Competitors Running Ads Across Multiple Accounts

Hello all,

As you can see, I’m a new poster here. I usually just lurk and take in the discussions, but recently I encountered a situation that’s had me itching for feedback from the search community.

First, a little background. I am the Internet Marketing Manager for a company that spends approximately $1 million per year in Google AdWords (for a lead generation site). We are the industry leader and the top advertiser in our category.

However, over the past month or so, we’ve noticed that several of our competitors have launched what appear to be secondary AdWords accounts using separate destination URLs (it’s actually happening on YSM as well, but for the purpose of this discussion I’ll focus on Google). This has enabled them to have their ads show twice on the same page for a given keyword. Although each competitor’s secondary landing page has a different design and content than the main one, they share the exact same function - to generate leads for the competitor in question.

For example, for the keyword query “widgets,” Company BCD has an ad for their main Web site - www.bdc.com - in the third position, above the organic listings. Their second ad - pointing to the site www.secondurl.info, which is a landing page only - appears in the sixth position in the right-hand column. Again, the two sites look fairly unique, but they are both advertising Company BDC’s services (not two unique services, mind you - but the exact same ones). This tactic for double-serving has been employed by two of the top three competitors in our industry (a third, smaller player has recently jumped on the bandwagon as well).

Now, these practices were in such clear violation of AdWord’s TOS that we didn’t foresee a problem getting Google to stop them. I called our AdWords rep and let her know about the issue, and she said it would be resolved in a few days. About a week later, I received an e-mail stating that appropriate action had been taken against the advertisers in question. However, I then queried one of our popular search terms on Google just to check, and the same two competitors were still showing multiple listings!

So I put in another call to AdWords and told them that the double-serving was still going on, and our rep said that it would be helpful if we gave her a list of the keywords for which it’s happening. It seemed to me that Google was dragging their heels by making us police the advertisers for violations, but I acquiesced and told her I’d compile the info.

Before I start collecting data to send them, however, I wanted to see if anyone out there in the SEM community has experienced a situation like this. If so, what is the most effective way of getting Google to take action? I insinuated (in a roundabout way) that if the double-serving is allowed to continue, then we are going to follow suit - except we’ll do it with four or five separate URL’s instead of just two. Now, I’d much rather have Google resolve the issue according to their TOS, but every day that goes by, we’re seeing a negative impact on our CPC and CPA figures. I mean, if they just turn a blind eye to infractions like these, aren’t they basically telling other advertisers that’s it’s OK to do the same thing?

Please - let me know if any of you have insight into this issue. I would love to hear your feedback, and any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Bobby

Could you point me to where it says that this is against Adword's TOS? I'm quite interested in this because we have several clients who have more than 1 brand and they bid on the same keywords. It's quite hard not to for travel accounts! We have our own Google reps and they have never said that this is not allowed.

Thanks!

I don't see how this is an issue in any way..

https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=8759&topic=26

https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=14179&topic=26

Because your clients have several brands, they are probably not in violation of these guidelines. However, in my example, the competitors' secondary sites are offering the exact same services as the parent URL's - which obviously goes against the specifications outlined here.

I think that second link answers your question:

Advertisers seeking an exception to Google's double-serving policy must contact AdWords Support. In order for an exception to be granted, both of the criteria below must be met:

The destination site for each ad offers different products or services (for example, a large manufacturer with two product sites, one solely for stereos and one solely for computers, both running on keyword 'electronics').
Each destination site has a different layout and design, and each URL and domain is different

Your competitors are probably fulfilling these criteria enough to make it difficult for Google to decide against blacklisting their duplicate campaigns.