Ask-Me-About Forum

[Duane]

Hey Loz,

In another forum, you mentioned this...

Also, I think it's also not wise to use the same keywords that others are bidding on. Why? Not many people know this, but with google especially,, if you bid on the same keyword as your competitor, be it the same company, or another affiliate promoting the same product, guess what? You're gonna get slapped big time, cos it states in the Adwords TOS that one is not allowed to monopolize the market, meaning, you can't create loads of sites selling the same product using adwords campaigns. On that note, it doesn't matter if you're just promoting one site, but if others are promoting the same product, regardless if it's their site or direct linking to the product /service site, again, you're gonna get slapped.

So in order to stay ahead of the game, you need to go further into the keyword research, how many competitors there are, but not just how many there are, how many of them are promoting the same product / service.

If they're all different, you'll be ok. It evens the playing field that way.

I'm still a little confused, so please bear with me... Let's say that I have a site called www.keyword-research-software.com and another individual has a site called www.keyword-investigation-software.com.

We both are selling Keyword Elite on our sites under the sub-directory of "/keywordelite", and we are both bidding on these keywords: "keyword research" and "keyword software".

I know that Google will only display one advert per impression per keyword if multiple ads are pointing to the same URL. In other words, if my Destination URL and the Destination URL of the other person is the same (only the affiliate ID is different), Google will only display one advert per impression (what displays when someone types in the keyword you're bidding on)... this is why you need your own site, right?

If so, you're saying that even if our Destination URL's are different (since our websites are different), Google will still "slap" us if we're bidding on the same keywords because they don't want any one person or group of people to monopolize a product?

How can a product be monopolized if multiple people are bidding on a particular keyword?

I understand how one could monopolize if you're advertising the same product on multiple sites that you own, but how can Google tell if you own all these sites? And on the same note, if they can determine that one person owns multiple sites advertising the same product, they should be able to determine who is only advertising on just one site and not slap them, right?


P.S. -- Sorry for such a long post

[Loz]

Hey Duane,

No worries on the long post. Longer the better, SE's love content

Erm, "Keyword Elite" that be strange, Google wouldn't let me bid on that keyword and disapproved all my ads, not sure why. any ways... erm...

You're correct in the sense that if you both promoted the same link as you mentioned re: the directory structure of the destination page will only display one of those ads at a time. That be fine, no probs... however the problem arises when there are 10 or more different websites that are bidding on the same keyword for the same product / service. That's when google comes in and slaps ya one big time. The only way around this is to build up your CTR really high, then lower your bids whilst keeping your CTR as high as possible, higher CTR says to Google (if higher than the rest of the playing field) that the advert works, if it works, it'll display your ad more regularly, and more clicks you get, the less you pay while keeping your ad position in tact.

Google can't tell if you own these sites, but it does make logical sense that you do, why would you want to promote 10 websites promoting the same product in the same adword account or a series of them that you can have open once you reach your max limit per adwords account? Kinda gives it away doesn't it?

So, then the idea came about where people were setting up Networking Campaigns, where they share the advertising costs for the same product via these 10 websites they all own.
It then became noticeable to google that people were doing such things to be unfair to other campaigners. So they introduced the Quality Score system which has many factors, and one of which is the CTR, which is based on how many clicks you get per set of impressions.

Simon Leung, head of the Adwords team who I met in Las Vegas during the PPC Classroom Senimar back in December 2007, who no longer works for them any more, stated that any person who promotes the same product service, regardless if it's the same website in the destination url, will get slapped. It's based on first come first serve basis. Who gets in first gets the cheapest clicks, the next person comes in will have to pay a little more to be in a higher position than the first, however, the second person must prove themselves first by building a history of workable campaigns, as this too goes towards how google determines what you're charged (amongst other factors), more mistakes you make, google adwords has it in their minds that once you're in one frame of doing things it takes a while to get ones mind out of that current mind set, so they punish you for it and charge you more.

Once you learn the Adwords system, properly, and can prove to google that your Advert works, then and only then will they reduce the cost per click. Let's say you're in to it now for 3 weeks on the same campaign, and you finally get a higher CTR than the first person (which you wont know since this data isn't available to us, but we can only assume based on previous history that we're doing ok), google will favor your ad more than the person who came in the door first, cos their mind works in the frame set that more clicks they get, more they make.

[Duane]

OK, so you're saying that in order to get around this one has to be the first to advertise a particular product using a particular keyword, or find a new keyword or keyword phrase that nobody else or very few people are using to advertise that product, or get your CTR Score so high that it outranks the others advertising for that product with that keyword, right?

Regarding ClickBank... would you then suggest go after products that have a low Gravity score opposed to a high Gravity score... or does it matter so long as you are dilligently researching keywords?

Lastly, how can you determine which keywords others are using... shy of purchasing Affiliate Elite that is?

[Loz]

OK, so you're saying that in order to get around this one has to be the first to advertise a particular product using a particular keyword, or find a new keyword or keyword phrase that nobody else or very few people are using to advertise that product, or get your CTR Score so high that it outranks the others advertising for that product with that keyword, right?

Yup.

Regarding ClickBank... would you then suggest go after products that have a low Gravity score opposed to a high Gravity score... or does it matter so long as you are dilligently researching keywords?

Nope, why promote a product that has low gravity, you see you're putting yourself at more risk, don't get me wrong, there's no harm in trying, but, BUT, high gravity products tend to be what people want. If you're a risk taker and have some money to test things like this out, sure, if there's a popular niche that people are always going after and AE helps you find new products in the same niche, give it a try before everyone else does.

Lastly, how can you determine which keywords others are using... shy of purchasing Affiliate Elite that is?

Keyword Elite Project 5. Spy on Adwords Competition.

[Duane]

Thanks Loz.