Wiseaff

Google Forgiveness... hard to achieve?

A few weeks ago I received an email from Google suggesting that 1 or more of the ads in an AdWords account were disapproved.  In looking at that account, I discovered that they were showing disapprovals for ads that had been deleted.

As anyone who works with Google knows, their notices can be somewhat ominous and sometimes suggest that upon any further disapproval that your account will be suspended.

Obviously concerned, I contacted them and was told that this notice was sent regarding ads that were disapproved in 2007.  

Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but I think it's now 2009…almost 2010?  Why in the world would I be getting this email for ads that had been disapproved 2 + years ago?

I dig further......

So these ads were in fact disapproved in 2007, and paused, where they sat until May 2009.  In May 2009, they were deleted (well at least the best delete you can do in AdWords).

So here it is 5 months later and the ads were: paused 2 years ago, DELETED 5 months ago....why in the world would the policy team even be looking at these in a review process?  They are gone, deleted, not active.  Well here is the response I got:

…Thank you for your email. I understand that you are concerned about deleted ads resulting in a policy warning. Please be assured that our policy team and I understand completely that the ads from 2007 that violated policies were later deleted.

Our policy team reviews accounts based on past disapprovals: the fact that you paused and deleted the ads from 2007 does not erase the fact that the ads were submitted and violated policies in 2007.

If our policy team did not look at all disapprovals, and only looked at undeleted disapproved ads, then it would create a situation where advertisers could violate policies and effectively delete the fact that they violated any policies.

Our policy team will look at the full history of an account when issuing suspension warnings as well. The fact that two years have elapsed since the violation does not remove the policy violation from our policy team's consideration….

Never mind, that this was 2 years ago,

Never mind that the ads have since been deleted

Never mind that there have not been not other since then

Apparently any disapproval you may received, just sits out there…forever and at any time, paused, deleted or not, you can be forced to pay for past sins. 

Can an Affiliate Manager Really Know Nothing about Affilate Marketing?

Last week I had an email conversation with an affiliate manager and just had to post it verbatim for your reading pleasure.  I left in all the typos and spelling errors just for fun. Oh and I omitted the names, too.  I'm not that cold ;) 

--- Original Message Separator ---

Hey Tony,

I emailed you last week and still havent heard back from you.

I was going through our list of Publishers to verify our the placement of our banners on thier sites. Can you please direct me to where our banner is on your site?

Thanks

Affiliate Manager

--- Original Message Separator ---

Affiliate Manager,

We typically get hundreds of emails through the CJ Mail, and aren't able to respond to all, so please feel free to email directly at <email address>.

As to your question, we are a Paid Search Affiliate. We generate traffic via paid search and not via banner placement.

Tony

--- Original Message Separator ---

Hey Tony,

Thanks for your email. Can you send me a link so I can go through the steps that a customer would to go through you and get to us to make a purchase?

Thanks

Affiliate Manager

--- Original Message Separator ---

Affiliate Manager,

My apologies, I did not explain our process very well.  I cannot 'show' you a link.  We purchase paid search ads in Google, Yahoo and MSN then create ad copy that links back to our merchant partners.  Once they click on the link in the ad, they are taken immediately to your site where they complete the transaction.   

Tony

--- Original Message Separator ---

Hey Tony,

Thank you for your quick response. So what can I type to search for in Google, Yahoo, and MSN and what would be what I see of yours coming into play from a customer pespective as a means to getting to our site.

Thanks again

Affiliate Manager

--- Original Message Separator ---

Affiliate Manager,

As a company policy I cannot give out the keywords that we use.  The value that a PPC advertiser brings to the table is our ability to create keyword lists and ad copy that converts.  If we share that info, our value is lost.  Is there something specific that you are concerned with?

Tony

--- Original Message Separator ---

Hey Tony,

Thank you again for your response. We are in the process of refining our list of publishers so as to filter out those that would be recieving commissions on orders that we would normally get paid the full amount of the sale on. All I am asking is to see how your company is driving sales for us so we can intern get you more commissions paid. The easiest way I can see to do that is going the route of the customer and experiencing how, first hand, I would get to my own site by the means of your business. Do you have any other suggestions on how this can be communicated?  Also, the way we are set up through Commission Junction, is not pay per click, it is pay per order. Im not sure if that helps or not.

Thanks again

Affiliate Manager

--- Original Message Separator ---

Affiliate Manager,

It sounds like you may not really understand your publishers and honestly it also sounds like you are looking for ways to take these sales in house rather than paying publishers, which is precisely why I won't give out my keywords.

We have only produced $70 this year to date in commissions from your program so honestly the opportunity isn't worth the time to get into a discussion on the value of PPC affiliates.  We will just stop promoting the program immediately.

Tony

So, in review... first we have a situation where the affiliate manager obviously does not know their publishers, does not know anything about Paid Search or what value a PPC affiliate can bring to their program.

 

Second, the merchant is trolling for ways to cut publishers out of the loop in general.   Why don't Search Affiliates give out their converting keywords?  The value of the PPC affiliate is that they can create a list converting keywords that you didn't come up with on your own.

 

Lesson 1: Whether your business is Affiliate Marketing, Performance Marketing or really any other on or off-line business, you really should understand your industry especially before you contact your partners.

Lesson 2: There will always be partners who believe they are paying affiliates for sales they would have generated on their own and are looking for ways to cut the affiliates out.  This is a slippery slope and in my mind the downfall of any good affiliate program.

Scott Richter on YouTube

I first met Scott Richter at Affiliate Summit West in Vegas last year when Shawn auctioned off dinner with me at the event (see article / and this one).  We had an interesting dinner, and although we haven't worked with Scott or his network, I found Scott to be very engaging and interesting. 

I recently came across this article on DomainNameWire.com, and it had this YouTube Video from the Daily Show.  It's a very funny video.

Gotta love media reporters...  We wish you the best Scott!

How Amazon lost my holiday shopping business this year

We are traveling up to Rhode Island this year for the holidays, and Sara and I had discussed the various presents we were going to buy for our children and parents.  I found ALL the items I was looking for at Amazon, and everything was "in stock".  I put all the items in my shopping cart (well over $1,000) and then re-confirmed the list with Sara.  The idea was to pay for gift wrapping and ship everything to our destination to make traveling easier.  We were willing to pay for convenience.

Great!  So here we were, it wasn't even Dec 1st yet, and we had 80-90% of our gift list done and ready to order, so I started the checkout process.

Guess what?  Even though everything was in-stock, Amazon was telling me that 80% of the items wouldn't be able to be shipped to Rhode Island by Christmas (4 weeks away!).  I thought maybe they were trying to up-sell the more expensive shipping options, but even with 1 & 2 Day shipping only about 50% of the items would make it by Christmas.  I wonder what "in-stock" means to Amazon.

So much for one-stop shopping and convenience, I spent an extra 2-3 hours of my life, found all the items at other stores and had them gift-wrapped and shipped.

Sorry Amazon, you blew it! 

I won't even start there next year...