Tired of battling with crappy "free" ads.

side effect of the adwords QS?

[limoshawn]

I'm finding it difficult to compete with an influx of crappy "find free widgets" ads on google. By falsely advertising free products, they have exaggerated click thru rates inflating their QS and lowering their CPC. Meanwhile my QS tanks because we are advertising truthfully driving my CPC up.

As a result, I'm tired of subsidizing the crappy ads by continuing to pay the higher CPC. I have reduced our spend to next to nothing, i figure that if google wants to love these crappy ads they are going to have to do it without the revenue generated from my ads.

Now I know that there's no chance that google is going to notice my reduced spend but maybe, just maybe they will eventually notice the combination of the reduced income and the decline of user satisfaction in this vertical and it will cause them to rethink their calculation of the QS to be weighed a little more by user satisfaction and a little less by artificial CTRs.

Well, I can dream can't I...

[Eschatonic]

You should be able to get those listings removed if they're advertising falsely.
[adwords.google.com...]

I think hoping that Google will notice something nebulous like "satisfaction" (which they don't really have a way to measure) is a little unrealistic. Doing the passive-aggressive thing is a good way to just get ignored. Complain, and something might get done.

[LucidSW]

Free is a very powerful word but Google does have rules about using it. If the landing page does not clearly indicate getting something for free, ads can be suspended. If you feel that's the case, let them know.

You're not subsidizing. It's the market: supply and demand. But yes, if they are bidding high and have high quality, that will affect you. You need to improve your own quality. You say QS is going down so you need to do something about that, regardless of what others are doing.

> cause them to rethink their calculation of the QS to be weighed a little more by user satisfaction and a little less by artificial CTRs.

Not likely. Once searchers click an ad or an organic listing, they've done their job. Also, there's nothing artificial about CTRs. It's a very real measurement.

[limoshawn]

Some very good points Lucid, however... it's not exactly supply and demand when you're talking about QS. QS is heavily weighted by CTR of the ad. when the ad in the number 1 spot is paying $0.07 cpc due to a misleading ad and the ad in the number 2 spot $1.80 cpc and number 2's QS is lower because number 1's CTR is artificially high because of the misleading ad there's a problem, and I fixed it, I'm not paying it, simple.
When I say "subsidizing" I'm not talking about number 2 subsidizing number 1, I'm talking about by my paying the $1.80 per click (everyone still comes to my ad after visiting the first ad) I'm affording google the opportunity to put that crappy ad in the first spot, no longer.

[LucidSW]

It's not the QS that's supply and demand. I never said that. It's the laws of supply and demand that determine in part what advertisers are willing to bid and hence pay as well as effecting what others pay.

The first ad would not likely pay $0.07 if the demand, the bid others are willing to make and potentially pay, is in the $2 range.

Ads are ranked by the basic formula of bid times QS. What an advertiser pays depends on the QS and bid of the advertiser below him. Google has published this cost formula in a famous video on Youtube.

Examples:

Top ad has QS of 10, bids $1. Next ad has QS of 7 and bids $0.75. The top ad will pay about $0.53.

If the second place ad's QS improves to 10, the top would now pay about $0.75.

If the second advertiser only bids a low amount such as $0.10 with a QS of 7, the top one would pay about $0.07. If you are bidding and paying $2, it's because the market, the advertisers, dictate that click is worth $2.