Does Google Promote What They Preach? Critiquing the AdWords Login Images
Anyone whos ever used AdWords knows that Google has decided to put a few case study-esque images on the login page. For the longest time it was just an ad for Romis Boutique, but lately Google seems to have expanded their coverage to a few other industries. Great pictures, and they seem like great businesses. But, are they great ads…?
Strava is built for cyclists. Awesome, I like to ride my bike and wear stretchy pants too! I can compete and share and ride those are fun things. I can try it for free, thats good too! But can someone do me a favor and tell me exactly what Strava is?? Id be willing to bet Mark from Strava is getting a whole bunch of irrelevant clicks from curious cyclists just trying to figure out what the product does.
As it turns out, Strava develops some pretty advanced ride tracking software and it looks really cool. Too bad you have to click and read around the site to find that out.
Eclecdish. Thats a darn clever name! And Im all about organic cooking too nobody likes eating pesticides. But senor Ecledish, are you really bidding on the keyword organic? What happens with someone whos looking for organic apples. Or pants. Or blueberries. Or anything thats not related to catering
Also, take a close look at the ad. The ad is focused on organic wedding catering, but the word wedding isnt in bold. That means that Eclecdish is either bidding on the word catering alone, or some other non-wedding catering keyword. If Im searching for graduation caterers and this ad for Eclecdish comes up, Im very unlikely to click, much less call Jeff for a quote. Oh, and that better be a tracked phone number.
When developing your own campaigns, always make sure to stop and think if the keywords/ads are hitting the audience that’s most likely to use your service rather than just going after words that might represent your business.
I didnt know there ever was a standard for wallets. After taking a gander at the site, it looks like Dynomighty is actually doing some pretty cool stuff. Batman wallets, fundraising for Japan, free shipping; all awesome things. Why not mention that in the ad and make it pop a bit?
It’s important to make your business stand out in the ad copy, whether it’s through price, special offers and promotions, or any other unique value proposition. After all, there are more than just a few advertisers offering new wallets.
Patana from Friache needs to hang out with Jeff from Eclecdish. He bids on the catering, she bids on yogurt. Sigh at least theyre both organic, right?
Adam, its awesome that youre growing LiveWire online using AdWords. Its a great, marketing tool, completely accountable and you know exactly where all of your money is going. But shouldnt you try a few other channels too? What happens if a Google-bomb explodes or if you get banned for selling illegal black market circuit breakers? If your entire business depends on another entity over which you have no control well. Just dont do that.
Oh, and is no part of LiveWires ad bolded? Always make sure to have at least the high volume keywords of an ad group in your ad to increase relevance quality score and overall ad relevance.
Ahh Romi. For the longest time, Romis Boutique was the only ad shown on the AdWords login page. That gave me quite a bit of time to develop critiques. Rather than be witty and paragraph-y, Ill just bullet out feedback here:
What happened to sales when you doubled site traffic?
I looked at Romis site theres nothing about gifts there
Nobody makes money from customers checking out the wares.
Can I order from the site or not? Im confused.
Wait a second
is Romi bidding on boutique?!?
All joking aside, these images all represent real businesses and real people – I applaud them for using Paid Search! It’s a great advertising medium for just about any business, whether youre a small clothing boutique, an organic caterer, a wallet manufacturer or a developer. However, just about everyone else is utilizing Paid Search too. Its important to follow best practices and make your business stand out from the competition.
Always remember kids; keep your keywords relevant, your ad copy fresh & unique and drive quality clicks!
Posted: 07.18.11
Matt Hopson:
Hey Aaron, great post. It’s always nice when we can have a bit of fun at Google’s expense & hopefully out of the comments people will get the point that keywords & ads need to be relevant and they actually drive results. Increasing traffic is great but if there aren’t any sales then the businesses aren’t going to be around for long.
I’ve also seen another example in the UK for a flower company, the ad used is just as bad, it shows 3 description lines & a capitalised display URL!
Luke:
Hilarious post! I bet the Googlers who made all those images are scrambling right now to get something better up there. Maybe we’ll see something better up there soon :)
Aaron Levy:
Thanks for the comments guys!
@Matt – perhaps we should do a part II with international versions..
@Luke – I have a feeling they made the initial ones after a lot of twitter-jabbing at poor Romi’s expense. Maybe we’ll get new ones soon.
Adrian Drysdale:
Great post. Almost sickening how cheesy those ads are.
side note** – excited for throwdown thursday tomorrow!
installment:
Its always nice when we can have a bit of fun at Googles expense & hopefully out of the comments people will get the point that keywords & ads need to be relevant and they actually drive result, ,Thanks for Share
Aaron Luckie:
I noticed the Romi Boutique image on the login page a couple of weeks ago, and thought to myself exactly what you have posted here in this blog post.
It is interesting to see how Google have to put up a marketing front, despite their ‘best practices’ not being preached in their own examples.