22 replies to this topic

[Jill]

So I'm searching for something like:

"private school transportation Massachusetts"

And see a Google ad like this:


Private School
Shop for deals on Furniture here!
Simply Fast Savings
www.Shopping.com

What's up with that? I am amazed, surprised and ashamed to see that sort of thing on Google.

[qwerty]

It would be a huge waste of money, but I suppose it's possible they bid on a broad match for "private school" on the assumption that people sending their kids to private school need furniture.

[cline]

I periodically see these dumb Adwords campaigns, too. Mostly I think they're due to people who don't understand how to set up an Adwords campaign. I've seen this when I get clients who've tried to set one up themselves and had disasterous results -- either no clicks, or massive numbers of useless visitors. I think the problem is that Adwords looks simpler than it is, and so people set up very poorly designed programs thinking they've understood what to do when in fact they don't understand.

[Jill]

Yes, but doesn't google have a system in place that will stop this from happening?

LOL that the people searching for private schools will need furniture. Sure, they might, but they can't afford it cuz they're being sucked dry already!

J

[Haystack]

People can basically advertise on any terms they want. Google lets the market decide whether or not a business can sustain advertising on a wildcarded phrases such as, "show my ads whenever the words 'private school' are used." If their goal is to get in front of parents of private school children it looks like they're achieved it. But it doesn't sound like they served up the right offer to you at the right time.

Since they used some of the search words in their title, it's likely that they'd have a high enough click through rate to keep their ad from being disabled. But whether they're managing to actually convert that traffic is another question.

Somehow I doubt Expedia is converting much traffic on searches for "travel to the Moon" but if they did manage to book a few trips the commissions would surely make up for whatever they're spending on that non-targeted term. (isn't the going rate around $25 million on a Russian rocket?)

[Jill]

It definitely seems weird. Why furniture? With private school in the title. Seems these ads are automatically generated. Are those allowed on Google AdWords?

Jill

[Haystack]

They probably were advertising on the words:

private school

with either quotes or without quotes/brackets. Then using the Ad Group you listed above.

I couldn't recreate the ad so I haven't been able to test it. If you can still see it, try flipping the two words around and see if the ad still shows. If it does, they're not using quotes.

[Jill]

Hmm...I can't recreate it now either. Maybe it was just a weird bug in the system or something?

J

[Haystack]

They could have hit their daily spend limit.

[Jill]

Oops...you mean I shouldn't have clicked on it 50 times?

[Haystack]

I suppose you could make it up to them with a few furniture purchases.

[zdkid]

I wasted some money the first time I was setting up Google Adwords. I thought my site would be getting some real hits by associating my site to the keyword "britney".

My CTR must have been like -95%, because it reached 1000 impressions in less than one hour, and then Google sent me a warning and froze my other campaigns.

This is a lesson of what NOT to do with Google Adwords, otherwise it's a very good tool.

[idrive]

thought my site would be getting some real hits by associating my site to the keyword "britney".

And you are not going to tell us why you were associating your site with that word? Britney Spears...Brittany Spaniel...hmmm....the mind is working over time

[cline]

The Adwords system doesn't prevent people from placing stupid ads. What it does is it quickly identifies the stupid ads and shuts them down. And if an advertiser has enough stupid ads, they shut down the whole account.

[air-dog]

Hello All,

I was thinking of 'dipping my toe in the water' in regards to google AdWords.

From their promotion info, it looked like I could have a go by paying the set up fee and setting to a 1 click a day limit, this would cost me £6.24 for the first month and £1.24 there after. (Sorry for not converting the costs but you'll be able to get the rough idea).

Could it truly be this simply?