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This search for 'stockholm' [google.se] in Google displays one ad across the top and six in the column to the right. The top ad is mine and currently costs me $0.46 per click. The first of the six is an Espotting affiliate - 247-shopping.co.uk, who - by definition - pays Google less. Note the similarities. Their "general info about a trip to Stockholm" is actually a part of my service.
If you click that ad, you will be shown a page full of Espotting ads where I rank tops again, but the link redirects via Espotting and the search phrase has been changed from 'stockholm' (which costs just £0.29 in Espotting for the #1 spot) to the expensive 'stockholm hotel' which costs £1.00 for the #1 spot.
In my case, this predatory practise started on Sept 11, when I switched from manual to automatic billing. The account was drained within a few hours and then refilled automatically again and again. I had set the automatic billing to £100 per time and eventually it was running behind so much that all my Espotting UK advertising was suspended automatically. In just a few days, I had costs soar tenfold, without selling more. I originally suspected that someone was using a robot to generate clicks and complained to Espotting UK, who promptly refunded almost £1000.00 and said that the matter had been resolved.
But I have now found out that it hasn't. At this time two different Espotting affiliates are into this game, one British and one Swedish, and there are probably more. These people are nothing but predators who convert relatively inexpensive Google phrases into very expensive Espotting phrases, presumably pocketing the difference.
If Espotting UK doesn't put a stop to this, they will lose my business.
So, beware! No Espotting advertiser is safe. Check your Espotting traffic. Check if their affiliates are advertising for your keywords in Google. And, if so, check the contents of their links. Chances are that they are doing to you what they are doing to me.
I certainly get some very good traffic from espotting and their associated partners and search engines and have not had such an bad experience. Although I think it pays to be very careful with your keyword selection.
How do the predators make money? Does Espotting have an AdSense-like program where they (the predators) would be getting paid per click? I don't see how they are getting paid in this scenario so I can't fathom their motivation for doing this.
thx
rencke,
have you contacted Espotting about those guys?
(edited for typo)
How they earn money.
Affiliate buys traffic from Google at £0.05p
Affiliate displays Espotting results on their site.
Average cost to advertiser on Espotting say £0.25p
Affiliate share say £0.10p (could be less, could be more)
Affiliate Profit £0.05p (Espotting Profit £0.15p)
RoboPal,
It's not against Espotting's TOS. It's positively encouraged. It's all profit for Espotting.
My question is... "Is it in Google's interests to sell clicks at £0.05p to Espotting affiliates?".
Rencke,
The solution is for the advertiser to be able to choose on which affiliate sites their ads are shown , but it's not in Espotting's (nor any other PPC provider's) interest to offer this. More clicks, more money.
PPC is the only media where an advertiser doesn't control where their ads are shown.
I believe advertisers will force a change, but for the moment (for me at least) PPC is still 1/10 of the cost of traditional/other media so I'm happy to buy any click I can get.
I think many Advertisers would not consider these publishers as parasites but would be happy to get the extra clicks. Someone taking multiple steps to get their site might be a better qualified purchaser. Of course there will be many different expierences.
RoboPal: Espotting seems not to mind at all, judging from what I got from them. Just as ukwebmaster guessed.
The thing is of course that they are advertising for a high volume but relatively inexpensive keyword in Google and then link to the most expensive keyword possible in Espotting. So, I am in fact forced to compete with myself for attention - and pay for it! That angers me.
I am even more angered by the fact that their Swedish affiliate is linking to our English language site using the most expensive phrase possible, rather than the much less expensive Swedish one. Plus the fact that their English affiliate is luring people into his site by offering services which we are the only one to supply amongst the Espotting advertisers. How can I compete with myself?
If this thing produced new business, I wouldn't mind paying top dollars. But it doesn't. It simply reduces my ROI from Google, that's all. If Espotting doesn't adress this issue, by letting advertisers control where their ads are shown, then I will let our UK account run dry and drop them. Adwords accounts for 85% of our SE advertising referrals anyway, Overture for 10% and Espotting UK+DE+FR+SE for just 5% together, so dropping Espotting UK is not a great loss.
Espotting listings dominate both the paid and free listings at Google UK. Very annoying. Something should be done about it.
>Is it in Google's interests to sell clicks at £0.05p to Espotting affiliates?
Why not? Google will earn £0.05p per click and pump their advertiser numbers up before a (possible) IPO.
Ethical? Dunno, not for me to say.
DaveN
