I feel like I’m in the spot market for oil being held hostage by Arab sheiks at Google.
On another phrase- the name of a competing website, again no competitors (there never were, even under the old system), and it kept asking to raise my bid over and over and over again.
Naturally, because these are copyrighted and/or trademarked names, I'm not going to use them in my copy, so I don't really have the choice to "optimize" my ad.
This isn't an auction anymore. Can we bring back that auction quality?
Naturally, because these are copyrighted and/or trademarked names, I'm not going to use them in my copy, so I don't really have the choice to "optimize" my ad.
I guess you meant trademarked alone.
Well, eventhough, you can!
There are lots of "Widgets alternative" ads in my field.
You can use another's trademark for comparisons too.
When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we will only investigate whether the advertisements at issue are using terms corresponding to the trademarked term in the advertisement's content. If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the content of the ad and prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in ad content in the future.
Google doesn't want you to use trademark terms in the text of the ads. But it's okay to bid on them.
This is a bug in their new system. If you are bidding on a trademarked name, you can't "optimize" your creative because you are not allowed to use it in the ads.
See :
When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner
It sounds like it is a reactive rule, not proactive. I mean, they act if someone complains, they do nothing if nobody does.
In my own current experience, I'm now bidding for trademarks of very big boys in software. I also have their product name in my ad. They have been running for months and I even added some more recently.
Again, you CAN do it. The problem will be only if the other complains and even in that case they will not tell you to remove your ad immediatly, they take their time to investigate.
If you are not supposed to use trademarked names, then you cannot optimize your creatives, if you are following the rules to not use trademarked names in the creative.
The importance of that is that we are thus unable to optimize our ads, and it breaks their system. The system continually requests higher bids.
Just note the wording :
"If you are a trademark owner and have an objection to an advertiser's ..."
"When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner ..."
Trademarks can be used every day as long as you're not using them in their detrimental (too much to tell here in a forum post).
May be you are/were thinking to use it in such way, that's why you're afraid of using them.
Since I am not, actually since I am promoting their products using my pocket's money, I'm not afraid of doing so, and I know and I'm sure I will not ever receive a complain in the way I AM using them.
I'm sorry about you, if you can't do the same.
Please, don't take it bad. It was supposed to be a good advise.
It is not that the guy using Canon is running ads again the TOS. The reason is :
Canon did not complain.
Nikon did.
That's how it works.
Another way would be ask permission in advance.
True, if a complaint is made Google will remove the ad. It's clearly stated that the arbitration is between the trademark holder and the advertiser.
In other words, if you use a competitors trademarked terms in your creative without permission, under Google's terms of service, the 800 pound gorilla sits on you, not on Google.
That is an unacceptable risk, and is a flaw in the system in that the system is requiring me to enter into that risk of violating someone's trademark and otherwise invite legal action in order to optimize my ad.
This is my point
My point is the flaw in Google's system which requires me to enter into a situation of having to possibly violate someone's trademark by using it without permission in order to optimize my creative.
How about that? Does that make sense to you?
This has been my experience exactly. Seems odd to me that if I leave it alone it does better than if I work with it!
I know it is said that CPC is based on CTR, history, etc but this does not seem to be the case. Here is the latest examples:
We have 2 different adwords accounts.
Both bidding on the same keyword with the same url and adcopy.
This keyword happens to be disabled in both accounts even though CTR for both in this example is 4.9%
One account wants $0.40 to enable the other wants$5.00
Other words have different CTR (same copy same URL)
Sometimes the account with greater CTR wants more to enable other times the account with lower CTR wants more to enable. There are not small differences either in min bid prices between accounts.
Seems to me google is just pulling nuumbers out of thin air.
Since based on this is cant be derived on CTR, history, URL, or adcopy.
So it must be the other "secret" factors such as Google attempt to try to determin the market value of keywords by experimentation rather than by some solid quantifiable method.