affiliate stuff. Perosnally I rreckon what they mean by:
Display URL to Match Landing URL
means the add display url must be the same as the uULTIMATE landing page...ie I can's have www.ford.com in the advert and send the visitor to www.honda.com
Dougs
I think you are right
display url > landing url
so not a prob if
display url > bid mgmt tracking url > landing url
Shak
So it is ultimately a bigger problem for the merchants than the affiliates, and it'll be the merchants who drive the solutions - I hope!
Happy New year Sir.
many merchgant don't actually know how much of their trafiic is actually PPC driven by their affiliates :)
I met 1 last week who didn't have a clue that 75% or so off all the sales from their aff network was pure ppc > merchant
many still think the old banner strategy is whats bringing the sales in
the other thing is, at many companies, different teams are resposible for PPC / Afiiliates
Shak
...if we find that two or more ads compete under the same URL, we will display the ad with the highest Ad Rank.
But if the keep showing the ad with the highest ad rank then how do the other ads increase their Ad Rank?
(Ad Rank is that green bar indicating popularity/clickthroughs isn't it?)
The ad with the highest Ad Rank will be displayed.
'Ad Rank' is supposed to be calculated from max cpc and ctr. G can not know the ctr without displaying the add (if another ad exists for that domain).
Lets say Ad1 is showing for domain.com and an affiliate creates Ad2. G will not show 2 ads for the same domain. G have not said they will trial your ad for a while. So how does Ad2 get to show it has better Ad Rank than Ad1?
CONCLUSION: the only way one ad can replace another is with a 'special' Ad Rank ie only max cpc (the highest bidder). G must be sacrificing quality (ctr) for profit (cpc). How else could this rule be implemented?
The slippery slope!
Lots of clicks at a low price or few clicks at high price. Google don't care they show the add that makes them the most.....or atleast used to
Can think of 2 scenarios :
** They suffer a major setback from PPC sales generated by affiliates(since affs usually knock competition off from page1) and hence side with their affs for alternate solutions.
** They use the opportunity to knock off affiliates altogether, disallowing PPC activities by affiliates and thus being the "only ad per domain". However, this can severely damage their sales. But like Shak said, most of them don't even know the %age of sales from PPC affiliate ads.
Would like to hear the views of the more experienced people out there.
Search term: "Brand Name" - merchant + 5 aff advertisers
Search term: "Brand Name Really Specific Product" - only 1 advertiser
If I am the only advertiser for "Brand Name Really Specific Product" do I have no competition or am I competing against the other people broad and phrase matching "Brand Name"? ie. are the people broad matching or phrase matching "Brand Name" considered to be bidding on the same search term as "Brand Name Really Specific Product"?
In other words, can you beat competition by simply having wider search term inventory than anyone else?
(2) Move will force more people to try to create quality sites of their own rather than Google direct to Merchant.
(3) I think the people who criticised Shak weeks ago for spreading rumours ought to swallow humble pie now. They owe him a public apology.
As per usual, the man knew what he was talking about :)
Did anyone make a plan B? If not you got less than a week - Thanks google ;)
In every adversity there are seeds of greatness...
How do you get good AdRank when you can't build up CTR coz your ads don't show?
1) Bid more
2) Hope your competitors daily budget gets used up and someone else grabs the spot.
..How do you get good AdRank when you can't build up CTR coz your ads don't show?
If you can't have two adds appear at the same time for the same domain you can't factor ctr to decide the winning ad. Can anyone see how CTR can be in the AdRank equation for ads competing on a domain and kw? Am I missing something?
If the equation can't be done then Google are not being straight with us, ie AdRank for competing domain-ads IS max CPC.
Google have historically held quality as a major part of their algo. This is how G gained so much respect. Now they are dropping quality for profit.
Each affiliate's max CPC will rocket to get their ad used, but then affiliate no 2 can bid just below no 1 to ensure that no 1 pays a fortune per click.
But the harsh part is that even though no 2 will be bidding ridiculously high just below no 1, he won't be paying a dime himself, because his ads aren't being featured.
Unless people do separate landing pages, we're going to see a return to the tedious manual raising/lowering of bids by $0.01 etc etc ad nauseum...
Been brainstorming about the merchants' reaction to the policy change.Can think of 2 scenarios :
** They suffer a major setback from PPC sales generated by affiliates(since affs usually knock competition off from page1) and hence side with their affs for alternate solutions.
** They use the opportunity to knock off affiliates altogether, disallowing PPC activities by affiliates and thus being the "only ad per domain". However, this can severely damage their sales. But like Shak said, most of them don't even know the %age of sales from PPC affiliate ads.
Would like to hear the views of the more experienced people out there.
I think its safe to say that most merchants out there do not have deep pools of affiliates. Those merchants are going to be generally happy about the change, because it will increase the likelihood that their ads will be seen.
While this change appears to negatively affect the business model of many on this site, I don't think its really aimed at the advertisers, per se.
Google is going back to the fundamental idea that _their_ business model is driven by the searcher, not the searchee. Keeping Google the best search engine available is the driver for everything else. The potential short term hit because of fewer advertisers competing for top slots is nothing compared to the destruction that would be wreaked by leaking searchers to other technologies.
As this industry proves over and over again, it is hard to build a sustainable advantage. Google themselves rose meteorically from nothing to be the dominant engine. Firefox is chewing away market share from IE in a way that no one could have predicted. Google is apparently still smart enough to realize that they are and always will be vulnerable.
And dang it! Why does Google always insist on making significant policy changes and not updating or otherwise making those changes available on the Adwords pages?
1. They are sending out millions of emails, might just take a while to get there.
2. Do you have the newsletter and mailings options checked inside your account? If you don't, Google might consider sending you email spam, and therefore you're not on the mailing list.
