Prayga finally accepted defeat and passed me on to Matt at Google Adwords Express who assured me 'he had my best interests at heart'. In the end, after much haranguing, he offered to take down the Adwords Express ad - especially after I queried the fact that apparently, the end date isn't the end date of your Adwords account.
If you've set the budget for the month, Google will continue to spend it if, 'the system feels that the clicks accrued will be valid and helps you generate business.' I'm quoting Matt directly here. So, if there's money in the budget and 'the system feels' (a worryingly Orwellian term) that the clicks you're getting are good for you, then google will keep spending it. That's not the sort of control I'm prepared to give up.
So what have we learned from my little experiment with Google Adwords Express...?
Well, there are a number of concerns with this model, and it's probably not worth your time going into all of them here. The main problems with Adwords Express are these:
1. It's designed for people who don't want to work out how to use normal adwords. Therefore it sets lots of its own parameters for you and gives the advertiser very little scope to nuance their campaign.
2. As we've established, because it's linked to Google Places, it default targets geographically to your location, even if that's not where you want to advertise.
3. It's massively expensive compared to normal adwords. CPC for my campaign was more than 3 times my usual spend and the targetting was so blunt that the responders were largely useless.
4. You can't control it from your normal adwords dashboard. You have to sign into your Express account through the Google Places portal. The results are shown on your Adwords Dashboard but there's very little you can change from there - certainly not the budget!
5. Once established, the budget is set and cannot be reduced below a certain threshold. So you're tied into spending money even if the campaign doesn't work.
I'm no expert of the wonders of everything Google and some of the mistakes I made as a regular user of adwords, are the same ones many businessmen will also make. In essence, it's a clumsy tool that needs a lot of work from the Google development team before it becomes a viable option to normal adwords for most small businesses.
Better to stick to adwords and finesse the campaigns you have now to ensure better bang for your buck. Google Adwords is misfiring all over the place.
If you want a hand setting up your Adwords campaign why not drop us a line at DavisDavis Advertising in Folkestone. We'll be happy to help.
Wednesday 31 October 2012
Tuesday 23 October 2012
Sneaky Business: Why Google's Adwords Express isn't for everybody -...
Sneaky Business: Why Google's Adwords Express isn't for everybody -...: Prayga, my ever friendly, though largely useless, Google contact has an even more annoyed customer on her hands today. As I reported last we...
Why Google's Adwords Express isn't for everybody - even worse news
Prayga, my ever friendly, though largely useless, Google contact has an even more annoyed customer on her hands today. As I reported last week, I wasted a lot of money on Adwords Express targeting a vast expanse of the English Channel. When I asked to change this I was told I couldn't. I got a very polite response from Google which basically boiled down to 'Tough Luck, Mate - Caveat Emptor'.
Eventually, this morning I got fed up with watching Google extract money from my account for posting adverts to fish. I went into my Google account and clicked the 'Campaign Pause' button for the Express ads. You can imagine my delight when the standard response I received was "This campaign and its content cannot be modified in Adwords'. I don't think this means that it can be modified elsewhere. It just means you cannot modify it at all.
Basically, once Google has tempted you into taking up their offer, you can't get out of it. You are straight-jacketed into paying out the money until the end date of the campaign - no exceptions, no common sense. If your campaign is useless and Google is happily charging you over £5 a click (which they are in this case), you're stuffed. You can't get out of it.
I despise this kind of marketing trickery. It's basically criminality masquerading as business and should be outlawed. However, as there is little I can do to stop Google draining my account, I can at least warn other users of the risks of setting up an Adwords Express account or taking up Google on one of their 'less than honest' special offers.
Sorry, Pragya, your company is not playing fair - and that reflects on you and everyone who works for google - no matter how friendly your explanations.
Eventually, this morning I got fed up with watching Google extract money from my account for posting adverts to fish. I went into my Google account and clicked the 'Campaign Pause' button for the Express ads. You can imagine my delight when the standard response I received was "This campaign and its content cannot be modified in Adwords'. I don't think this means that it can be modified elsewhere. It just means you cannot modify it at all.
Basically, once Google has tempted you into taking up their offer, you can't get out of it. You are straight-jacketed into paying out the money until the end date of the campaign - no exceptions, no common sense. If your campaign is useless and Google is happily charging you over £5 a click (which they are in this case), you're stuffed. You can't get out of it.
I despise this kind of marketing trickery. It's basically criminality masquerading as business and should be outlawed. However, as there is little I can do to stop Google draining my account, I can at least warn other users of the risks of setting up an Adwords Express account or taking up Google on one of their 'less than honest' special offers.
Sorry, Pragya, your company is not playing fair - and that reflects on you and everyone who works for google - no matter how friendly your explanations.
Friday 19 October 2012
Why Google's Adwords Express Isn't For Everyone…
I was offered a voucher to trial Google new Adwords Express product recently. 'Hmmm', I thought. '£75 free advertising if I spend £25 on advertising. Seems like a pretty good deal…'
Having no idea as to how Adwords Express differs from ordinary Adwords, I resorted to my usual practice by which I discover how things 'really are' rather than believing the PR and Marketing bumf , of just doing it for a bit and seeing what works.
Having spent my obligatory £25, I'm now in a position to make some slightly more informed judgements.
What's good…
The prime reason for anyone to use Adwords Express is that it's a lot quicker to set up than normal Adwords. You choose your offer and google pretty much does the rest, working out what keywords should be associated with it and defining a radius around your Google Map position. It sets your minimum budget for you and generally gives you the impression that your ad has been optimised for maximum success.
What's not good.
Part of making it easier means giving the customer less control. So, I set up an ad offering Christmas promotion design on line or in print. You know, micro sites for your Christmas Menu if you're a Restaurant, Seasonal Stock mailers for Garden Centers, Digital Xmas Cards for offices and service suppliers - that sort of stuff.
After 3 weeks of exposure, my Adwords Express ad had attracted less than 20 views out of a possible 1800 at a ridiculous cost of +£3.50 per visit. I was a big miffed.
What was even more insane was that I appeared to be spending a lot of money targeting all my potential customers who live in the middle of the English Channel.
Let me explain. One of the defaults of Adwords Express is that it sets a perimeter location for your advertising. In my case it was 15 miles around my design studio in Folkestone, Kent. Therefore, not only could I reach businesses in Ashford and Dover but also fishing vessels on the Godwin Sands and Cargo ships on their way to Ostend.
As I'm being charged for the scale of my perimeter, this was a lot of wasted money. 'Oh, I've cocked it up', I thought, and went into edit my campaign to a more targeted audience.
That's when I discovered that the parameters for Adwords Express ads can't be changed. Yep, that's right, It was compulsory to waste money advertising to no one. Funnily enough, this wasn't mentioned in the offer small print.
I queried this with Google. 'Could I maybe move the centre of my advertising range a little further inland so I wasn't targeting so many fish', I wondered. 'You can. the nice person on the Google Adwords Express told me. 'But then your ad will be disapproved for not accurately reflecting your address.'
So there you have it. If you want to use Adwords Express, make sure you're in the middle of a city, well away from any coastline, moors, barren mountainsides or large lakes. Otherwise most of your spend will vanish on trying to sell your services to the local wildlife.
Tuesday 2 October 2012
15000 words HSBC terms and conditions update!
A prime example of Sneaky Business dropped onto more doormat today.
HSBC have decide to change some of their terms and conditions.
Now we all know if we actually had to read all the Ts&Cs associated with every business we buy products or services from we wouldn't get much else done.
What I find astonishing (or rather typical of sneaky business) is that when a company has something to sell, they want you to understand the benefits immediately so they can make money out of you as soon as possible.
In those cases, they are able to present the key facts in short simple sentences that are easy to process.
As a writer, it's what I try to do all the time.
However, when the information they want to impart is not beneficial to the customer, they make it as difficult to read, understand and question as possible.
Terms and Conditions are the most obvious example of this kind of sneaky business.
The document from HSBC tells me the conditions of my account have changed.
Rather than giving me a synopsis in 50 words of what the key changes are, they have hidden behind the legal apron strings of small print and sent out a 16 page document of opaque legalese ensuring I can't tell whether I need to close my HSBC account or not.
Let's be clear about what passes for customer service at HSBC.
16 pages or around 116 lines a page - each line of 16 words or so. In total nearly 15,000 words of convoluted gibberish.
Really?
Is that really the best HSBC can do for their customers?
Banks already have a reputation that struggling to pull itself out of it's grime steeped gutter of criminality and double dealing.
And they think the best way to improve that reputation is to hoodwink their customers some more.
Well, I'm setting the bar reasonably high on this one.
But can anyone beat 15000 words of small print in an 'update'?
If so, please send me your best examples of 'sneaky changes to terms and conditions from banks' and we'll create a list of shame.
(Or it would be if that was an emotion that registered with bankers in any form).
HSBC have decide to change some of their terms and conditions.
Now we all know if we actually had to read all the Ts&Cs associated with every business we buy products or services from we wouldn't get much else done.
What I find astonishing (or rather typical of sneaky business) is that when a company has something to sell, they want you to understand the benefits immediately so they can make money out of you as soon as possible.
In those cases, they are able to present the key facts in short simple sentences that are easy to process.
As a writer, it's what I try to do all the time.
However, when the information they want to impart is not beneficial to the customer, they make it as difficult to read, understand and question as possible.
Terms and Conditions are the most obvious example of this kind of sneaky business.
The document from HSBC tells me the conditions of my account have changed.
Rather than giving me a synopsis in 50 words of what the key changes are, they have hidden behind the legal apron strings of small print and sent out a 16 page document of opaque legalese ensuring I can't tell whether I need to close my HSBC account or not.
Let's be clear about what passes for customer service at HSBC.
16 pages or around 116 lines a page - each line of 16 words or so. In total nearly 15,000 words of convoluted gibberish.
Really?
Is that really the best HSBC can do for their customers?
Banks already have a reputation that struggling to pull itself out of it's grime steeped gutter of criminality and double dealing.
And they think the best way to improve that reputation is to hoodwink their customers some more.
Well, I'm setting the bar reasonably high on this one.
But can anyone beat 15000 words of small print in an 'update'?
If so, please send me your best examples of 'sneaky changes to terms and conditions from banks' and we'll create a list of shame.
(Or it would be if that was an emotion that registered with bankers in any form).
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