
How I got my Google AdWords account (un)suspended - dools
http://www.decalmarketing.com/page/How_I_got_my_Google_AdWords_account_unsuspended
======
patio11
I know there are a couple of quotes from me somewhere in a Google bugtracker
with variants of "Google support and policy enforcement is like something out
of a Kafka novel", but in case any HNer Googlers want to file a new one:
pervasive _uncertainty_ about whether clearly within-the-lines behavior would
trigger a business shutdown caused several software company CEOs of my
acquaintance to avoid reliance on AdWords for customer acquisition, to the
tune of 6+ figures a month.

I say this as somebody who shot down the "We'll send ad clicks to a squeeze
page!" option several times (including on HN:
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599162](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599162)).
I was able to wave a few companies away from that, and in some cases get
compliant AdWords campaigns up and running, but CEOs/marketing officers often
felt that they could just wake up one day and find their AdWords account
permabanned for specious reasons. As a result, many of them intentionally
limited the size of their AdWords accounts and/or the amount of strategic
importance they allowed AdWords to get internally.

You know what I told my clients who were worried about Google enforcement? It
was not "Don't worry, Google enforces policies in a consistent manner and, in
the unlikely event you are caught up in a heuristic, you will be able to talk
to someone and resolve the issue in a timely fashion."

Net revenue impact to Google across my consulting client base caused
specifically by worries about Google's enforcement/CS would be, probably,
somewhere in the 6 figures a month region. (B2B/enterprise software companies
can afford to spend an awful lot of money on ad clicks.)

~~~
dools
_I say this as somebody who shot down the "We'll send ad clicks to a squeeze
page!" option several times (including on HN:
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599162](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599162))._

This is more in response to the content of the linked comment, but creating a
landing page for a not-quite-finished product and/or idea before launch is
okay and so long as your CTR is high (which you can achieve by targeting your
spending in exact match keywords) your quality score is still good.

The Unbounce page I mentioned in the article which had reasonable QS (6 or
7/10 IIRC although there's no historical QS view in AdWords and I've since
changed the landing page) AND which, despite initially violating their
"Information Harvesting" policy has since been cleared, is this one:

[http://unbouncepages.com/your-first-3-months-on-
adwords/](http://unbouncepages.com/your-first-3-months-on-adwords/)

I think that it's a very different landscape that what it was 5 - 7 years ago
when you could get THOUSANDS of visitors for pennies per click to a page to
test an idea, but you can certainly still get < $2/click traffic for _very_
targeted search terms to test out an idea.

Sometimes I'm not only interested in testing the market (ie. testing
conversions) but just seeing what traffic there is and how much it costs. The
free data you receive via the KeywordPlanner is notoriously inaccurate, so
while a "real" website is being developed I'll often put up a simple landing
page so I can start running the AdWords campaign and be ready to "hit the
ground running" after launch.

EDIT: just to reply to this bit, as well:

 _You know what I told my clients who were worried about Google enforcement?
It was not "Don't worry, Google enforces policies in a consistent manner and,
in the unlikely event you are caught up in a heuristic, you will be able to
talk to someone and resolve the issue in a timely fashion."_

I think this is changing and Google is wising up. In fact, the screenshot of
Google's support documentation that I provide in the article isn't the same
page I saw when I was suspended. The page I saw just said:

"If you have received an Advertising Policy violation we will no longer accept
advertising from you".

I think that this is a function of 2 things:

1) Clicks are more expensive, and losing individual advertisers affects Google
more now than it used to. You can see the strategy clearly: shut down fake SEO
link building, drive people onto AdWords, increase CPC, improve support.

2) They're targeting a lot of non-tech-savvy type small businesses now who are
far more likely to "bluster their way through" than to sit down and carefully
analyse Google's terms of service, so they are being far more lenient.

The funny thing is, that since Google is becoming more lenient in reinstating
suspended accounts now, a bunch of companies have sprung up saying "WE'LL HELP
YOU GET BACK ON GOOGLE!!1" but that's only because it's so much easier to do
than it used to be anyway :)

------
throwaway420
When you search for a phrase like "how can I get my account unsuspended?" and
see thousands and thousands of results and horrible pitchmen selling you "the
secret to getting reinstated" you know there's a massive disconnect between
tons of desperate people and a company that is unwilling to provide any
customer service to address problems. A faceless algorithm bans you and you're
screwed.

Every account suspended isn't automatically a spammer - oftentimes they are
legitimate businesses that have to let employees go and shut down because they
cannot figure out a way, despite numerous desperate attempts at communication,
to get back on the web. This has happened to me before, and I couldn't get
anybody at Google to respond to me in a way that wasn't a complete form letter
where they couldn't tell me what the issue supposedly was.

The worst part? Bad actors have an endless supply of fake identities and just
sign up again and again and create new fake companies while legitimate people
are completely screwed.

If any company other than Google provided this bad of a customer service
experience, we'd view them as a flat out scam.

Any Google employees out there that give a damn for your customers? Provide
some human customer service. If the volume is too high, charge money for it,
whatever. But do something to help people who are completely screwed. You
should be better than this.

~~~
renovaatio
On a very personal note, I just find it very refreshing to finally see some
critical analysis of Google lately. It appears to me as if people a getting
past the "idolatry", and sarting to fully grasp Google's grip on today's IT
realm, with all it's bad sides.

~~~
thejosh
>lately

Ah yes, because everyone thought Google was sunshine and roses before
"lately".

------
kevingadd
_That 's right, folks: in the policy it states that the page cannot have the
"primary purpose" of collecting information, but the way that's judged is
whether or not you can get to all areas of the site without putting in an
email address or filling out any other personal information. Even though there
were no other areas of the site (because it was just a single page with a form
on it that had a single field), the email address was a required field and
this was enough to violate the policy._

That's some top-quality thinking and engineering from the people responsible
for Google's AdWords policy enforcement.

~~~
AndrewWarner
How about this little solution: "The way I fixed my "Information Harvesting"
policy violation was to make it so that the form on my lead capture page could
be submitted without filling it in."

~~~
dools
Yep, pretty ridiculous. I wouldn't believe it if you told me, but it worked
(and has worked, since). Who knows, maybe that'll change in future!

------
taspeotis
> It took me just over 5 months of regular phone calls, being patient, and
> being nice, to get my account reinstated

> It took me just over 5 months of regular phone calls

> just over 5 months

> 5 months

Lolwut

------
ForHackernews
We desperately need real competition in search ads. At this point, I guess
that means I'm rooting for Bing.

~~~
jfoster
Yahoo might become competitive again: [http://readwrite.com/2014/01/31/yahoo-
microsoft-search](http://readwrite.com/2014/01/31/yahoo-microsoft-search)

If Yahoo gets serious about search, I think they could gain a lot more
marketshare than Bing can. Bing has a lot of "Microsoft baggage". I think many
people rule it out simply because they trust Google more than they trust
Microsoft. Yahoo feels more like a clean slate.

------
ps4fanboy
This is what a monopoly looks like.

------
RawData
Be patient and be nice? Uh, no.

------
paulhauggis
Be glad you don't have to deal with a company like Amazon. Once you are
suspended, they will refuse to talk to you on the phone and direct you to
their "online support".

Online support consists of canned responses to questions and never any actual
help.

I had my account suspended after 3 years of business with 100% feedback at
almost all times. I always treated my customers really well and I was never
able to get to the bottom of why my account was suspended.

I am now a buyer on Amazon for my business. Something I find funny is that as
a seller, you are told that you are only representing Amazon (not representing
yourself on Amazon). You can't contact your customers directly, any attempts
to send a url or an email address will get you suspended.

As a buyer, I have customers constantly sending me wrong or damaged items. The
seller should pay for return shipping. When I contact Amazon about it, they
act as if they are completely hands-off and can't do anything about it because
I bought my item from a 3rd-party seller.

They really need to make up their minds...because it seems they like to change
their tune on situations when it benefits them..which is shady.

Unlike Ebay, they also sell products that compete with their 3rd-party
sellers. They have used the marketing and order data (which they get from all
3rd-party sellers), to undercut anyone selling a hot-selling product and
essentially put them out of business.

As soon as I had a decent selling product, a "shipped by Amazon" listing would
soon appear within a few weeks (undercutting me by a large percentage) and I
would lose most, if not all, of my sales.

This is why it is important to not rely on any 3rd party platform for a long-
term business. It's really only a good idea when you first start out.

