Google's at it again - check your Adwords account

[hardcoreblogger]

Originally Posted by _LB_

it will just be a few in the know who make the money. They are targeting big business who can afford the stupid prices and still turn a profit. This is cutting out the affiliate.

yeah there are fewer and fewer in the know who make the money. but they're not big corporates, i don't agree with your conclusion. i bet a good chunk of the top 5% of adwords advertisers are affiliates. it's not about affording the stupid prices it's about adapting to the changes best and fastest so that you don't have to pay the stupid prices

and smart affiliates are usually much faster to adapt than big corporates (professional SEM firms excluded, they're on par with top affiliates)

[_LB_]

Originally Posted by Beejeebers

I spoke to my rep today about this and he said they are not trying to get rid of affiliates, they are trying to get rid of poor quality in their system. It's no secret what they want and why they're doing it.

Actually in a roundabout kind of way thats pretty close to what I was told. She admitted that they aren't targeting affiliates because they are affiliates, its more the case that 90% of affiliates offer no value or add no value to the surfer and just insert themselves between the traffic source and the sponsor. Went on to admit that in essence they are targeting affiliates, because the affiliates are in the business of trying to get the surfer to the sponsor asap.

Though a couple of tidbits of info about exactly what they are looking for in the landing pages and keywords etc was gold There is a definite work around for smart affiliates, and again it will be the case of those who can work it out compete against a smaller number of others

[hardcoreblogger]

there we go, yeah i guess your rep is right that a majority of affiliate sites don't add much value. anyone who wants to play the adwords game has got to work harder, but the rewards are getting bigger, too. plus it's worth it to build quality sites anyway, not just for adwords!

[Dutch Harry]

http://blog.revenuewire.com/?p=115
http://blog.revenuewire.com/?p=116

Nice interview with a senior adwords rep

[Kappi]

Thanks Harry! That's a nice read with for a change some solid info.

[leatherandlace]

My problem with Adwords is that when I first start a campaign I will see a couple of sales from it. Then about a week later my ads still look the same with CTR and position but sales don't come. If I pause the campaign and restart it in a month, I'll get a couple sales and then nothing again.

I can't tell if it's a fluke or what the deal is, but it's starting to make me wonder and piss me off to say the least.

[hardcoreblogger]

that must be pure coincidence, leatherandlace. even if they wanted to, adwords cannot control what the surfers do, if they sign up or not, and they cannot make your sponsors shave you

if you watch it over a bigger period of time and/or more traffic you will see that the stats even out over time.

[Kappi]

What Hardcoreblogger said. In my case sales come in bunches. a few days nothing then a whole lot of them in 5 hours. Just coincidence. Except when all the sales come in the weekends or every week/month at the same day, then you should see if you can show your ads only on that moment.

Ofcourse a new fresh ad/new site has a better chance of making more sales.

[leatherandlace]

Well shucks. . . I guess I just have bad luck! Perhaps I should work on the details of my campaign. Thanks for the insight and comments fellas