Testing adwords traffic as a Marketing study

Sending adwords traffic to manufacturers website.

[lgn1]

We are looking to expand into another new business line, and since we deal with niche markets, we wanted to test adwords traffic, without setting up a website. We are doing this because google traffic predicitions are terrible on low traffic keywords.

We created an adwords campaign and are directing the traffic to the manufactuers website (they sell to the public also), to gauge the adwords traffic and competition.

We are only doing this for a few weeks, and then we will make the decision if we wish to proceed or not to sell the goods in question.

Does anybody see this as an ethical or TOS violation issue.

None of the search terms are trademarked.

[limoshawn]

possibility #1: imagine if the manufacturer's domain has gotten in trouble with adwords in the past, set up this account and now you, your account, and your payment method are tainted.
possibility #2: they currently have or an affiliate currently has a campaign running that points to their (the manufacturers) domain. your data would likely be off at best.

[lgn1]

In response to possibility #1:

Never considered this scenario, but we farm out the marketing testing, so it would never impact our adwords account with the sites we already have established.

In response to possibility #2:

The manufacturer or any affiliates are not currently marketing on adwords for their products; unless it is a localized campaign.

Besides the manufactuer is heavy into traditional retail, and is not very web savy.

[limoshawn]

the only other thing I can think of is if the manufacturer complained to google, but if you a farming it out then probably not a big deal for you.

[Eschatonic]

If the manufacturer is also running an adwords campaign you might fall foul of Google's double-serving rules. Of course you mention that this is unlikely, so it's probably nothing to worry about. It might be a good idea to check anyway.

You'll also want to co-ordinate with whoever runs their website. If they're not very web-savvy you might have to help them out a bit. Remember to put tracking codes in your keyword and ad URLs so they can distinguish the traffic; the data will give you more information about how the traffic behaves once it reaches their site - it's all very well sending them traffic but if it bounces straight away it's useless to them (and you, since you don't want to be factoring in that sort of traffic anyway).