6 replies to this topic

[Kenneth White]

Hi Everyone,

My company is launching a new product and we are providing an ad agency several keywords to bid on. my concern is that the keywords (although not the same) under Broad match may be displaying OUR ad as well as our Agency's ad. Both ads would be pointing to the same website.

I am curious if we can be penalized somehow for this, and if so, what should I expect?

Also, any other suggestions would be helpful. thank you!

[Yoshimi]

Google won't allow 2 ads with the same destination URL in the same listing, so you won't both appear at the same time. None the less you want to try and avoid this situation, which you can do by ensuring that your ad agency has any and all terms you are bidding on internally negative matched in their account. This will stop them listing for terms that you don't want them to.

I would also be wary letting an agency bid on broad match terms, unless you are paying them on a CPA basis. This is a really quick way to burn through a marketing budget.

[jehochman]

I think it is a bad idea to split your Adwords activity over two accounts. Wouldn't it be better to have one person manage the whole thing to avoid confusion or competing against yourself?

[Randy]

We are talking about PPC ads, right Kenneth?

I just wanted to clarify that point. I think we've all jumped right to this being the crux of the question with the mention of broad match and the use of the word ads in your original question.

Assuming it is PPC I would agree with both of the above replies. Having it in two accounts with both bidding on the same terms could turn confusing as heck in a hurry! Not to mention that you'll end up competing against yourself, which can only lead to being forced to bid higher and higher in time.

[Kenneth White]

Correct, this IS for PPC.

The ad agency has a list of keywords that we have provided them as well as a list that we will be bidding on, so i am sure they could easily place those keywords as negative match.

the will be expanding their list of keywords for bidding, but we will have to appoint their choices.

I want to say that the reason we are breaking it up into 2 separate accounts, is because we have 2 budgets. 1 for Branding, and 1 for Demand (acquisition).

So while i focus on things like model numbers and parts, the Agency can take the lower converting and promotional terms and focus their efforts on making those items perform better.

Does Google have some code in place that only allows 1 ad with the same Base Destination (as in not including tracking code) url to show?

and by the way, thank you for the advice about the negative keywords and not letting the agency use broad match!

Any other advice is appreciated! Thank you all!

[Yoshimi]

Splitting in to two accounts on the basis of branding and aquisition worries me; 2 campaigns yes absolutely, but if we take the following example there are a lot of holes for potential sales to fall through

Example sells hand carved knitting needles

the company is bidding on narrow terms, such as "hand made knitting needles" while their agency is bidding on more generic terms like "knitting"

Scenario one: the agency uses broad match to gain maximum exposure,
problems: who is monitoring the search query report to add high converting sales to the more targeted campaign, do both accounts have tracking attached to them so you can monitor if some of the broad match terms are actually driving sales

Scenario two; The agency has a list of spcific terms, not broad matched to bid on,
problems: who is targetting the "mop up traffic" the people who are generally only caught by broad match bidding, and if the agency has limited terms how can you be sure that they are getting maximum exposure from those terms

more generally I would be concerned at how you are tracking if the branding is targeting the right people and if the branding is converting to sales.

Finally your agency should have been able to answer the questions you had above, they should be suggesting ways to track ROI (after all they need to be able to prove that they have done a good job to keep your business) if they were unable to I strongly recommend that you look at using a different agency.

(something about this just seems to set alarm bells ringing for me)

[Dave Collins]

Don't do this. You're not allowed to, and the agency you're working with should have told you this.

Aside from anything else, why would you want to compete with yourself?