Google’s market cap dropped $24 billion in 30 minutes yesterday. The aftershock so stunned Wall Street, market trading halted for two hours.
Reason why: Google’s printer accidentally published Q3 earnings 5 hours early (OOPS!!!). AdWords revenue was 3% below targets and income was down. BAM – the entire company’s value plummets 9% in minutes.
If Google dumped you for a handsomer boyfriend in the past, I betcha sometime in the next 3 months she sends you a “I’m sorry for my past sins, maybe we could meet for coffee” note.
The Wall Street hurricane is all relative of course. AdWords revenue is still up 17% over last year. And Wall Street is totally psycho, cuz they reward you not for winning the baseball game, but for predicting the number of home runs in advance.
But it’s no matter, because Wall Street is Wall Street. Seriously, you can expect more cooperation from Google now. If you got banned, give it another shot.
***Important note about Google bans: If you sell something that’s NOT edgy – like 300 ton industrial presses or baby seats or dance lessons – you have nothing to worry about. The people who get hassled by Google are people in legally turbulent categories like alternative health, diets and business opportunities.***
Dave Chappelle wrote a 5-part expose, “When Google attacks legitimate businesses,” largely based on interviews with Planet Perry folks:
This pendulum swings one way, then the other. Get used to it. The reason Google bans accounts is that the Federal Trade Commission holds THEM responsible for what YOU do. (Most people don’t know this.) After hundreds of millions of dollars of fines, Google is gun-shy.
What is "80" and what is "20" for your business right now? Take my 2-minute quiz and I'll show you where you'll get the highest compound interest on your time and money!
But now that they got hammered for missing Wall Street projections, they’re gonna put more elbow grease into vetting edgy advertisers. Perhaps they’ll decide you’re really not a criminal after all.
OK, so what should you make of all this?
I have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS warned advertisers – literally from day 1 – that the whole point of building an AdWords account is this:
Use their consistent traffic to build your sales machine. SO THAT you can go out and buy traffic from OTHER places. Ideally, everywhere that sells advertising: Online, offline. Banner ads, affiliates, print, direct mail.
When you do that, you dominate your market. It’s as simple as that. I have THOUSANDS of students who dominate markets and their testimonials are plastered all over my website. Lemme tell ya, it’s easier and WAY more fun to be #1 in your market than #5. Way easier.
I’ve been banging that drum for 10 years.
Most people don’t listen. Too bad for them. They become poster children for the E-commerce Darwin Awards.
Google AdWords is still the world’s most fabulous direct marketing machine. Time spent mastering AdWords is NEVER a waste of time, no matter how ‘Jerry Springer’ the fist fights get.
But Google is NOT your mother. She will not kiss your boo-boos. If you sell edgy stuff, Google is a psychotic girlfriend in a slender black dress who kicks you to the sidewalk on a moment’s notice.
My advice to you: Use your psychotic girlfriend to build your flirtation chops. And when she dumps you, make sure you’ve got other horses in the stall.
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
38 Comments on “Why Google will now un-ban your AdWords account”
We were banned for an ad that delivered one click in 2003…the ban happened 2 years ago (8 years later).
Of course, we don’t own the banned domain so we can’t make “changes” that Google wants.
We had a six-figure spend and Google says “too bad”.
There’s no evidence I’ve see anywhere that Google is unbanning accounts. NONE.
I was nothing but polite if not self-effacing in dealing with Google and they simply said, “don’t contact us again” and have since then refused to respond to anything or un-ban the account.
Stock-holders should be seething at the stupidity but Google is now “too big to fail” so I guess no one really cares.
I was banned few years ago for the same reason like many others, affiliates. No arguement for that. If the big G doesn’t accept my money, I still have somewhere else to throw my budget at. And those alternatives have been working pretty well that I almost forgot that adword existed on this planet.
Even if google reps un-ban my account, there are NO guaruntees that they won’t ban my account again for some even more stupid reason. Ban me once, shame on you; ban myetwice, shame on me.
I was banned from adwords about 3 years ago for sending their PPC traffic to an affiliate link on a site not owned by me that apparently did not meet their T&C’s.
I explained I was sorry, it was not my site, they apparently allowed the URL at he time and that I have nothing more to do with that site and in fact never even made and sales.
I still dont have my account reinstated. Its a nice blog, but its not really accurate, you cant connect their stock to their adwords policies, thats just like a really bad conspiracy theory.
I suggest you contact Jerry Ellefson at http://www.ppcrenegade.com and see if they can get you unslapped.
I was banned a year ago for an affiliate site I advertised 6 years ago. Fortunately, I get by just fine without Adwrods. Remember, nothing beats true organic traffic!
Ah yes,the great google adwords… I’m looking forward to hearing from them ! Thanks for your excellent articles… (ad)Words make (ad)sense!
You should call them not wait for them to call you :^>
Perry, sometimes your prose is a little too cool, too larded with metaphors and mixed metaphors. It gets tiresome. I needed an analgesic after reading this at the end of the long page:
“Use your psychotic girlfriend to build your flirtation chops. And when she dumps you, make sure you’ve got other horses in the stall.”
Por favor!
Thanks Perry, nice post. There was an interesting post on SEOMoz recently about how the huge growth on impressions and clicks that Google need to off-set the “approximately 15%” fall in average CPC. To keep revenue growth at around 20%, they need to increase clicks per day around 42%! That’s a massive amount!
Gerard
Google has gone like a dictator lately. They are against Chinese great firewall but seems they act like one now and they are destroying itself. They should slowdown their take down and filtering actions because they will hurt their own in the end.
It would be great if they re-instated a bunch of banned accounts, but I don’t see it happening. They know who they banned, and why. In their view, it’s the same fly-by-night crowd that got into day trading in the early 90’s, then house-flipping in the early 2000’s, then into internet marketing and the “Google Cash Method”.
In my humble opinion, they lump direct marketers, affiliate marketers, etc. into the same boat. And anyone who uses the techniques Google *thinks* these people employ will get nailed.
Plus, they’ve mentioned, for organic results at least, that they prefer big brands. So I don’t think they’ll let the little guys back into their club.
I could be wrong here, but I suspect CPC to go up. I don’t know what they’ll do to make that happen. But that’s what I think.
Or since Larry Page has so much riding on Google+, they’ll try to monetize that aggressively.
I wish it weren’t true, but I don’t expect them to reinstate any accounts.
Has anyone been able to get their account reinstated since Perry made this post?
Perry,
I had my adwords account banned years ago. If you were going to ask Google to let you back in the club, what would you say?
Tell them you want to find out what else you need to do to comply.
Hi Perry, google stopped my campaign and said it violated company policies, for now I have not enough money to start the campaign again but when I can I will do, thanks for the advice.
Very timely info. I was thinking this same thing when GOOG crashed (having to halt trading ain’t good PR). I have an AdWords account that got banned about a year ago. Never did figure out why. I’ll resubmit in a few weeks and see if they’re receptive to receiving my money again.
Thank you Perry. I think google now will be more open even to new adsense applicants… LOL… Making money in the internet with adsense will be a lot easier.
Perry, this is great news! Will Google be begging advertisers to invest more? I think so. LOL… This is also a great news for those applying for adsense account. With this, I think, google will be more open to approve new applications.
Hi Perry,
Great reminder about building an effective sales machine so that you can then use it with any and all media available to dominate your market. That’s million dollar advice right there!
Thanks,
Michael
“predicting the number of home runs in advance” captures some of the lunacy of Wall Street
hey Perry, just got an email today from google adwords, they want to help me, ahahhaha
“My advice to you: Use your psychotic girlfriend to build your flirtation chops. And when she dumps you, make sure you’ve got other horses in the stall.”
I think the last bit of the line should have been “make sure you’ve got more numbers in your black book.” or “make sure you have more adoring suitors”
… ok they don’t fit better.
Anyway, thanks for your wise insights Perry.
I like the concise statement “And Wall Street is totally psycho, cuz they reward you not for winning the baseball game, but for predicting the number of home runs in advance.”
This is totally contrary to proper business wisdom… Wall Street really is a huge casino. I’d much rather run an honest business and spend time with family than get caught up in that crap.
Sadly, that isn’t always our ability (ie. Wall Street crash). And that bugs me.
Its just hard to shed a tear over Google’s missed earnings. Cant wait for Bing to start giving them real comptition…
I first created my adwords account in December of 2006. It got banned some times this year. I doubt if they will ever email me to patch things up. ha ha ha
In other news…
BingAds is starting to editorially review their ads. Are they getting ready to thin out their advertiser herd???
I remember you made a prediction like this in the past Perry, but I was shocked when I read the NYTimes last night about Google’s stock dropping on news of lower earnings.
What do you think about the release of IE 10, the “Bing It On” campaign, and Microsoft’s general appetite for the search market?
Getting my account banned (and SEO efforts slapped) was a good thing, it forced me to hone my chops on other traffic sources. So if I re-enter the market, I will have already made the rookie mistakes most people make.
At that point, I should be in a position to invest in your 5×5 Simple Sales Machine, should it ever become available.
I think Microsoft is re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic. Though we’d all love for them to succeed.
For Simple Sales Machines contact my office, I think we can set you up.
@Kyle, It won’t ever happen, but I understand your sentiment.
Yes, and to his point: All of us need to get over “getting our feelings hurt” and just do what makes sense for growing our businesses.
I think you have underlying issues with women! :)
Perry,
Do you think that the revenue from us “little guys” registers enough on their radar to make a move like that and accept that level of risk? I don’t remember the stat I heard but it was something ridiculous… something like all of us little advertisers make up like 1% of Adwords revenue. Not sure if that came from you or someone else.
Do you have any insight there?
Thanks for the post.
Jason
Sure, there’s truth to that. 80/20 rule. But remember, Google only fell short of their projections by a few percentage points.
Hi Perry,
As someone who has read your book and who receives your regular reports, and has experienced the ups and downs of Google advertising, I appreciate your diversity mindset. We are active in B2B digital marketing, and though we have had some success with Adwords for this area, overall I have found email marketing to be incredibly effective, I have no difficulty recruiting clients. We have the likes of Disney, NBC, and numerous publicly traded companies, asking us for proposals. We don’t always win their business, but the point is they want to hear from us. Much of the segmentation strategies we have success with come from what we have learned and continue to learn from you.
As you are a strong voice for Adwords in the mix, it is good to see you don’t suggest it as the only koolaid in town.
[rant]
Hundreds of millions in fines, huh?
With a turnover of $11bn and more?
Well firstly, how about they pay a little tax. They would have to here in NL were they based here. It would help sort out the US deficit for sure, but hey! Big business isn’t your mother, right?
They are still grownups though, and should bear their responsibilities to the places they participate in.
[/rant]
I agree with what you say about diverse traffic streams. Several of my friends got burned after Panda, and they are still burned. Mind you, they didn’t take my advice to go and buy their advertising – and diversify. Well, that’s life.
Adwords is a fantastic tool. I know Dan Kennedy likes his postcards, and I know you do too. Adwords is where you start and not postcards. Your business can start for $250 and running with a little more – and a lot of your own hard work.
You are damn right Perry, the time we have spent training in Adwords is time well spent, right now I am helping one of the more edgy industries (adult) and believe me, some of the principles you have taught make a huge difference in this market, where everybody just wants cheap traffic, I am not sure if it a lucky coincidence or not, but Google just call us to see if we are interested in an account manager to help us “improve our campaigns” lol
Good post. Every business has a birth, life & death, this is just a taste of whats to come.
O and by the way I actually started to like the idea of the “slender black dress “, gave me a fuzzy feeling in my head…until I saw that she was also wearing a baseball hat with the embroidery of “DO NO EVIL”
Hit ’em while they’re hurt!
Now we need to start a massive campaign to get as many advertisers as possible to pull out of Adwords. It would be beautiful justice if they had to pay the price for their horrible customer service and mistreatment of advertisers over the years.
Can you imagine if millions of advertisers pulled out causing the supposedly untouchable big G to go into a frenzy and showing the world who really has the power…the advertisers that pay them!
Over and over, time after time, the breeze from the speedy rotation of Planet Perry brings a fresh whiff of sanity into the universe for the rest of us to enjoy. Thanks for another fresh breath of air today, Perry.